The Creative Process

Slightly later than norm as stayed up late watching the Olympics, and although I missed the first week being in the US the second week totally made up for it. Amazing and totally inspirational,   as the athletes said time and time again,  put your mind to something, put in the hours, fall down from time to time but pick yourself up  and you can do anything! I’m asked alot about my working process, some people listen to thumping tunes, some designers work in a big group, others dance around the studio, for me its a slightly quieter affair. First up, no noise by that I don’t mean its all hushed tones at AA HQ I just mean in my studio when I coming up with a collection (like now) I can’t have anything in the background. Can when I’m researching and a little more laid back but when I’m in the figuring out stage (which can either by highly exhilarating  or utterly frustrating depending on how its going)  its just ,me Maud, Mung’s.  Oh and a fire burning gently in the grate in the winter or a scented candle flickering quietly away in the summer. I get so absorbed that I forget to move, eat, heaven forbid even drink coffee until the door bangs or I try to get up from my chair and my limbs are kind of frozen. The point of this little tale is that when you are putting together a scheme for your pad, whether thats pulling out tear sheets or grabing images from the internet or sketching it out, or visualising it in your head there is no wrong and no right way of doing it – the important thing is to have some sort of plan. No plan no focus I say – you can veer off the plan, you can even ditch your plan, but start with one as you might end up with an interior that feels a little unfoucsed if you just go at it willy nilly!  Every room needs some sort of structure, even if it feels totally kaleidoscopic and off radar. My interiors might look like they have been thrown together in a nano second but actually they are very considered and thought about . Lighting, texture, scale, furniture, pattern, the wow factor, all factored in before implementing. So you could have something as fabulous as this interior for example (all photography by Oliver Perrott): Or this There are no restrictions, only those that are in your head! Thats my done,  a quick  time out for 5, (under instruction not to stay routed to my desk for hours), so its a super quick coffee, some kissing time with the 2 M’s, a spot of cool music from the Ace  (from the guys at Other Music), only in my time out time that is,  and then back to designing. One product sort of in the can, 20 to go!!