September 30, 2026
Being a Bradford lad, the idea of flying to New York to speak at a conference always felt like a crazy dream. This month it came true, thanks to the great Jesse Reed.
Design can be an isolating job. You spend a lot of time in your own head and on your own screen. Events like Archive bring like-minded people into the same room to reflect, fall back in love with the craft and remember why we do what we do.
I’m used to the trees, water and calmer pace of a BD18 postcode, so arriving in a city of tall buildings, fast-moving people and right angles was a big change. But the people I met made me feel at home straight away.
A visit I’d been waiting years for
I finally got to visit the Herb Lubalin Study Center, a place I’ve been following online for far too long and one that’s very close to my own archive practice. I’ll write about it properly in a separate post. I’ve always been a massive fan of Alexander Tochilovsky, and he turned out to be a lovely guy, as was Jess Kuronen.
The conference
Speaking first was nerve-racking, and with so much to share I actually finished a bit early. The upside was more time to meet people I’d only ever spoken to online.
Liad Shadmi, an exceptionally good designer, has been working on an important new book on Eli Gross. Julian Montague, whose collection of mid-century books is incredible, turned out to share my love of Polish posters, Karl Oskar Blase and rare design annuals. It was great to finally meet Antonio Carusone, Elliot Strunk, Nick Sherman and plenty of others in person too.
The other speakers were brilliant, and I learnt a lot about how they draw on historic material in their practice, and how I can get better at telling my own story. A massive thanks to Ed Be and Jared Blake, Aaron James Draplin (thanks for the heart-to-heart), Briar Levit, Vanessa Zúñiga Tinizara and Andrea A. Trabucco-Campos.
What I’m bringing back to the studio
Be less modest. We should share more of our projects and the thinking behind them. The work deserves to be seen outside our own heads.
Talk to people more. I chatted to people cleaning the streets, working in cafés and sitting on trains, and it felt good. It’s a reminder to pick up the phone to clients and collaborators more, rather than defaulting to email.
Make space to do nothing. Studio life runs at 100 miles an hour. Walking round New York with no laptop in my bag gave me more ideas than a week at my desk.
The archive has a huge place in the design world. It’s bigger than me and bigger than Bradford, and what I learn from it feeds straight into the work we do for the cultural organisations we work with.
Thanks to everyone who made the trip happen, and to everyone I chatted to along the way.
