In 1985 I graduated from art college in Edinburgh and headed to London where I’ve lived ever since and very fortunately, got married, raised a family and enjoyed a career in design.

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For the last 25 years I’ve worked independently from home and in more recent years I've been based in a shed we built at the bottom of the garden.

 

The shed is 50% studio and 50% workshop and is my Shangri-La.

Around 8 years ago, with a second hand vice bolted to the bench in the workshop, I began to mess around with a host of different materials - wood, metal, acrylic, glass, plastic laminate etc. In short, I began to make things, something I hadn’t done since my studies in furniture design at Edinburgh.

 

The workshop is small and I couldn’t be too ambitious. So, I made a ton of small boxes to a ton of different designs and drew so much pleasure from ‘making’ that I soon knew that ultimately I would want to transition from freelance designer to designer/maker.

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The principal difference being that as a designer/maker, in essence I wouldn’t be working for clients, I would be the client.

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If my designs were ever to evolve into a business, I would need a name. For me, design is a process of subtraction and refinement. Whether it’s graphic or product, the aim is to communicate clearly, directly and to be understood. Simplicity invariably holds the answer, stripping away what is not necessary until only what is necessary remains . . . . . . welikeless captures the spirit of this approach.

 

The handmade boxes in this collection won’t solve your storage needs but they could just provide a special home for the precious mementos we collect over time.​​​​​