(gentle music)
-: Life outside design.
(everyone laughs)
-: What is? Yeah.
-: Music was my first love.
I was gunning for Beyonce's job at one point in my life.
-: Your voice is freaking gorgeous though.
-: Thank you, I do try, I do try.
-: I keep waiting for us to go to karaoke
and you to, like, take a solo.
-: It's always amazing to see someone stand up
and spill their soul to a room full of people.
-: Love a gig.
State of my eardrums is probably testament to that as well.
-: I, at one point in my life thought I was going to
be a fashion designer
like Meryl Streep in "The Devil Wears Prada",
like, the bad guy.
And then I thought I was gonna be an artist.
And I think that's kind of, like, what inspires me the most
is, like, art and how people
have emotional reactions to art.
-: My own ethnic heritage and the history behind that.
It's very much the context of people's backgrounds
that I'm like, "Okay, do you know what?
This is a story that's worth being told."
-: Just recently I've been back to my hometown
which I don't go back to very often.
And just the different kinds of people,
the way that things look is so different.
That's something that particularly inspires me.
-: Enigmatic people,
especially people who have been
mavericks in their industry and broken the mold,
done things a different way.
-: I like science and follow scientists
just 'cause I find the stuff they find really cool.
Especially in behavior science.
-: I'm privileged enough, lucky enough to have a garden.
It is just the most amazing thing to see in nature.
And seasons change, love getting my hands dirty.
Love the feeling of soil and love my wormery
and I love seeing the deer in the morning
and spotting a kestrel and things that
I had no interest in before.
-: Rach is becoming soft.
-: Rach doesn't live in London anymore by the way.
(Rachel and Dan laugh)
-: I also find my day-to-day life quite inspiring
while just spotting the little differences
in my very similar days.
On the street I see two cats fighting or something like that
and I capture that with my phone and I post these stuff
on my Instagram story and my friends are like,
"What? What is this?" (laughs)
-: My life outside of work,
I like to kind of fill it
with other sort of creative opportunities.
I've got a big hobby in collecting football programs
and sharing that with the world called "1 Schilling"
and making a book which is on the shelves somewhere here.
And filling my other time with other creative inspirations
to break up the flow of work
and keep things feeling constantly fresh.
-: I can't live my life only consuming design
and, like, only thinking about design.
I need to spend my weekends not thinking about design,
not reading books about design,
so that I can actually, like,
come to work and really enjoy what I do.
Because I think there's something quite odd about the fact
that we've all made our hobbies our careers
and then you kind of need to go,
"Oh okay. Like what do I actually do to switch off?"
-: I've always been completely
nerdily obsessed with the future.
Things that are new, new ideas, new ways to think.
Whether that's, like, very high-minded,
like this whole whole idea of, like,
Star Trek being set in, like, a post scarcity world
and what would that actually be like,
what would people do?
-: Have an open mind and, like, look at the world around you.
Like, don't be so, you know,
looking just 20 centimeters in your phone and that's it.
I think the beauty is in, like, things that you reach out to
on a physical level rather than digital.
-: I mean that's the great thing about living in a city
like London as well.
I think you're totally surrounded by so many things
happening all the time.
It's just like a melting pot of
different cultural things and groups of people.
-: To step outside really.
Oh like you don't have to walk too far down,
like Shoreditch to find something that's, like,
really wacky or weird or makes you think twice.
-: Just really being conscious to kind of look up
and take in the world around you.
I think things that you wouldn't think are inspiring
really do make an impact.
-: Every time I have opportunity,
I try to see and go a new place,
try to see experience different culture,
try to taste different food, trying to learn a new word.
-: I love that too.
-: Oh stop it, guys. Maybe we should go somewhere together.
-: Just traveling around different cities
and seeing things differently.
My inspiration often comes from
just a world around and you can probably see me
taking pictures of really mundane things
like traffic cones or crushed coke cans
or seams in pavements or tiles or the shadow on a building.
You don't know when that inspiration can resurface
into something that propels an idea for a brand.
-: Hmm. Yeah. That's nice.
Like pavement work.
Especially that Tom Hanks thing,
he takes photographs of, like, shoes on the street and shit.
I get inspiration from what I'm doing now
and the people I'm doing it with and what we're doing
and aiming for rather than something else 'cause-
-: Right. -: I'm an aggregation
of everything I've ever lived and experienced.
All that reservoir is in your head and it's drawn out
and it's used without you even knowing it.
My brain's always recording things.
-: Yeah. -: And I find that
if I can stay present in the moment
and in the creative experience,
it will draw on that thing and it will,
of it's own volition, use it.
-: I had a weird obsession around drain covers
for a really long time and sort of iron working
and the different sort of, like,
codes that get built into drain covers,
like a little secret language.
I think a lot of designers go through a lot of these
weird obsessions 'cause I think
we're all inherently quite curious people
and wanna find out more about something
and then do something with that knowledge.
-: I'm currently obsessed with the lamps.
(everyone laughs)
And, like, new lamps and old lamps
and different types of lamps
and the kind of, like, light that they can bring
and then the shape of them when they're turned off
and they're like little mini sculptures
and yeah, I think inspiration is everywhere.