I’m not much of a networker on the whole. I tend to bury myself in my work, my world, my head. We beaver away in the workshop, me, my trusty long-term assistant Dan Meek and my apprentice Mirella. We try to keep on top of things, it’s a busy place and often it seems the week is over and the targets are, well, almost met. Clients get in touch, dialogues are ongoing, future projects are being discussed and designed, current work is on the easel being carved while other stones await our attention in the yard. That process fills my head and my time pretty well. It often feels there’s not much time for mixing, networking and ‘hob-nobbing’.

Etymology break: hobnob: “to drink to each other,” from hob and nob (1756) “to toast each other by turns, to buy alternate rounds of drinks,” alteration of hab nab “to have or have not, hit or miss” (c. 1550), which is probably ultimately from Old English habban, nabban “have, not have,” (that is, “to take or not take,”).

Last year I was awarded the title of RDI. “What is that?” I (pretend to) hear you say. I thought the same when I was put forward for this honour. According to the RSA, “the title ‘Royal Designer for Industry’ (RDI) is awarded annually by the RSA to designers of all disciplines who have achieved ‘sustained design excellence, work of aesthetic value and significant benefit to society’. The RDI is the highest accolade for designers in the UK. Only 200 designers can hold the title”.

Why me? Well I was put forward by another RDI, Roger Law. Roger is an amazing caricaturist and ceramicist, most famous for his involvement in ‘Spitting Image‘ the satirical puppet show. Roger Law and Peter Fluck became Luck and Flaw (obvs). The original series ran from 1984-1996. It was relaunched in 2020 (hence the bottom row). I absolutely loved watching this in my teens, it was one of the best things on TV, in the days when we all looked forward to watching things on a certain day, and comparing notes the following day at school. These puppets are so sculptural. Solidified sketchy caricatures.

How did this RDI thing come about? Roger approached me to design and carve his own memorial and that to his wife Deirdre Amsden, an amazing quilter. Both lovely talented people, both very much alive, simply planning ahead! Their stones can be seen in Binham Priory in Norfolk, much to the amusement and shock of friends, family and the local PCC. Roger drew the caricature for me to reproduce in slate. I love the wispy non-conformist hair, not staying in the box.

The honour of RDI is given to people who excel in their particular field, from many different disciplines. There is a maximum number of 200 and actually currently only around 130, and you can browse the list here. Royal Designer for Industry is a distinction established by the British Royal Society of Arts (RSA) in 1936, to encourage a high standard of industrial design and enhance the status of designers. To be a part of this group of outstanding individuals is an exciting honour. There are opportunities throughout the year to meet, exchange ideas and generally be around each other. It’s a network of talented enthusiastic creative people, from a variety of backgrounds, some from families well established in the creative world, others from more humble beginnings like myself. All working in different ways in different fields. The following two paragraphs contain some of the more well know designers that were elected RDI. If you are interested in design in general it’s worth looking at their work. There’s also a really interesting series of interviews called RDI insights where Mike Dempsey RDI, former Master of the faculty, talks to designers about their work, their influences and their upbringing – how they got going, how they found work and how their careers evolved. You can listen to these informal talks by clicking here.

Current RDIs include; John Barnard RDI (F1 racing car design) Sir Peter Blake CBE RDI RA (painter, pop art – think Sgt Peppers album cover) Sir Quentin Blake RDI (children’s book illustrator, Roald Dahl’s BFG etc) Margaret Calvert OBE RDI (road sign designer, including the classic Men at Work / bloke with brolly one!) Dinah Casson CBE RDI (interior design, museums and exhibitions) Sir David Chipperfield CH, CBE, RA, RDI, RIBA, HRSA (minimalist architecture) Mike Dempsey (graphic design, stamps and so on) Sir James Dyson OM CBE RDI FRS FREng FIET (engineering design) Brain Eno RDI (sound design, music production, ambient music, Roxy Music) Norman Robert Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank OM, RDI (modernist architecture) John Charles Galliano CBE RDI (fashion design) Thomas Heatherwick, CBE RA RDI HonFREng (design and architecture) Sir Jony Ive KBE RDI (product design, apple iphone etc) Tom Lloyd RDI (product design) Mark Major RDI (architecture, lighting design London 2012 etc) Margaret Howell CBE, RDI (fashion design) Betty Jackson, CBE RDI (fashion design) Alan Kitching RDI AGI Hon FRCA (typography, letterpress) Nick Park CBE RDI (animator, Wallace and Grommit) Charlie Paton RDI (product developer) Luke Pearson RDI FRSA (product design) Dan Pearson OBE RDI (landscape design) Dame Zandra Rhodes DBE RDI (fashion design) Gerald Anthony Scarfe CBE RDI (cartoonist) Dame Jo da Silva (humanitarian engineering) Sir Paul Smith CH CBE RDI (fashion design) Tom Stuart Smith OBE (garden design) Terence Woodgate RDI (minimalist furniture). Current Hon RDIs (not based in the UK) include; Manolo Blahnik (shoe design) Michael Levine (theatre set design)

Past RDIs include: Sir Kenneth Adam OBE RDI (film production design, James Bond etc) Edward Ardizzone CBE RA RDI (painter, book illustrator, incl. Stig of the dump) Derek Birdsall RDI (modernist graphic design, book design) Bill Brandt RDI (photography) David Carter CBE FRSA RDI (industrial design, Stanley knife, LeShuttle) Ron Carter OBE RDI (furniture design) Sir Hugh Maxwell Casson CH KCVO PRA RDI (architecture, interiors, Festival of Britain) Colin Chapman CBE RDI (Lotus cars) Sir Terence Conran CH RDI FCSD (product design, retail, Habitat) Stuart Craig OBE RDI (film production, English Patient, Harry Potter etc) Lucienne Day OBE RDI FCSD (textile design) Robin Day OBE RDI FCSD (furniture design – I’m the proud owner of several of his sofas and chairs) Eric Gill ARA RDI (sculptor and type designer) Sir Kenneth Grange CBE RDI (general design of all sorts – Kenwood chef, trains etc etc he’s worth reading about!) Duncan Grant (painting, textile design, Bloomsbury Group) Sir Geoffrey de Havilland, OM, CBE, AFC, RDI, FRAES (aircraft design) Charles Henry Holden FRIBA MRTPI RDI (architect and designer of tube stations) Richard Levin OBE (head of design at BBC) Sir David McMurtry CBE FRS FRENG RDI FIMECHE (industrial design, Rolls Royce etc) David Rogerson Mellor CBE FCSD RDI (industrial design, cutlery) Sir Francis Meynell RDI (poet and printer) Stanley Morison RDI (type and printing) Dame Mary Quant CH DBE FCSD RDI (dress design) Richard Rogers CH FRIBA FCSD HonFREng RA RDI (architecture, Pomidou Centre, Millennium Dome) Ronald Searle CBE RDI (illustrator, cartoonist) Sir Basil Urwin Spence OM OBE RDI RA (architect, Coventry Cathedral) Reynolds Stone CBE RDI (engraving, lettering) Charles Voysey FRIBA RDI (architect, furniture and textiles) Dame Vivienne Isabel Westwood (fashion design – punk etc) Sir Barnes Wallis RDI (inventor, bouncing bomb chap) Bertold Wolpe OBE RDI (type design, book design and lettering).

The scroll that I was presented with is rather beautiful, type set and hand printed. I had to get a fancy frame for it.

I have been resisting blowing my trumpet in this way, but I wanted to highlight this as it is really good that a career like mine is being noticed. Designer makers like me, and there are many doing the sort of work I do, have an important role in society, in our communities. We create unique designs, one-off pieces, we nurture client relationships and explore creative avenues with them. We handle their emotions at times, especially with the memorial work. We are often overlooked and placed in the ‘crafts’ category, not ‘proper art’. Being a craftsman is fine, it’s important we have people making things with their hands to the best of their ability when ai is becoming more and more a part of our lives. Am I an artist? Am I a sculptor? Am I a crafter? (Well, I do drive a Crafter!).

By being given this award, I feel that this kind of work is being recognised for its importance more widely and this is a wonderful thing. There are small businesses all around the UK working in this way, and as a society we should be proud of this, and continue to recognise and support the crafts as an important part of the creative industries. Even just a handful of creatives producing good work and inspiring those around them, and other practitioners, can have quite an impact on all our lives. I say this a few days after the celebration of the work of Richard Kindersley, my master when I was learning, who is no longer with us in body but his spirit passes through the people he trained, and through those we train.