March and Bloom (2026)

20/05/2026

In honour of it being Chelsea Flower Show this week (and I’m going tonight, for the first time!) I thought I’d share these seed beauties done for the garden educator & writer extraordinaire .

Seed packet design was never something that was on my dream project list until Elizabeth first discussed it with me early on and then it was all I could think about.

Every visit to any garden center or any florist and I was designing and illustrating and laying it out in my mind before I even did the initial sketches. I’ll say it again- total dream project from start to finish!

It’s a tiny space to design for and that makes it even more of a challenge, but a wonderful one! Everything needs its space and place and hierarchy still takes on an important role.

Maybe a brand at the flower show next year needs or wants some packets designed? Let me know 😉

20/05/2026

In honour of it being Chelsea Flower Show this week (and I’m going tonight, for the first time!) I thought I’d share these seed beauties done for the garden educator & writer extraordinaire .

Seed packet design was never something that was on my dream project list until Elizabeth first discussed it with me early on and then it was all I could think about.

Every visit to any garden center or any florist and I was designing and illustrating and laying it out in my mind before I even did the initial sketches. I’ll say it again- total dream project from start to finish!

It’s a tiny space to design for and that makes it even more of a challenge, but a wonderful one! Everything needs its space and place and hierarchy still takes on an important role.

Maybe a brand at the flower show next year needs or wants some packets designed? Let me know 😉

13/05/2026

What makes your brand different AND how do you stick to that?

Look no further than a prime example of someone who has done this so artfully, and from the very beginning .

Vickie created Dilli Grey with the idea of a homeware and fashion brand where everything she sold was ethically and beautiful handmade. Over 9 years on now and that tenet still drives everything she does. She is a total inspiration in the space.

One thing that hasn’t changed either? Her hand-drawn logo! It makes me so happy to see it on her products (found in her beautiful shop in Barnes as well as retailers like Anthropologie) and tags.

She is proof that having a smart strategy as well as a guiding North Star, truly makes a brand sing from day one!

08/05/2026

🎂 🍃 Happy 100th birthday today to the legend and national treasure that is Sir David Attenborough.

It seemed important to Interrupt your normal feed of design projects to share a quote from one of the most influential people in the world of preservation, climate action and someone who really shares the beauty of nature, from big to small.

If everyone in the world watched just one of his documentaries they would have their eyes opened to the potential to heal the world before we do more harm to it.

Doing my small bit of “design for good” today to share his mission and his work in case anyone needs to be reminded or doesn’t know about him.

30/04/2026

Last week I was back in touch with the lovely Laura, founder of to see how her business and brand are getting on and I had the best response - basically, I’ve set them up really well with all of their branding design and elements we created that they are great.

I decided to look back at some of our work together (website, Instagram templates, newsletter design, an icon suite, gift card and more!) and see it still hits everything they wanted it to - clean and approachable and super organized! Done and dusted (as they say here!), literally and figuratively.

Also, if you have the sound on this post, this is always the song I think of when everything goes back into their right places and tidied up. I also wish that I had the powers of Mary Poppins when it came to putting things away quickly…

21/04/2026

I just read on LinkedIn this morning that my client Sustained Futures is celebrating their 3rd birthday in business.

I started working with them this time last year and through the summer. I helped create a brand around their logo and their future business goals - which involved showing up online and via their marketing and presentations in a way that made them more confident and on track with the knowledge they have to share as a brand: one which helps organizations and individuals take climate action by developing green skills for now AND the future.

When I got their current assets they were feeling a touch 90s inspired and for a brand who is all about working to help our future be more sustainable and green, this felt like a mismatch.

My first task was to create and convince their stakeholders that a new colour palette was key AND to show them how it all would operate to feel professional and not out of control (ie. All the colours in all the places all over each other!). And it worked!

Letting them know what brand elements should be used and in which manner and size, and in what ratio (ie. Primary colour versus a colour pop!).

Often I show clients what not to do along with WHAT to do when it comes to brand guidelines. It’s also a really good test in the designing phase for myself - what’s the worst combo I could make if I didn’t create the system? Clients who are not designers do not have the same internal edit button that graphic designers do so it’s really helpful to spell it out. Then you don’t have to go all Brand Police on them when you see an a LinkedIn post that didn’t follow the rules.

Thankfully Sustained Futures have been amazing and get an A+ from me with their LinkedIn posts and anything I’ve seen come from their marketing team. They have used the system and followed the rules so well and because of it, they’ve felt really proud of their brand and have been really confident sharing the amazing work they do with one true goal: closing the green skills gap, inclusively.

27/03/2026

In honour of annual showcase (going on right now in Boston) of their beautiful nasturtiums I thought I’d share one of my fave floral illustration & print design created for the one and only .

The Gardner Museum is one of my favourites in Boston and though I haven’t seen the nasturtiums that the hang lovingly from the windows of the interior courtyard, just watching the video they have of it is dreamy.

🧡Have you ever been? Are you now putting it on your “to see in Boston” list?!

18/03/2026

8️⃣ Analog Items I can’t work without:

As someone who grew up with one foot in the analog world (using payphones to call my parents to pick me up from the mall and after school sports practice), and began adulthood with one foot in the new digital age (a brick phone mid-way through university) I still find myself straddling this line in how I run my business.

I use a digital time-tracking app for client work but equally use a weekly paper planner to plan that time for projects.

Though we are starting to see the pendulum swing slowly in the other direction where more analog items are becoming treasured again (have you seen the land-line-looking phones that run on WiFi that teenagers are coveting in America?), and were curious how I stay off-computer In an ever-increasing digital world (before that pendulum swings back again in the mainstream), here are the 8 analog items I can’t live without in my design business.

1. Dotgrid A5 Sketchbook

2. Hi-Tecpoint 0.5 Black Rollerball Pens

3. Monthly Planner

4. Weekly Planner

5. A3 Tracing Paper in 90gsm

6. Black Fine Point Sharpies

7. Post-It Notes

8. Swatch Wand (shown in the header image above!). When printing items without digital methods, but using offset, this is key. Also, for clients not nearby, I need them to understand the colour targets I have planned for their packaging or print items. This is the only way. Everything on my screen and your screen and your friend’s screen and your uncle’s screen will look slightly different. A Pantone colour target (taken from one of these wands) make sure we are all on the same colour page so to speak.

12/03/2026

The wonderful Jules just celebrated her 6th business birthday two weeks ago and I’d be remiss if I didn’t shout about it here, too (albeit a little belated, but better late than never, right?).

Haines was one of March and Bloom’s first clients and one who I worked with from THEIR day 1. I remember Jules telling me about the business idea before it was even a business!

She is one of those people who I so admire for her drive, thoughtfulness, focus and desire to make the world a better place. Haines has only gone up and up since its inception and I’ve absolutely loved being along for the ride as their unofficial / official head of creative.

From their logo and wordmark to their illustrations and sales decks to their website design and postcards and all the other things in between, they are a client who has been a joy to design ALL the things for and see them absolutely bloom.

Wish Jules a happy 6️⃣th!

28/03/2024

Inventor. Investigator. Interpreter.

These are the 3 words I’d use to to describe just some of what we as graphic designers do. I think I’ve always known this but now in my second year of teaching university design students. it has become oh so much more evident.

Inventor.
Though in the real world, there is possibly less of this one, as I did when I was a student and as my students are currently doing, they are inventing products and services that do not currently exist. They are donning those entrepreneurial hats at a young age and learning first-hand how to create something. They are finding real problems (big and small!) in the world or their community and trying to solve this. The key to this as designers is then to not just “design to design”. but to see what that invention is and THEN decide how to solve it via design.

Investigator.
This leads us to our next role as a designer (and honestly, one of my personal favourites and the one I applaud my students for the most) – the tireless research, the rabbit holes you go down on the internet, the endless quest for a potential answer to a question that might not have been posed yet. Investigating is a huge part of the design puzzle and one that cannot be overlooked. It’s one of the reasons why I don’t niche too much at March and Bloom – I selfishly love learning about new kinds of businesses and products. Call it the restless creative in me but it’s also where the nuggets of great brand stories lay.

Interpretor.
The final “I” is devoted to the way that a designer can make visual sense out of all of this research combined with client statements, desires and needs. It’s generally a lot of words and pictures we are handed or find and from THAT we need to make sense of it all, interpret it in our “design” way and have the product be the clearest vision of all of this. And did I mention that this vision must satisfy what the client believes their brand to be (or what we have laid out what we believe this brand to be) as well as aid the end user or customer? We need them to take our interpretation and understand it. And buy or use it correctly.

All in a day’s (or months!) work 😉

March and Bloom

20/05/2026

20/05/2026

13/05/2026

08/05/2026

30/04/2026

21/04/2026

27/03/2026

18/03/2026

12/03/2026

28/03/2024

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