Meet Susan Taylor and her love for all things typographical and vintage

Having spent many years in the advertising industry in Brighton and London, Susan moved to Bristol in 2007 and set up her design studio creating typographical giftware.

Susan fuses screenprinting and digital illustration with experimental typefaces to create her retro-styled designs. Her passion for graphic design is evident – typography, iconography, bold swathes of colour and a strong structural layout are consistently the focus of her work.

We absolutely love her creations and felt we needed to know a bit more about her. We asked her a couple of questions about her life , art and influences

Q: How did you get into art? Did you study, or just fall into it?

I’ve always enjoyed drawing, so I studied Art A level, did a Art Foundation course in Cardiff and followed this with a graphic design degree course in Brighton.

I then worked in advertising agencies in Brighton, London and Bristol creating billboards, brochures, adverts and logos for companies such as Mattel, Wella, Virgin and British Airways. Having children made me re-evaluate things a little, and I left advertising to set up my business creating typographical giftware.

Q: How would you best describe your studio’s environment on a normal day?

Messy! My studio is a chaotic mix of bubble wrap, postal tubes, boxes of mugs, a bright pink plan chest, a long shelf of art books and mountains of tea towels. But I sort of know where everything is.

A typical day would involve packaging up orders for a trip to the post office, designing on my mac whilst my cat sits on a nearby box, answering emails, updating accounts and trying not to procrastinate. My studio is a room in my house, so this isn’t easy!

Q: What would you say your art style is?

Typographical and vintage styled.

Q. Have you got any particular favourite piece of art? The one you remember made you want to become an artist yourself?

My mother was an architect and I’ve always liked technical drawing, and I am drawn towards intricate architectural charts and plans.

Thankfully, she kept all her drawings, and I have one of her massive plans of a blast furnace framed up on my wall.

Q. Have you got any advice for the young aspiring artists out there?

I loved my art foundation course, it was great fun trying out all the different disciplines and working out which one is right for you.

Feeling inspired by Susan's words? Now you can also buy her art HERE.