A Fork in the Road
When I was eighteen, I was offered a place on a Fine Art degree without completing a Foundation year. The offer was based on my A Level Art and Textiles portfolio, and for a while I genuinely thought that was the direction my life was heading.
I didn't accept it.
Growing up in rural Pembrokeshire, I couldn't see a clear career as an artist. Teaching felt like the sensible option. It was stable, practical and offered opportunities close to home. So instead, I enrolled on a teacher training degree at the same university, specialising in Art, Craft and Design.
For years, I thought that was the point where I had chosen teaching over design.
Looking back, I don't think that's what happened at all.
The Design Never Disappeared
What changed wasn't my interest in design. It was where I applied it.
Instead of creating work for galleries, I found myself designing resources that made learning clearer. Instead of exhibitions, I was thinking about classrooms. My sketchbook gradually became curriculum plans, workbook layouts, information graphics and visual explanations.
At the time, none of that felt like design.
It was just part of the job.
Only recently have I realised how much of my teaching career was shaped by the same questions that interested me when I was making art.
How do you communicate an idea clearly?
How do you guide someone's attention?
How do you remove unnecessary complexity?
How do you make something engaging enough that people want to keep looking?
Those are design questions.
Seeing the Pattern
The projects in this portfolio probably make more sense when viewed through that lens.
The curriculum frameworks are designed systems.
The visual identities are designed systems.
The workbooks are designed systems.
The OBS layers are designed systems.
Even the partnerships I've built have relied on designing experiences that help different people work towards a common goal.
The medium has changed many times over the last twenty years.
The thinking behind it hasn't.
Coming Full Circle
It's easy to imagine careers as straight lines.
Artist.
Teacher.
Designer.
Real careers are rarely that tidy.
Mine feels much more like a circle.
I chose teaching because it felt like the safer path. In doing so, I assumed I'd left art and design behind.
Instead, they quietly followed me into every classroom, every project and every resource I created.
Today I describe myself as a Learning Systems Designer.
For years, I told myself that I'd chosen teaching over design.
Looking back, I don't think that's true.
I think I simply found a different canvas.