In the beginning: Kerrie Powell
“In the Beginning” is an ongoing series dedicated to providing snapshots of how various designers were inspired to enter the creative industry. Kerrie Powell is a founding partner at Powell Allen in London.
1. What was your earliest design inspiration/impression?
I was camping in Australia with my family (I’m guessing I was 6 – 8 years old), when I had an epiphany. A family friend presented her life drawing portfolio to me — spreading it from one end of their caravan annex to the other. Unfazed by its content, I remember questioning the budding artist about her broader studies. She (a fleeting mentor with no name!) was studying to be a commercial artist. Around this time, I obsessed over the way my school projects were presented — painstakingly crafting ornate borders and hand-drawn titles (with little feet and all). I even offered my services to my best buddies, who were far more academically minded.
So you can imagine, right there and then, I knew exactly what I wanted to be — a commercial artist (aka a graphic designer). Honestly, from that moment onward, I never once contemplated another profession. Later I learned that this frustrated the hell out of my academic buddies, who struggled for decades to pinpoint their callings.
2. What was the first project you worked on as a professional designer?
When I was 16 years old, interning in Australia, I recall hand drawing a greeting card of a cuddly creature flying a plane; later that year, as a freelancer, I designed a number of flyers for my local council. A few years after that, I designed a mattress label. And as a 21-year-old graduate intern in Poland, I designed a trendy magazine layout.
By 22, I was working in Switzerland, and I did paste-up for a gallery pamphlet that included handset typography. Soon after, I was commissioned by London Records to design an album cover.
But as for my first “big” project? I was teamed up with some greats from Pentagram’s London office to design the now-celebrated Tesco’s Finest packaging.
3. What is the most memorable/meaningful project you’ve worked on to date?
Tricky question. All projects are memorable (or infamous!) for different reasons.
While I was at Pentagram (in London and New York), I really loved 1837 at Brown’s Hotel London because it gave me an appreciation for luxury brands and tactile aesthetics. I also loved work we did for Yale (Schools of Architecture, Drama, and Medicine) because the institution was so prestigious, especially to a bright-eyed Aussie — many of our Yale Architecture posters are now in the permanent collection of MoMA SF.
Our projects for the Town and Chambers Hotel were simply dream projects (not to mention the Town identity was scripted into a “Sex and the City” episode!). Saks Fifth Avenue was wonderful because Michael Bierut and I thoroughly enjoyed coming up with such a fitting, prominent concept. And Panthalassa, a 184-foot luxury yacht, enabled me and Chris Allen (co-founder of Powell Allen) to indulge in design decadence.