Luke Edwards: From interior design to creating geometric patterns

After finding love for and studying interior design, Luke Edwards suddenly found himself creating graphics and patterns. Patterns turned into rugs, tiles and wallpapers which go alongside his Interior Design business. Here is Luke Edwards story so far…

Can you tell us your backstory, how did you get to where you are now? 

If anyone’s a believer in fate, then you could say the path I’m on now is definitely destiny.

I was originally interested in studying architecture, but my tutor in college thought I had a natural knack for Interior Design. My perception of Interior Design at that time was probably like most people outside of the industry now (curtains, cushions, and all that you see on TV shows) so I was initially adamant I wasn’t doing it, but I ended up going to a literally last minute University open day for the Interior Design course where I met the head of the course (who was a trained architect) and after talking to him and seeing some examples of the work they did on the course my perception of what Interior Design is about changed straight away.

I graduated with a 1st class honour in Interior Design and found it difficult to break in anywhere as there weren’t as many Interior Design companies as there are now and it seemed no one was hiring at that time without having experience (which is a strange cycle). I eventually ended up spending time at several different design companies before wanting to go alone. In the background though I had a sudden burst of creativity and for no reason just began designing graphics and patterns that I had no idea what to do with, but always knew I wanted to come back and do something with them at some point.

Since going alone doing Interior Design I’ve learnt a lot of good lessons about all aspects of the industry, (some the hard way too) but a few years ago I was actually thinking of stopping designing to go and do something else. Things then changed and I also came back around to my previously designed graphics and pattern designs again after a few chance meetings at networking events and industry shows that seemed to just fall into place and each interaction led to the next step.

One particular chance meeting was when I came across HP exhibiting at the Surface Design Show in Birmingham, purely just because I was walking around a different area of the show to kill some time before my train arrived. That conversation led to me being put in touch with another HP employee on LinkedIn, who subsequently recommended a wallpaper printing company, which is where I’ve now been able to develop my designs into what went on to become my wallpapers.

What is different about Luke Edwards design studio? 

“Different” is the key thing here for me because there are loads of good designers and design companies around now, and I once heard Tony Robbins say something along the lines of “create your own table to play at”. That’s pretty much what I’ve done naturally because I don’t know of any other designers or design studios who have the same diversity across the disciplines of both Interior Design and Product Design (with my wallpapers, rugs, and tiles).

It’s been a slow but enjoyable process learning as much as possible about these other product areas, and I still consider myself to be at the very beginning, to be honest of what I want to build up to, as there are more product sectors being explored and other things I’d like to branch off into in the future. But it’s all about steady progression.

On the interior design side, I’ve just always had a different approach to designing and the way of doing it. The interest in combining what I now call “Method Design” with “Neuro Design” began back in my 3rd year of University really and has steadily evolved and developed since.

To explain in more detail, Method Design for me is ‘Capturing the personality of the brand and mixing it with the character and location of the space to create a timeless design. And Neuro Design ‘Deeply looks at how the interior environment affects the well-being of the user through aspects such as light, colour, texture/materials, sound, psychology, visual/graphical qualities, emotion, Biophilia, shape/pattern, layout, and more. With the aim of creating the best possible experience to fit the intended use of that interior space and anyone who will use it.

Why did you decide to specialise in the hospitality sector? 

It got recommended to me soon after I finished university as a sector to look into, and from spending time at other companies that specialised in this sector, I found I was pretty natural at it and I enjoyed it. Hospitality interiors give you the chance to push the envelope a bit more with the design I feel, and positively impact more people. It’s actually expanding now as a sector with the lines becoming blurred with other sectors such as commercial, so I’m sure a few more niche markets will continue to form over the next 5 years or so. This might hopefully benefit me on the product’s front too!

Can you take us through some of your wallpaper designs – the inspiration, concept? 

The first Luke Edwards design was the 173ZERO collection. I’ve got to mention Annette here from ATA Designs, who gave me some really good advice and starting points for wallpaper design, and about how to think of colourways when designing wallpapers.

All the Luke Edwards designs and names have reasons behind them. The most heavily story-based wallpaper designs I’d say are the Rokusho collection. I’ve written a blog on this on my website which goes into the backstory in more detail, but basically, the colours were inspired by the idea of patina & rust, the concept has an element of wabi-sabi to it by finding beauty in the imperfection of patina, the Japanese influence then continued with the name Rokusho which is a translation of patina (although my pronunciation is different, it sounds more like ‘Rock-ush-oh’).

I use the slogan of ‘Simple | Bold | Graphical | Timeless’, to quickly sum up the designs, but the actual definitions of these words individually expand more on what they’re about. I’ve designed each pattern to look simple even though they are quite detailed, even the sizes of each pattern have been carefully considered, and most of the designs only have 2 colours or a variation of just 1 colour.

They aren’t quite like anything else that’s ever been around, but that’s the exciting thing about them for me. Interiors can be lifted and transformed through clever simple uses and combinations of colour, pattern, and texture, whether you want a feature wall or if you just want to add a bit of colour and shape to compliment the existing interior. My aim is to make my wallpapers, rugs and tiles desirable pieces people can use to achieve this.

Any plans for the rest of the year? 

Some of my wallpapers are featured at the brand new All The Shapes Tiles & Co materials hub in Liverpool. Anyone who hasn’t heard about it should try and visit, not just for my stuff but the entire range of tiles, materials and other products they have on show there.

I’m looking forward to helping that grow and seeing how everything with that develops over the next year, and I’m hopefully going to have a complete samples range of my wallpapers there soon along with a number of selected rug samples too, as I’ve been developing the same designs from the wallpapers into rugs recently.

Without being biased the rugs do look and feel really good! Even the artisans who hand-knotted them in India commented how soothing the designs and colours were on their eyes whilst they were making them.

For more details and to see the Luke Edwards full wallpaper range, please visit: lukeedwards-id.co.uk

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READ ANOTHER DESIGN STORY HERE.