HELLO AND WELCOME!

Hello and welcome to my new Rhidesign Interiors blog!

So by definition a blog is a “regular record or log of thoughts, opinions or experiences which provide insight on a certain topic to an online audience”. With that in mind, this blog will be a regular record of everything which forms my artistic voice, my views on various aspects of interior design, and it will be an interesting insight into my creative journey as I navigate my life as an interior design student into a brand new career as an interior designer.

I thought it would be appropriate in my opening post to introduce myself (if you don’t know me already!) and I thought it would be fun to do it in the form of ten facts about me, so here we go:

▪️ I live in Eastbourne in Sussex on the South East coast of England with my fiancé Charlie, my 12 year old stepson Ollie and our two Portuguese rescue dogs Mabel and Phoebe.

Clockwise from top left: Charlie and I with Mabel on the day we picked her up from her foster home, selfie with Phoebe in the car, selfie with Mabel in the garden mirror, and my favourite selfie with Charlie in the towers of La Sagrada Familia.

▪️ As a family we support our very local football team Eastbourne Borough FC; Charlie and I are season ticket holders and for the 24/25 season I was the first person to purchase a season ticket for the year! I am also a lifelong Arsenal fan and have been lucky enough to go to the Emirates Stadium several times.

Photo taken by Eastbourne Borough Football Club’s official photographers Lydia Redman Photography. Ollie, Charlie, club mascot Albert the sloth and I at an away match against Braintree Town FC at the end of the 23/24 season.

▪️ I am currently home studying for a BA (Hon) degree in Interior Design at the British Academy of Interior Design; you can see a selection of my project work on the “Degree Work” section of my website here.

Photo of me working at my desk in my home studio (the third bedroom of our house). I have since moved the desk to face out of the window so I can enjoy the sunshine when it’s out, and the heat from the radiator when it’s not!

▪️ Previous to my interior design studies, I graduated with a 2:1 in BA (Hon) Illustration at the University of the West of England (UWE) in Bristol. This high level of creative training has stood me in good stead for my current degree work.

A grainy photo taken on my graduation day at Bristol Cathedral in 2011. Here I am on the right (when I had dark hair) with my fellow illustration friends and flatmates Chloe (who is now a very successful embroidery illustrator) and Fran.

▪️ I am half Welsh, with my grandfather originating from rural West Wales and a few members of my dad’s side of the family living in the steel town of Port Talbot for years; it’s a heritage I’m very proud of and I enjoy watching Welsh rugby.

Clockwise from top: me standing on top of Port Talbot’s famous whale (if you know you know!), the road my dad lives on with Baglan mountain on the horizon (the junction to the right takes you to my grandparent’s house), Aberavon beach.

▪️ I grew up in the West Sussex town of East Grinstead, not far from Winnie the Pooh country (Ashdown Forest) and just down the road from Standen House (which is full of the most beautiful William Morris wallpapers).

Photos of the amazing maximalist interiors in my favourite cafe in East Grinstead: Carlo Lounge.

▪️ My favourite city in the world is Barcelona, having visited six times! I love everything about it: the architecture, the food and drink, the Catalan culture, the sunshine, the colours; everything feels so culturally rich there and I would definitely move there to live one day.

Charlie and I up in the towers of La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, our favourite city in the world. Just look at that view!

▪️ While I am studying and in the process of launching Rhidesign Interiors to the world, I currently work on the railway. I have been an On Board Supervisor for Southern for seven years and I sell and check tickets, make all of the announcements and make sure all of the train passengers are travelling safely. My favourite route is Eastbourne ti London Bridge as I get to take a phot of one of my favourite buildings in London every time: The Shard.

Photo of The Shard in London, which I took from the back cab of a train leaving London Bridge railway station.

▪️ My favourite design era is Modernism for its groundbreaking mid-century (and earlier) ideas. Much of the architecture and furniture design has bold, clean lines which appeals to my own artistic voice, and I enjoy reading about the Bauhaus and stand out designers such as Le Corbusier, Van Der Rohe and Walter Gropius.

Here I am at the Barcelona Pavilion, an iconic piece of Modernist architecture designed in 1929 by Mies Van Der Rohe.

▪️ Finally, every time somebody says to me “I painted it white” or “I bought the white one because it’s easier” I am secretly disappointed. I love colour and it’s absolutely fundamental for setting the mood and ambience of a space, even if it’s a warmer neutral instead of white. I enjoy using colour as much as possible in my illustrations, collages and interior design schemes, and part of my design philosophy stems from questioning why we think we’re happy spending so much time in characterless white boxes? I am here to challenge that idea and show you that no matter what design style you like, colour will always have a place in some way.

At a recent interior design industry networking event run by paint brand YesColours, looking at all of the vibrant colours.

If you’ve got to this point in this post then thank you for reading!

The best way to keep updated with the very latest and most intimate Rhidesign Interiors news is to sign up to my email newsletter “Rhidesign Digest” (click here to head to the opt-in page), but I will be updating this blog once a month for if there’s anything you may have missed from my weekly emails.

Finally, why not reply with a comment to this post? I would love to know a fun fact about you too.

All the best,

Rhiannon.