Duncan Kirkbride

So, what do you do?

I sit here, look pretty and make inappropriate jokes! Hand in hand with that, I work across the full spectrum of our clients, evolving their brands and supporting them with all areas of their visual identity, both on and offline. I’m pretty pedantic about things, so maintaining brand consistency is an ideal task for me!

What's inspired you lately?

Over the past year I’ve been inspired to go back to my roots, and my initial love of drawing. I hadn’t picked up a pencil for years! It’s proving to be a good creative outlet, but one that’s quite different to my job at work. I started with some small steps - mainly due to the fear of failing - and after all these years discovering I was rubbish! By doing this I’ve learned to look at things in a different way, figuring out proportions, angles, translating things into my own style and getting it down on paper. It’s definitely re-energised me, and gives back to my day job as a designer. I’ve been putting it out there on Instagram too, just to keep me going www.instagram.com/duncankirkbride

Skateboarding is a big part of your life, is it still as popular as it was in the early 90’s?

Yes and no, in the lmid 80’s when I first started it was huge. There were very few board companies and professional skaters. By the mid nineties, the scene had shrunk massively and any money within the industry had all but vanished. But it’s been huge and pretty steady for the last 15 plus years now. There are lots of board brands on the market and an unsustainable amount of pros. The money has shifted greatly - now there is no money to be made from board sponsors, with some of the biggest names floating as free agents. Now all the money is in shoe sponsorships. Nike, Adidas and New Balance are the big players in the shoe game.

Skating’s popularity has rissen sky-high after inclusion at the 2021 Olympics for the first time! Now that it’s an acceptable pastime it’ll be interesting to see how it all pans out. But either way, I love it and I’m in it for the duration - though at my age, it’s all about trying to stay injury-free and maintaining your tricks, rather than progressing and getting better!

What was the last brilliant idea you had?

We needed a little more space at home, so we did the usual and looked at all the available garden rooms and home office down the local garden centre. After rulling out that we could never afford to buy one, I sat down and planned out from scratch every bit of matterial we'd need to make one. And hey presto, 7 weeks later we have a finished high spec home office! A career as a joiner could be on the cards!