James Sommerville, from street artist to global design guru ...

James Sommerville has come a long way.

From eking out a living as a pavement artist on the mean streets of Huddersfield through to becoming the Global Head of Design for Coca Cola. Along the way he set up the design agency Attik in his nan’s – you guessed it – attic and transformed an enterprise of two into a business spanning three continents.

I wanted to talk to James about business and creativity. They are rarely easy bedfellows. And as someone who has always been better at the latter than the former, I wanted to understand the hard won lessons James has learned about how best to balance the two.

Our conversation (recorded before we became familiar with phrases like social distancing and self isolation) is a wide ranging one: we talk about the success and rapid growth of Attik, as well as the occasional bumps in the road; we talk about how to respond when things don’t go as you’d wish; James explains why he encouraged the largest drinks brand on the planet to think small; and he shares his thoughts on the future of design.

James’s latest project is Known Unknown, an enterprise based on the premise that anyone can design for anyone from anywhere.