In Conversation with Eleanor Hubbard, Designer and Marketing Intern at Daisie & Cancelled Plans

This piece originally appeared in the Strand Magazine's February 2020 "Young Creatives" Issue here

Tell me a little bit about yourself and your art

I'm Eleanor, I'm 22 years old and in my final year of studying Design Management and Cultures at UAL. Currently, I'm the Ambassador Manager and Marketing Intern at Daisie, as well as being the Social Media Manager for the sustainable fashion brand 'Cancelled Plans'.

I wouldn't be able to tell you exactly what my 'art' is, to be honest, I kinda do a bit of everything - not to say I'm good at everything, haha, but I'd say the things I enjoy the most are illustrating, writing, and graphic design.

Where did creativity start for you?

I'm lucky, I was born into a creative family. My mum used to be a mural artist, and my dad is a creative director. Growing up, my sister and I were always encouraged to paint, draw and create things together. I have a collection of books I wrote and illustrated when I was a kid, I found them recently actually, they're so funny to look back at - the things I wrote about were so dramatic for an 8-year-old haha. I used to love reading and writing my own short stories, I think that's most likely where my creativity started.

What do you hope to achieve through your art?

A lot of my work is based in the realm of human-centred design. At the moment, I am focussing a lot of my energy on my thesis. I'm exploring the colonial roots of capitalism and why this hinders our progression with climate justice and climate change. I hope to ultimately provide a toolkit to help climate change activism be more inclusive. So, I guess with my work, I'd like to bring about social change as I believe there is something massively wrong with how our society functions right now.

What motivates you, what makes you get up in the morning and create?

Honestly, I feel like my main motivator is just proving I can do it. Living in London was quite intimidating for me initially. I'm from a town in the midlands, very working class and small - so London seemed daunting and I had many people think I couldn't be successful and sometimes I believed them. My main motivation is proving to myself that I can do it, putting myself out of my comfort zone whenever I can. There's no better feeling than accomplishing something you thought you couldn't.

Do you have any words that you stick by, that motivate you to do more? Or people you look up to?

"Sunshine all the time can only make a desert." I like to remind myself of this phrase from time to time. Just so, when times get tough or I'm not feeling myself one day, I know that it's normal - everyone has these moments. We need low times to appreciate the high times.

Also, big man Louis Theroux will always and forever be my idol. Don't even need to say why he's a god damn national treasure.

What has your journey with Daisie been like?

My first experience with Daisie was pre-launch when Dom and Camilla came into my university to host a talk. It was super interesting - I remember it being one of the few talks that actually resonated with me. Absolutely no shade to Dom, haha, but hearing Camilla speak about her work and what she does really inspired me and I was very captivated by what she had to say. So as you can imagine, when my lecturer suggested I should reach out to Camilla for an internship at Daisie a few months later, I was over the moon.

Daisie was my first real industry experience so I was extremely nervous going into it, but everyone was incredibly welcoming. Also like, come on two Shibas in the office? Amazing.

Since then it has been wonderful, I have now been a part of the Daisie team for 4 months and I am so grateful for all the lessons I've learnt and opportunities I've been lucky enough to have since being here. I am proud to be part of Daisie as their vision is something that I believe in strongly. As I said, I'm from a small-town, nepotism in creative industries is a huge issue for many working-class people, so I'm very grateful for platforms like Daisie hoping to bring about this necessary change.

What’s the best part about working at Daisie?

The team, everyone gets along so well. I felt so comfortable right away, which is uncommon for me as usually, I'm super shy in new intimidating situations. Also, I do love the events it's so cool meeting Daisie creators in person, putting faces to names and making friends.

Do you have any advice for young creatives?

I know this is super over-said but just keep going! I used to roll my eyes at people who said "hard work pays off in the end" - I truly believed the vast majority of people just knew the right person or were already rich and that's how they became successful.

Although this element of luck is still very true to an extent, your hard work does pay off. The only reason I got this opportunity with Daisie is because I worked my ass off during my first two years of University. I proved that I could do it, that's the only reason I got the recommendation.

You can find El on Daisie here

All graphics by El

Strand Design by Morgan Bakinowski