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I’ve been making things for The Browser, the world’s favourite curation newsletter and site, for at least 6 years now. They’re by far my longest running client. They’ve been a part of my illustration journey for so long now that I hadn’t actually stopped to think about how long we’ve been working together or quite how much we’ve made.

My work for The Browser started with making visuals for quotes they shared on their facebook page, back when facebook pages were key. These were a mix of collages and illustrations. We did that for a while. But it was really just a gateway into what we do now.

Some of my very first paid design work from back in 2015

I’m not quite sure when I was introduced to Cecily the giraffe, but we quickly became a team and almost all of my work with The Browser since has centered on Cecily. I’ve worked Cecily into banners, crosswords, countless illustrated scenes, and now they even have their own merch. 

We have worked on a few other projects over the years too. The Browser were the first company to ask me to draw them a set of staff portraits. Plus as they’ve grown to include more audio recommendations as well as articles, so has the cast of illustrated characters in The Browser family.

My work with The Browser has led to lots of other brilliant projects too either through people noticing my work there or recommendations. 

But we usually come back to Cecily, and I’m pretty happy about that. While my work with The Browser isn’t something that I share all that much, I have so much fun working out how to make Cecily a part of so many different universes whether that’s having to work out how a giraffe would ride a sled, what Cecily china patterns might look like or just having the chance to draw a dancing giraffe. They’re briefs I wouldn’t get from anyone else and would never think to try myself. It’s my longest running client relationship, but it’s still something that’s refreshing. 

As I was reflecting on all the work we’ve done together, I realised how much I’ve changed through that work and how much I’ve learned. So, here are some of the lessons I’ve taken away from working with the same company for over half a decade.

Don’t let getting comfortable become a rut

I had been drawing Cecily with their eyes closed for years, because that’s just how they looked. It was their blue steel. It wasn’t until I was prompted, that I attempted to draw them with their eyes open. I kind of loved it. It was magnum. It’s easy to slip into a way of doing things that feel comfortable when you’ve been doing a job for a long time, but don’t be afraid to take on suggestions and try something new.

Make new projects work for you and your client

When you work with someone or a team for a long period of time you build trust and that trust can give you freedom. I was only just starting to refer to myself as an illustrator when I took Cecily by the hoof and I was given the task of drawing a world for them. If there’s a new way of working or something you want to do more of, your trusted clients are the people to suggest them to and try them out with because giving you room to grow together is great for you both. 

New clients aren’t always the most important clients

Work for new clients always feels urgent. You want to make a good first impression. There’s a rush of excitement and nerves. But that shouldn’t come at the expense of those longer term relationships. As I said earlier, the work I’ve done for The Browser has often led to those new clients and it’s good work to do. I’ve asked to push back work for other clients so that I can prioritise The Browser (and vice versa) because they’re equally important. I think clear communication is the foundation of that. You have to do what you say you will by the date you said you’d do it, and every now and then you need to throw in a little razzle dazzle. 

Keep finding the joy

I think 6 years of drawing the same giraffe could easily have become boring. There are certainly moments where I get deja vu. But you have to actively look for the fun. I love a good pun or sneaking something silly into an image to keep it interesting for me while I’m working, like having Cecily make a giraffe snow-giraffe rather than a snowman in our latest winter series. I can and will draw a silly hat on anything. 

If you want to see more of Cecily and get some delightful reading recommendations sent to your inbox, The Browser really is brilliant.

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COVID-19 has pushed more people online than ever before. Three times more 70-year-olds have registered for online banking than the year before. For those of us who the web is largely built for this has been an inconvenience but for those who have been excluded from the web due to age, disability, poverty, literacy, neurodiversity, confidence or whole host of other reasons it’s been incredibly difficult.

Doing research for and designing services that are inclusive is a big part of my work, so it’s something I think about a whole lot. But I know it’s not at the top of everyone’s mind. That’s why, along with some of my brilliant colleagues, I run inclusive design workshops for anyone involved in services that have some or all of their interactions online. We’ve run these workshops with designers, researchers, coders, and people working in communications internally and externally with participants across government and financial sectors so far.

Through those workshops we’ve busted a lot of myths about inclusive design and I wanted to share some of those with you here. 

Graphic with quotes about people's experiences during a workshop, they show frustration and empathy with those who aren't always included in the design of digital services.
An example of some of the feedback from one of our workshops

This is an extended version of a piece that I put together for ENGINE’s blog, if you’re short on time feel free to head on over and read the highlights.

Inclusion is only about making things accessible to people with disabilities, right?

Making things accessible to people who live disabilities is hugely important. We need to consider how people who have a range of abilities different to our own are able to engage with and feel included in the work we do.

In order to do that we need to go beyond just thinking about perhaps the obvious things you imagine as disabilities, and instead consider a whole range of barriers that might typically make it harder for someone to use services online. That means thinking about how people across the spectrum of age, gender, race, neurodiversity, literacy, access and confidence amongst lots of other factors can be included in your service. It also means thinking about how you might, unintentionally, be excluding people.

When we make services that are inclusive and flexible to as wide a range of people as possible, we’re making them better for lots of people, not just those who you might have thought about facing barriers to access.

But surely that’s still only small number of people?

There are far more people than you might expect. Let me hit you with some statistics…

In the UK alone there are around 14.1 people who live with a disability, that’s around 1 in 5 working age adults and just under half of people old enough to receive a pension.

Around 15% of people are neurodivergent, including those who are autistic or dyslexic, which means that their brains function, learn and process information in ways different to what society expects.

Then 22% of people in the UK lack the digital skills they need for everyday life, the skills and confidence you might take for granted if you’re reading this blog post.  

When we’re thinking about who might use our services online, we also need to think about people with disabilities that might be temporary (like breaking your arm for example!) and situational (like having to carry a crying baby in one arm).

So, a huge number of people are often, unfairly, excluded from services.

Isn’t most of the internet inclusive as standard?

Not at all, actually, only 2% of the world’s most popular websites actually meet the legal requirements for accessibility. So, 98% do not. That’s before you think about how inclusive their content and design is once you can access it.

Well, people can just get someone to help them can’t they?

Particularly in light of COVID-19, where many of us where isolated from our usual support networks, it’s wrong to assume that everyone has access to support. There are many things we all want to, and should, have the ability to do on our own. So, we should be striving to create inclusive services which empower people to access what they want and need on their own terms.

Is there a checklist I can follow?

There are some basic accessibility guides that you should definitely follow. GDS (Government Digital Services) break these down in a really easy to understand way and WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) offer a brilliant guide for testing online services for those who want to get deeper. 

But inclusion goes beyond that. It’s about really understanding who’s using your services (and who might want to or need to) and how the want to engage with what you’re putting out into the world. 

Often making things simpler and easier for people who typically face barriers to accessing digital services makes those services easier for everyone. But the idea that one solution will be universal isn’t quite true. That’s a myth I bought into at the start of my career. Universal design sounds great and really easy to scale. However, we all have different needs and sometimes flexibility and specificity are the best way to support those needs. I learned a lot about that from Sarah Hendren’s brilliant book ‘What can a body do?’. The example that we usually turn to discussions at work is the idea that phone support is a great way to offer human assistance for those who aren’t digitally confident, but it’s also awful for those who are anxious or living with Alzheimer’s where it can be stressful to talk on the phone and hold conversations in your memory.

So, if the designer on the project knows about this stuff it’s all sorted?

Everyone involved in services needs to be aware of and asking questions about inclusion. So often the people who make design decisions aren’t just designers but stakeholders with purchasing power, developers who actually build and test services, researchers and strategists who give direction to projects. That’s why the workshops we’ve been running are aimed at broad understanding and getting conversations started across businesses. 

Okay, but surely this is going to cost money, is it commercially viable to improve services?

­­Let’s be honest, working inclusively does require an investment. Making sure you’re doing high quality research and design with users with a range of abilities takes time, money and effort.

But it’s an investment that will repay you many times over. Services that are easy to use require less support to fix errors and answer queries. They’re also more likely to get a share of the £11,750,000,000 (that’s over £11 billion with a b) estimated spending power of assisted digital users. I know from experience testing services and running inclusive design workshops the power of a hard to use service to turn people away, but also the loyalty (and genuine joy) that comes with using something that makes you feel included.

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It’s been a while since I’ve introduced myself and checked in here. Hello! I’m Natalie and I make the stuff you see here and lots of other stuff too.

I’ve really been struggling with making recently. It’s been a hard year. It’s been a hard year for all of us, for the world. But I think this particular block had been building long before I’d ever heard of COVID-19.

The lyrics from a teenhood favourite song have been on a loop in my head.

a yellow ostrich with the lyrics I am a marathon runner and my legs are sore and I'm anxious to see what I'm running for

This is almost certainly my brain’s way of telling me I’m burnt out and I’m listening. I’m setting boundaries, saying no and taking time to rest. But I also think it’s a sign that I’m struggling with not having a clear direction for my work. 

For the past five years, I’ve been a really lame version of Clark Kent. I don my best reporter worthy outfit to work as a design researcher, largely on brilliant and serious government service design projects. Then when the internet calls I don my spandex (read pyjamas) and become someone who illustrates and tells visual stories online. Each of those identities have been running separately and they’ve been running in different directions, tearing me apart in the process.

Now it’s time to just be one person. 

I’ve tried in the past to define a set of values of a direction I thought would unify my work. But my 2019 mission statement now feels like a relic of who I thought I should be and what I thought I should be making. I don’t think anything I had on that list was bad or wrong. They’re all qualities that I strive to embody in my work. But I could only ever strive for them. They were too big, too nebulous, too generic. My work can never be everything. The only thing I can guarantee is that it will be mine. So right now I’m more interested in having something I can hold that encourages me to be who I am and to make the work I can make best while enjoying myself.

Right now that looks something like this.

I am a design researcher and illustrator (all of the time).

I am a person who uses visual storytelling to bring human centered research, inclusive services and interesting conversations to life. 

I make work that is inquisitive, structured, honest, inclusive and connected. 

I’m excited by those values. They are a north star I can use. I can measure myself and my choices against them. I can use them to say no to the work that doesn’t serve me and to make the work I do the best it can be to serve others.

Despite being only a few words it’s taken me a long while to get here. There was a lot of reflection behind each choice.

Inquisitive – I want to make work that reflects how much I love to ask questions, that’s not settled and makes people want to know more.

Structured – I want to make work that is rooted in method and rigour, and that uses structure to hold stories together.

Honest – I want to make work that tells the truth, even when it’s hard.

Inclusive – I want to make work that actively welcomes people in and that supports belonging for more people. 

Connected – I want to make work that is connected to its context and real life, but that also makes its own connections bringing new things together.

The process I went through leant heavily on brilliant work done by other people. I can’t prescribe steps because I think that working these things out is hugely personal. But I benefited hugely from Meg Lewis’s talks and workbook, talking to the wonderful Hollie Arnett, and this blog post by Emily Bazalgette. They all take quite different approaches and I think I needed all of those different ways to make enough cracks in the problem that I could get to the heart of it.

It was a messy process. But all process is, and it’s the best part.

So I want to reintroduce myself at the start of the next phase of this process. I’m ready to embrace the next phase of mess and then look back on it in a few years and see how that version of me in the world compares with this version. 

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Here’s an uncomfortable confession – I am not an ideas person.

There’s this pervading narrative that great thinkers, great artists, great people have this extraordinary vision of the world. They see things that no one else can. They have bright vivid imaginations of what could be. They’re ideas people.

I have no divine, or otherwise, inspiration. I see. I process. I translate. But I’m rarely struck by a brilliant idea.

I have an incredibly vivid inner life. There’s a whole world inside of me that imagines stories and images but those are made and collaged from my experiences.

Throughout my academic and professional life I’ve been questioned on why I don’t, won’t, put forward a more assertive personal take on things. Why don’t I have a perspective on the quality of a text? Why don’t I put forward a perspective on a design? Why am I good at physics but won’t share a perspective on what’s funny in class?

I ask myself those questions all of the time. 

I’m sure part of it comes down to comfort and confidence. But often the answer is because I don’t have a perspective. I don’t have an idea, a joke, or a solution to share and I don’t feel comfortable bumbling through one.

I am so aware that I don’t think I have ever had an original thought. Even the strange ditties I sing to amuse myself have probably come from somewhere. I would not have thought of the car to replace the horse. I would not have dreamed of space flight. I would not have been that wild and wonderful first person who thought to make bread.

I have this sneaking suspicion that no one is, that yes there is a spectrum of originality of ideas but that everything is inspired by something else but that it’s not cool to talk about it. 

I don’t want to knock brilliant scientific and artistic breakthroughs. But it’s like the really fun reference image debate that seems to come around on social media every few months or so. Should a real artist be able to draw without references? Is using something as a guide cheating? 

Resoundingly the answer is no. Of course use a reference image. Even if you’re not using a reference image you’re drawing from your own internal references. Supplementing what you can imagine with physical images that help is a great idea. Use what you can see and what you can gather and turn it into something new. 

Why have we created a world where that would be questioned? Why have we created one where being transparent about the references for your opinions and ideas isn’t normal? Why have we created a world where it’s odd to say I don’t have anything new to add here?

When I have source material I am confident. I will gladly share the information I have, in fact I’ll actively do my best to package it up in a way you’ll get something out of it.

That’s why I love research. I’m free to say “I have no idea about that, tell me what you know, what you think” and my role is not to give my personal opinion but to bring to light the best course of action based on what I’ve heard from others. 

What I think I’m trying to get at is that not being someone who’s the first to offer an idea in a brainstorm is okay, that not having a dream that bestows a symphony upon you is probably normal, and being open that your opinions are formed and shaped of what you experience is true for everyone. I would love to live in a world where we’re open about that, and we’re open about not knowing enough to have an idea yet.

My brain works a little slowly and very quietly when I’m turning references into something new. My art teacher used to comment that I was kind of mechanical when it came to producing work and while that could feed into my fears about being perceived as having a lack of personality, for me it speaks to the fact that I have to do my thinking before I start but when I’ve done it I’m ready. 

You can take your time forming your opinion, forming your ideas. You can credit your sources. You can draw from a wide range of experiences and other people’s ideas to shape your own perspective. You can say, “I don’t know enough right now, I’d like to do some more research”.

I’m not an ideas from thin air person. I’m a synthesis person.

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Spending time just with my pencil and a piece of paper has become my refuge between endless video calls and screen time. I’ve written about how taking physical notes has been such a boon to my mental health recently. 

I recently hosted a short workshop based and drawing to stay afloat. Well, it was billed as creative warm ups, and it was that too, but really it was me sharing how I cope. It was such a lovely session and a chance to spend time doing something that wasn’t just another meeting. There’s nothing I enjoy more than getting people drawing and sharing the endorphin rush that comes from putting pencil to paper.

I shared three drawing exercises I love and I thought would be a fun lunch time break. They’re all exercises you can do on your own or together with others. You can use them to warm up for your day, to get you feeling good before tackling a creative challenge, as a silly ice breaker before a workshop, or whenever and however you want. 

Here are the exercises along with a little description of each and why I love them. You only need something to draw on and something to draw with, no specific supplies or skills required.

The circles game

This one is incredibly simple and has only 2 stages:

  1. Draw a set number of round shapes. We did 12 on the day, but you can do as many as time will allow. I say round shapes not circles because drawing the perfect sphere is terrifying.
  2. Every 30 seconds turn a “circle” into a recognisable object.

That’s it. It’s the HIIT workout of drawing exercises and it’s all about coming up with lots of ideas and feeling confident making marks. You can add extra challenges by setting a theme for the images or add extra discussion by spending time pulling out what themes are shared between different people. 

Drawing improv

I named this one, but I’m sure other people have been doing it for years. You take a random prompt and then you have to incorporate another random prompt and then another and then another, until you’ve created a whole world. It leads to some weird and wonderful worlds. On the day I led the random word selection, but there are lots of ways you can make it more interactive if you have time – I can’t wait to be reunited with my lego head raffle box! This is a great exercise for embracing silliness, telling stories and getting people to feel open to compromise and change.

Blind contour drawing

There’s already so much great writing out there about the power of blind contour drawing, but I had to include it here because it’s my favourite. The principle is that you look at your subject, not at your page, and you use a single line to trace it or them. The idea is that you imagine your pen touching the outlines of what you’re looking at. It’s a really nice one to feel connected in weirdly digital times and it always leads to some strange looking images. But those images come from a different kind of sight and I feel like they capture something true if not recognisable. 

I really enjoy hosting drawing workshops, whether they’re about drawing for mental health, to connect or to communicate better, so if that’s something you’re interested in do get in touch!