Sam Lloyd

I met Sam at NEW DESIGNERS where he was showing his SAND CAST STOOLS which are now available to buy from HEALS.

Website - sam-lloyd.co.uk

If they were to make a toy action figure of you, what would your accessory be?
My twin brother, that way customers would get 2 for the price of 1.

To what degree have you actually controlled the course your design life has taken?
Quite a bit I think. The products I've launched so far were designed and developed during my third year at Kingston so I had a lot of control over the outcome. I feel fortunate that Heal's have picked them up and I'm glad they look virtually the same, even with the developed tooling.

What’s something you know you do differently than most people?
Sometimes I spent too long working on the finish of something, particularly in the sanding stage. It's not a problem with prototypes but if it's something I'm making more than one of its tricky getting the timing right. One of the problems with being a perfectionist, I have got better in the last 12 months though!

What product or event inspired you to be a designer?
My dad was an architect and a sight manager and I used to go to work with him a lot when I was younger. That and playing with Lego.

If you could go back in time and become the designer of any existing item, what would you choose?
Probably the pencil. It's the tool that designers have drawn up every single idea with.