Writing

As a design researcher, historian and theorist, I have published work on a range of design and culture topics including high-vis jackets, post-Covid worlds, slime, the Sony Walkman, everyday feminism, Jony Ive, Ways of Seeing, Clive Sinclair, the home, the interrobang, research methods in material culture, Benz, Porsche and the practice of parkour

These published works include book chapters, catalogue essays, research reports, dictionary entries and experimental essays. 

My doctoral thesis was on the pre- and early history of the typewriter, exploring questions of how has the body written and how have our technologies of writing shaped our understanding of the human body. It was called Writing Acts, and you can find a copy of it here, in the archive of The British Library.

A selected list of recently published work includes:

Look at Me, Don’t Look at Me: A Voyage and A Journey around High Vis Materials; Or Explorations in Florescent Matters.’ In: Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll; Simon Layton and Hana Qugana, eds. Cook’s New Clothes. London: Bloomsbury, 2021.

Parks, Proximity and People: A Flourishing Future for Towns. London: Argent Related. 2020. [Report]

Pockets of Slime: A Critical Essay.’ Tenderfoot: A Materiality Website/Artwork by Laura White. 2015.

With susan pui san lok. ‘Six Women / Art Vapours’, Mnemoscape Magazine Issue 2: In the Presence of Absence.

James Dyson’,  ‘Jonathan Ive’,  ‘Clive Sinclair’,  ‘Karl and Bertha Benz’,  ‘Ferdinand Porsche’, and ‘Peter Behrens’ in The Bloomsbury Dictionary of Design. London: Bloomsbury, 2015.

The Sony Walkman (Nobutoshi Kihara, 1978)’, in Grace Lees-Maffei (ed.) Iconic Designs: 50 Stories About 50 Objects. London: Berg, 2014.

Making Ways of Seeing: An Interview with Mike Dibb and Richard Hollis,’ in  Journal of Visual Culture 11(2), 2012, pp.59-74.

Writing Acts: The Rise of Mechanised Writing and the Body of Modernity, 1711-1905, PhD Thesis, Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture, Kingston University London, 2012.