When I Grow Up, I Want to Be a Graphic Designer
“For years, my work helped people become who they wanted the world to see. Now I help people remember who they are.”
I can still remember sitting in the living room of the council house I grew up in. My mum asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up.
I said “I want to be a graphic designer.”
I remember it so clearly because It’s such a strange answer for a child. Most kids wanted to be footballers, astronauts or firefighters. I wanted to sit in front of a computer. (Laughs.)
The funny thing is, I did not really know what a graphic designer was. I just knew they helped people make things beautiful.
My family are full of heart. They always allowed me to be whoever I wanted to be. I would dress up in my grandfather’s suits and my mother’s heels and parade around the house. Inside those walls, I was safe.
But the moment we stepped outside, the armour went on.
Very quickly, I learned how to become the person I thought the world needed me to be. How to speak, move and present myself in a way that would get me through the day without inviting too much attention.
Being different wasn't exactly encouraged where I grew up. It wasn't celebrated. It wasn't even discussed. If you stood out, you became a target. The safest thing you could do was blend in, survive, and hope nobody noticed you.
And yet, beneath all that armour, there was still this not so quiet voice in me saying:
Do it Anyway.
A Wide, Wide World.
I left home at fifteen and moved in with my partner in central London.
Their mother was a powerhouse executive at a huge media company, and suddenly I found myself inside a world I had only ever seen in the movies.
We would watch BAFTA screeners before they had been released, sit around tables where people spoke about art and culture or about their feelings as if those kinds of conversations belonged naturally in everyday life.
We would eat food I had never even heard of, meet people I'd never imagined and discover ways of living that simply didn't exist where I grew up.
It blew my mind.
The world suddenly became much bigger.
And once you've seen that bigger world, it's impossible to pretend it doesn't exist.
I wanted more.
Not more money.
More life.
Fake it ‘Til You Make It
I'd discovered this whole new world, but there was one problem.
I was fifteen.
Nobody was handing exciting jobs to fifteen-year-olds, so I did what any sensible teenager would do.
I lied.
I slapped on a new identity, added a few years to my age and somehow convinced Tatler to let me loose in the fashion cupboard.
Looking back, it's completely ridiculous.
They actually believed me.
For anyone outside the UK, Tatler is basically a rag run by trustafarians. Old money. Big houses. Double-barrelled names. The sort of place where some people inherit opportunities before they’re born.
Then there was me.
A kid from a council estate who'd blagged his way through the front door pretending to be one of them.
They’d say to me “You’re so posh” and I’d think, if only you knew. (Laughs)
To this day I still don't know whether I was mirroring them so well they were seeing themselves in me, or whether they were taking the piss.
Either way, I absolutely loved it.
For the first time I could see how ideas became reality.
Photographers. Stylists. Editors. Writers. Designers. Producers.
So many people, each obsessed with one tiny piece of the puzzle, somehow creating something far bigger than themselves.
That fascinated me. I realised creativity wasn't one job.
It was an ecosystem.
For the first time, I thought...
Maybe I've found my people.
I even got to work on a project with Amy Winehouse before she passed away.
Life felt like it was finally beginning.
The Fashion Cupboard
It was all going so well.
Then, at exactly the right moment, the antagonist arrived. She came from one of those British families we’ve all heard of.
She told me I could borrow whatever I liked from the fashion cupboard because everyone else did it.
I believed her.
I had a drag ball that night that I really wanted to go to, but absolutely no idea what I was going to wear, so I borrowed a pair of American Apparel leggings.
Not Hermès.
Not couture.
Just some cheap leggings I could have bought myself on my lunch break. (Laughs.)
The next day, I got the call.
I was fired.
She got my job.
At almost exactly the same time, my relationship fell apart.
So there I was heartbroken, unemployed and crying on a bus, feeling as though my entire life had collapsed.
And then Daniel Lismore appeared.
Like the fairy godmother he is.
My Fairy Godmother
Daniel looked at me and asked,
"Why are you crying, little boy?"
I told him about everything. The breakup. The job. The bloody leggings.
He listened carefully, smiled and simply said, "Come with me."
So we got off the bus and I followed him through the streets of East London to his flat.
I've never seen anything like it before or ever since.
Every surface was covered. Clothes. Sequins. Feathers. Jewellery. Fabric. Masks.
It felt less like a flat and more like walking inside his imagination.
Tatler could only dream of one day having a fashion cupboard like Daniel’s.
He turned to me and he said “Wear whatever you like, darling."
And I froze.
I didn't know someone could live like this.
Daniel wasn't putting creativity on in the morning and taking it off at night.
He was creativity. There was no separation between the work and the person.
Between dressing up and simply getting dressed.
Between life and art.
Let it Rain
After that... Life sped up. One night became the next.
At one point I think I was out five nights a week.
Before I knew it I was mixing with people I could never have imagined.
Somehow I'd become part of this strange little family of artists, musicians, designers and beautiful weirdos who seemed to know everyone.
I was wearing the craziest of outfits.
I was dancing on bars.
Spraying champagne over strangers.
And getting paid for it. (Laughs.)
This was London before the recession. Money was everywhere.
It felt like it was raining money.
Nobody seemed worried about tomorrow because tomorrow always looked bigger than today.
I met people who had built their entire lives around creating.
Not because it was sensible.
Because they couldn't imagine living any other way.
For the first time, I wasn't surrounded by people who squeezed creativity into weekends.
Creativity was breakfast, lunch and dinner.
It was in the conversations. The clothes. The homes. The dinner table. The way people entered a room. The way they loved.
That's what Daniel really gave me.
Not a wardrobe.
A completely different idea of what a life could look like.
And I loved every second of it.
The Rat Race
But all great things come to an end.
There was this ache inside me that this life couldn’t quite scratch.
To do more.
To be more.
So I got serious.
I threw myself into the work. I wanted to become exceptional. I wanted to master my craft.
One opportunity became another.
Then another.
Before I knew it I was working with some of the biggest magazines and brands in the world.
I was travelling constantly.
Learning. Building. Making.
What Does It All Mean?
On paper, I’d made it.
I was doing the work I’d always dreamed of. Working with incredible people. Travelling the world. Making beautiful things.
It was everything I’d worked for.
I was destined for great things. I was a one to watch.
If I’d continued, I’d be at the top of the industry by now.
And yet... Something wasn’t right. I couldn’t tell you exactly what it was.
I just knew there was a question following me everywhere.
What does it all mean?
One day, I stopped trying to answer it with another project.
Instead... I quit.
I packed a bag. Booked a one-way ticket to India. And threw my whole life away.
Or at least that’s what everyone else thought.
Who Am I?
People thought I was crazy.
At some point, even I thought I was.
They'd say to me, "Why India?"
"It's filthy."
I don't know why, but something deep inside me was calling me home. To step inside the chaos I had spent my life avoiding and discover what remained.
India gave me an excuse. An excuse to stop. To get away from the noise.
To finally sit with the question I'd been trying to outrun.
What does it all mean?
There, I discovered entire ways of looking at life that I'd never imagined existed.
Some made complete sense. Some sounded completely insane. (Laughs.)
For years, I kept pulling at the same thread.
Who am I?
If I'm not the job... Or the clothes... Or the reputation... Or the story I've been telling myself...
Then who is left?
Eureka
I won’t tell you I figured it out overnight. But one day it dawned on me.
I wasn't looking for someone new. I was looking for someone old.
A little boy sitting in the living room of a council house on the outskirts of London, telling his mum he wanted to be a graphic designer.
The funny thing is, I don't think he was really talking about graphic design.
He was talking about beauty. He just didn't have the words for it yet.
All he knew was that he wanted to spend his life making beautiful things.
It turns out he wasn’t far off.
Somewhere along the way…
I became lost beneath all the stories I thought I was supposed to become.
India didn't give me a new identity.
It slowly stripped away the ones that weren't mine.
Until eventually...
There he was. Waiting patiently.
Exactly where I'd left him.
Here We Go Again
It turns out finding yourself isn't a single moment. It's a practice.
It’s funny how these things go full circle. We spiral around the same story, only each time we understand it a little differently.
I never really stopped creating. The work changed shape, moved across countries and took me into entirely different worlds, but the thread was always there.
For years, my work helped people become who they wanted the world to see. Now I help people remember who they are.
Leela Rasa grew from there. The experience. The mistakes. The people. The places. The years spent learning what remains when everything else falls away.
So here I am.
Not back at the beginning.
Just meeting the same story from somewhere new.
Still trying to make beautiful things.
Let's see where the next turn takes us.
Words by Kieran Partise
Photographs provided by my Nan and Grandad
