David Collins Studio by Sam Wood

I’ve been looking at David Collins Studio’s projects for years, from the time I worked as a Maitre’d at Bob Bob Ricard during university, to having breakfast at the Wolseley for the first time about six years ago, they have been around me as indispensable inspirations almost as long as I have lived in London.

When the studio asked me to create some illustrations of the projects to celebrate their 35th Anniversary it was really a gift. I had the chance to revisit memories I had formed of them, both from the point of view of someone who saw them as an employee, as an art student, as a diner, and finally as an artist working within a design studio, there were myriad perspectives I could bring to the depictions.

The series uses vibrant colour as most of my works do, to evoke something of the feelings I have about each space, as well as the identities of the spaces they represent, from the rich blues in Thomas Keller’s TAK Room, to the vibrant red so redolent of Alexander McQueen.

In an increasingly uncertain world I think it is important to celebrate the achievements of a Studio whose outlook has always been to find solutions to the changing landscape of design, and who have embraced artists like myself as an essential part of that ongoing narrative. The series reflects my feelings about The Studio itself, as well as the projects which it has realised over the last 35 years.