Many thanks for all the positive comments and feedback.

Dinner: Hawksmoor, Spitalfields. Flat Iron, Soho. Koya, Soho. Caravan, Exmouth Market. Blackfoot, Exmouth Market. Franco Manca, various locations. Mangal Oktobiasi, Dalston.

Breakfast: Albion, Shoreditch. Hackney Bureau, Mare St.

Gallery: Design Museum, Southbank. Tate modern, Southbank. Saatchi Gallery.

Markets: Broadway Market, Hackney (Sat). Borough Market, London Bridge (Sat). Columbia Road, (Sun).

Shopping: Soho. Seven Dials.

Pubs: The Royal Oak, Columbia Road. Well & Bucket, Bethnal Green Road. The Marksman, Hackney Road. The Dove, Broadway Market. The Cat & Mutton, Broadway Market.

Parks: Victoria Park, Hackney. Regents Park, Camden.

Touristy shit: Primrose Hill. Notting Hill. Greenwich. SkyGarden/Shard. Southbank.

Desk & Coffee: Ace Hotel, Shoreditch. Hoxton Hotel, Holborn.

—

Digital designer, lived in Hackney for 6 years. Avoid Camden & Oxford Street like the plague.

Didn't have one. 5 years later I co-owned my own studio.

Just leave school with the fire to do great work and the readiness to work long & hard.

Note – I haven't traveled since graduating 6 or so years ago. This is a regret. Moved to London 1 month after graduating in the South of England.

• Get comfortable with the software by trying to replicate things that you see and like. • Make things that excite you. Don't worry if you think they suck. I've been working in industry as a designer for 6 years since graduating with a Graphic Design BA and I still occasionally make things that suck. • Don't feel pressured by rules. There are so many design rules out there it's easy to feel crippled by the fear of breaking them. Read some rules and stick to the ones that make sense to you. After all you're working to please and excite yourself, and if you can't do that you won't please and excite your clients. • No one is born a designer. I suck at art. I can't paint or draw, and my handwriting sucks, yet I'm 6 years into a design career in London. • Don't push yourself. I learnt to code a few years back. I found the experience OK. I now don't code at all. After learning to code I found myself having to kick myself up the arse just to do more coding. It didn't excite me, I would never be as good as coding as I was a designer, so I stopped coding. Life's too short. If it doesn't excite you, or come semi-naturally, simply don't do it.

Great way of looking at it. Kudos.

Proxima Nova, in all of it's weights and performance at smaller sizes is a solid contender, however, I'm always put off by it's over use.

The key is finding something that gives you typographic flexibility but also adds to the overall brand of the site/product/service you're designing to help establish a point of difference from other sites/products/services.

I have an iPhone 6 plus a super old Canon 20D. Considering purchasing something from the Fuji x100 range — to the owners of both (iPhone 6 & x100...) would I be wasting my money? Do you shoot mostly with the iPhone 6 because of convenience?

Always ask before entering into a project. The outcome should determine your rate. A project you're able to feature in your folio is way more valuable than one you can't, as such, an increased rate can be a satisfying compensating factor.

In Jan 2014 I made the transition from being a senior designer to a partner at two man design & dev studio. In reality the only people I have to manage (aside from myself and clients) are freelancers.

My biggest gripe with moving away from being (just) a designer is the lack of time I get to focus on the thing I love most — design.

Design used to be around 95% of what I did, and it now accounts for little more than half of that. My advice would be, if you think you can find happiness doing various day to day things besides design, then go for it.

I thought I could find happiness in new challenges and experiences, the reality is, the jump made me realise how much I truly love(d) design.

adam@studiorotate.com — Thank you!