This week we were joined by Carolyne Hill, who shared her honest and inspiring journey through the design industry, all the way from her A levels to her position now as identity designer, creative director and founder of ChillCreate.

 

Creative journey

Being “made of Brixton”, Carolyne was brought up surrounded by culture and endless creativity – she credits Brixton as her influence for her passions, for the things she’s interested in, and importantly for the things she wants to design and create. While completing her A levels, Carolyne didn’t receive much encouragement to follow her creativity. After expressing an interest in fine art and fashion, Carolyne was met with “don’t do that, you’ll be a starving artist”. Despite this pushback, her interest in people, problem solving, discussions, and debates, set her up nicely for her career in designing for people, and designing for good.

Carolyne’s experience of getting her first job began after seeing a Craigslist ad, knocking on their studio door, being met with laughter as the ad was about five years out of date, and subsequently being invited in. Carolyne left that studio with an internship, showing that sometimes relying on the power of human interaction gets results. The internship saw her designing retail displays and Christmas decorations for department stores, which was the foundation of Carolyne’s career in the creative world, and this acted as a leg up to getting her first design job.

 

Learning by doing

One of her first responsibilities as a Graphic Designer was designing Tesco car-park signage, and while Carolyne described this as an unglamorous task, she had a lot of fun as the job allowed her to travel across the country. This environment was fast-paced, and very hands on, learning how to do most things on the job. Carolyne gave students a useful tip, that when you don’t know what you’re doing, “find somebody who does”.

After that first job, Carolyne went travelling, realising the importance of expanding your environment and expanding the network of people around you. She highlights the importance of making use of the network you already have – your cohort, your peers, and your friends. She even noted that in many of the jobs she entered, there were people from her network, and importantly noted ‘that’s your first in’.

Carolyne’s next job was working for a design agency where she designed for a wide array of clients, from the Royal British Legion, to Wimbledon, to Krispy Kreme. While some were great, some didn’t sit right with who Carolyne is and what she believes in, and while this upset her, it was also the trigger that made her think “what’s next”. While working for this agency, Carolyne always made sure to do things for herself, like poetry readings, club fliers and organising events, constantly building her network. When Carolyne had finally had enough of the ‘corporate work’, her mentor, Jon Daniels’s advice was ‘just go and do it, Kaz, you can do it’.

 

Finding your spark

After feeling like she had drifted from her roots, and lost touch with what brings her joy, Carolyne created ChillCreate – her personal brand, and childhood ambition combining fashion, identity and positivity. Carolyne was proud of not only doing something that she wanted to do, but also something she was told was ‘not for her’. While she did enjoy fashion, Carolyne soon realised that what she truly cared about was sustainability and the “people aspects to life”. Carolyne found that she wanted to meet other designers, other women, other people that were a bit more like her.

 

Brixton House

One of the first major projects Carolyne took on after establishing ChillCreate was the identity for the theatre, Brixton House, an opportunity that felt especially meaningful given her roots. Knowing how deeply the area shaped her, Carolyne approached the pitch not only as a designer but as someone who understood the community the theatre serves. She joined forces with two collaborators to form a small but powerful team, creating a bold and energetic proposal that spoke to Brixton’s spirit. Carolyne highlighted that “you need a good team to pull off a good big project”.

Winning the project marked a turning point; it was the moment she realised she could hold her own competing for large-scale work. Working closely with architects and the theatre’s leadership, she helped influence decisions far beyond the logo, shifting interiors, injecting colour, and pushing for a more vibrant expression of the building’s identity. Today, Brixton House remains one of her closest clients, referring to herself as “a brand guardian of sorts”.

 

The World Reimagined

Following Brixton House, Carolyne pitched for another ambitious commission, The World Reimagined, a UK-wide public art and education project exploring Britain’s relationship with transatlantic histories. The brief came through a trusted connection, highlighting again how networks and conversations often open unexpected doors. Although the project was complex and difficult to grasp at first, the creative concept evolved from a desire to express learning, connection, and shared narratives.

Working with a strategist, Carolyne developed an identity centred on a globe-like form that symbolised strands of knowledge coming together. What made the pitch successful wasn’t only the visual strength, but the way the idea carried meaning, with the symbol described as a shared vessel for understanding. In Carolyne’s words, “it was a wonderful project to work on… it went round the whole of the UK”, with some of the globes even landing here on University of Reading’s campus.

Africa Fashion

Carolyne’s work on the V&A’s Africa Fashion exhibition marked a significant moment in her career, bringing together her love of design, culture and storytelling. Collaborating with a young Black-owned architecture practice, Carolyne created “an identity which wasn’t cliché,” as she “didn’t want to trivialise it or make it seem lesser than”. This is an important takeaway for students on designing respectfully and considerately. The team drew inspiration from architectural forms and traditional entryways, developing a system of arches and bold structures that honoured the artistry behind the garments and objects on display. For Carolyne, the project reaffirmed how design can elevate narratives that deserve greater visibility, while also showing how research, sensitivity and collaboration can transform an exhibition into a powerful cultural statement.

 

The Missing Thread

Carolyne’s exhibition work allows her to combine her graphic design experience with her long-standing interest in social history. The Missing Thread at Somerset House, which examined Black contribution to British fashion, pushed her to work collaboratively with curators, architects and young designers. The project challenged her team to visually “disrupt” traditional formats, and one of the defining elements emerged unexpectedly from an intern’s experimental, almost throwaway sketch. For Carolyne, it became a reminder that “all ideas are valid”, and that open creative dialogue is essential.

 

Thank you Carolyne, for sharing such an honest and uplifting look into building a career shaped by passion and curiosity.

 

Advice for young designers

• All ideas matter
• Design a life you love
• You can always reflect on where you are and think about what’s next
• Design a life, not just a portfolio
• Prioritise what aligns with your values
• Design for Chiropractors and Osteopaths, your back will thank you!
• “Ask for the brand guidelines… ask to see what was done before. When you know what was done before, you understand the standard you have to respond to.”

 

– Written by Sam Buxton

– Edited by Tommy Molnar