(Introduction)

George: If you were to explain your work to a five-year-old, what would you say?

John: I’d get all my equipment out and have a play around with it. Oh my God, that sounds terrible. It’s the same feeling I got when I was at school or university.

George: Are you as regimented as going to school?

John: Yes, actually. I don’t sign a register, but I try to get there at set times. But there’ll also be a full four hours in the afternoon where I don’t do any work, I’m just sat on my chair chatting to my friends.

George: And are you in a shared space?

John: Exactly, that’s shared. Which is also nice, because a lot of people have other part-time jobs, so they’re in and out as well. One day you might get the whole place to yourself, and the next day you come in and there might be four other people. I actually quite like that. I’m almost getting to the point now where I think, would it be nice to have my own space? I’ve looked into it, and then I’m like, actually no, because one of my favourite things to do is working with Ian on Supergroup, and that is quite reliant on us sharing a space. It benefits from us sharing a space.

George: Nice. So what you drinking?

John: Banana milkshake. When you asked if I’d get a drink, I was like, “Oh, I know definitely what I would have.”

George: Is that like a nostalgic thing?

John: Just love it. I’ve definitely said before to people that I really like that slightly artificial banana taste. I guess now there are different rules on food colourings, but I swear when I was a kid, if you had banana milkshake, it would be the colour of that. I think I’m more likely to want a banana-flavoured thing than an actual banana.

George: Wow!

Malika: Yeah, we were talking about your latest banana.

John: Yeah. They’re very new. We just did that. The banana was meant to be part of the Conran Shop’s Oddments collection. We modelled up the banana, and it was gonna be a lot smaller. Then when we saw the collection of objects, I was like, “Even for my taste, the banana doesn’t work here. It’s weird.”  So then we kept the banana drawing, and we were like, " Oh, well, maybe there'll be another time to make it," and there totally was. So we just had it printed a lot bigger and made the mold from a very big banana. But that's been really fun. And in terms of decorating it, it's such a nice object to decorate because we do that slip marbling technique, and even at points in the production, it just looks very food-like.

(Object 1: Design as Art, Bruno Munari)

John: So this, an old edition of this book, Design as Art. I particularly love that...

Malika: The cover is great.

John: That’s one of his drawings. This one is in super nice condition, and it’s really old. I don’t think it’s a first edition, but it’s from 1971, and the book first came out in 1966. It’s one of those books I’ve read a few times. I’ve bought multiple copies of the current edition, but then I’ll give them to friends, or if somebody comes to the studio I’ll be like, “Right, you can have that.” There are even ones I’ve drawn in. The other day one of my friends was like, “John, you’ve drawn all over this book,” and I was like, “Oh, I kind of want that one back, actually,” because I’d made notes whilst I was reading it. But this is one I wouldn’t lend out.

George: How long have you had a copy?

John: I’ve been reading it, or referring back to it, for about seven or eight years.

George: What is it that keeps pulling you back?

John: I like that it’s divided into individual sections. But also the titles are really nice. They’re tackled in a really abstract, quite artful way. It does exactly what it says. It’s looking at design through an artful lens. The reason I keep referring back to it is that there’s a children’s book section and one on mobiles, and at the minute they’re two things I’m working on.

(Object 2: Comme des Garçons wallet)

George: So your second object, what have you got for us?

John: Something that I really love. Comme des Garçons. These wallets that come in these boxes. Intermittently I have to buy them, because I get drunk and lose them. I had this particular wallet over ten years ago, from Dover Street Market in London. Can you see it’s got stars on it? A black vinyl wallet with actual metallic stars pressed into it. But I bought it so long ago. I had one, and it came and went in my life. It died because I used it so much. Then two years ago I was in Dover Street buying myself a new wallet, and the guy was like, “I found something down here that I think you would really like.” And he brought it up and opened it, and I was like, “Oh my... I used to have that wallet.” They’d had it in the stockroom. It had been lost down the back of a cabinet for 12 years.

So I actually kept it in the box, because I didn’t want to use it. It feels quite special. So that one came back around to me. I just love it.

(Object 3: J.W. Anderson doughnut key ring)

John: If we’re on about this mystery object, I’ve got a full chest of them.

Malika: Wow. A chest.

John: I’ll choose one. I’ve got these storage boxes for the strays. I’ve actually packed some of it away quite carefully. Obviously, when I go to Japan, I always bring loads of that sort of stuff back.

Malika: Full of little accessories.

John: Basically, yeah. A J.W. Anderson doughnut.

George: Oh, amazing.

John: It’s like a metal doughnut, but with rubber icing and rubber hundreds and thousands.

Malika: Oh wow, that’s incredible. So do you have lots of treasure chests?

John: I do, yeah. I’ve got them at the studio, but I’ve also started bringing some stuff home that I want to look after.

Malika: I love it. I’m actually imagining a burglar coming into John’s house and not knowing what the fuck is happening. What has value? What has no value? I think you’d give a burglar an existential crisis.

John: Yeah, exactly, because in a way it’s valuable stuff, but absolutely not valuable to most people.

Malika: It’s funny, because I’ve got lots of things on my shelves, and right now I’ve just got myself some knives, and they’re on the piano rather than in the kitchen, because I want to look at them. For me, if objects bring me joy, I need to look at them. But for you, it gives you more joy knowing they’re stacked away and safe?

John: You know what? It never used to, but I’ve still got a lot of stuff out when I look around my house. I think what I’ve had to do is start archiving some things. Not even archiving, that’s a polite way of saying, “Put the shit away.” I thought, “Do you know what? I need to tidy up, and I also really want to look after that, because you’re not getting that again.”

Malika: I have a question actually. Do you have that same approach to all these little collectible objects, and to sentimental objects like postcards, or no?

John: I wouldn’t say I’m that sentimental. It’s more like something useful or informative, or something that would spur on an idea. Well, actually, that’s bullshit, that metal doughnut isn’t practical. It’s more something that would spur on an idea than an emotional memory, I think.

Malika: Yeah, that makes sense.

John: I like decorative things, but I’m not sentimental. But yesterday, in my studio, I found something that I really loved. I had a small leather Bottega Veneta card holder that I lost, but I kept the green box. I opened it, and there was a stack of neat squared confetti that I found outside of a church when I was in Sicily. The confetti was down a crack in the pavement, and the parts exposed to the sun had faded, and the other parts hadn’t.

When I got home, I was like, I know, I’ll put it in this Bottega Veneta box, because that’s Italian as well. So if we’re going on a deep delve into weird shit that I collect, there’s confetti from a church ceremony.

George: Love that.

John: Which is pretty weird.