Music was definitely the catalyst. As a kid, I would spend hours looking through the artwork on the sleeves of my parents' record collection. Getting lost in the artwork of Santana, Led Zeppelin and Jean-Michel Jarre was really my first introduction to art. I was also heavily into breakdancing and everything that surrounded that culture from an early age.

My uncle had a box set of the Electro Street Sounds records on vinyl, which I absolutely loved. My mum recorded them onto cassette for me, and I would practice every day with my mates. We'd head down to the local precinct armed with a roll of lino and a ghetto blaster to bust some moves. Through that scene I discovered graffiti, which led to me constantly sketching and experimenting with different styles of lettering. That's really where my obsession with lettering and typography began.

This is probably a bit of a generic answer, but honestly... everything influences what I do. More often than not, it's a feeling rather than a specific thing.

Music and sound are probably my biggest influences. I use them to set a tone, create an atmosphere and help me get into a particular headspace. There's almost always music playing in the studio, a film on in the background, or sometimes I'll even listen to a single tone or frequency through headphones and just sit and clear my mind.

I also find that a good soak in the bath does wonders for my thought process. Some of my best ideas have come while doing absolutely nothing productive whatsoever.

The research, thinking and, if I'm being honest, procrastination stage can sometimes take quite a while. Other times, an idea appears almost instantly and I'm off.

With my lettering work, there's a lot of sketching, experimenting, redrawing and refinement. By the end of that process, the drawings can look almost like technical drawings, and sometimes, in my eyes at least, they actually look better than the final piece. Once I'm happy, I'll ink the work on the reverse side and, in the final process all of those hours of technical drawing are erased and disappear.

The illustration side of my practice works slightly differently. The image I have in my head can be much harder to capture, so I do a lot of research, gather references, take photographs and gradually build a kind of visual collage to work from. After multiple rounds of sketching and redrawing, I'll create a final pencil drawing on tracing paper. Then, as with the lettering, I'll commit to ink on the reverse and remove all of the original workings.

I probably should keep the pencil drawings and use a fresh sheet for the final ink, but there's something quite cathartic about removing that stage of the process and letting it go.

I don't think I can pinpoint one single piece of advice. I've been lucky enough to receive so many little nuggets of wisdom over the years that it's difficult to choose just one.

What really stands out to me isn't necessarily a particular quote or phrase, but the generosity, support, encouragement and guidance I've received from some truly wonderful people throughout my career. That's probably been the most valuable advice of all.

My Rotring Isograph pens, without question. I got my first set when I was about 15, and they've been my faithful companions ever since.

They can be a little temperamental at times and occasionally test your patience, but I think that's part of their charm. After all these years, I still can't imagine working without them.

To try and have more confidence in myself and my work.

I've turned down a lot of projects and opportunities over the years because of a lack of confidence and a fear of putting myself out there or speaking in front of people. Looking back, I'd tell my younger self to worry less, trust the work more and say "yes" a bit more often.

For me, it becomes physical pretty quickly. As soon as I start sketching and the first ideas spill onto the page, the work has taken on a physical form.

That said, it can still be quite a long journey before I'm happy enough to commit to the inking process and finalise the piece. The sketches are often where most of the thinking, experimenting and problem-solving happens.

I'm not sure my practice itself has evolved massively over the past decade. My style has always shifted and cycled through a number of core approaches, but in many ways that's exactly what my practice has always done.

The industry, however, feels very different. Budgets are often smaller, timelines are shorter and AI is having a huge impact on the creative industries as a whole. I've experienced first-hand seeing work generated from references of my own practice, and some of the results have been surprisingly close to what I might have created myself.

It's undoubtedly a challenging and sometimes unsettling time to be an illustrator. I completely understand why businesses would look for ways to save time and money, but I do worry that, in some cases, we're beginning to lose some of the soul, passion and experience that make creative work special in the first place.

There are far too many things to mention, but one project that's been sitting in the back of my mind for years is a series of abstract paintings.

I've always been slightly intimidated by using a brush because of my perceived lack of precision. I'm so used to working with Rotring pens and highly controlled, detailed work that the freedom of painting feels quite alien to me. I think I need to loosen up a bit, let go of some control, get over my fear of the brush and finally start experimenting with the paintings that have been living in my head for years.

My earliest memory of Freds goes all the way back to the early 2000s. I'd just set up my first design studio on Whitworth Street and would make my weekly trip over to Stevenson Square to pick up various art supplies.

A year or so after starting the studio, we decided to relocate and ended up above Oi Polloi on Tib Street, which now meant Fred Aldous was on my doorstep and quickly became my most visited shop! I wasn't just going in for art supplies anymore, I was now in there to buy cards, gifts and all manner of things for friends, family & loved ones - it became a very important shop for me as I'm sure it has for many people.