2024 Feb Emma Ual

Emma Charleston is a graphic designer, illustrator, researcher and educator based in Croydon, London.

She has been working professionally since 2010, with a particular focus on the education, charity and arts sectors. Her freelance work includes design, branding and illustration for a wide variety of clients, including The Bishopsgate Institute, the RSPCA, Global Returns Project, The Met Office, the NHS, and TFL, with a particular focus on educational materials. Since 2017, she has been lead designer for Happy Valley Pride, one of Yorkshire’s biggest Pride festivals. She is passionate about the role design can play in activist movements.

From 2021 to 2024, she worked as Design and Research lead at Geeks For Social Change, a tech studio with a focus on social justice. Geeks for Social Change’s work brings together the passion of activism, the rigour of academia, and the capabilities of tech, to pioneer a unique approach to solving social issues. Her work there spanned topics including trans liberation, anti racism, mutual aid and environmental justice. During her time at GFSC, she worked with clients including The Wildlife Trusts, Friends of the Earth, and Gendered Intelligence, and was part of anti-state violence collective Resistance Lab. She remains as Company Director of GFSC’s pioneering community calendar software PlaceCal.

In 2021, she completed MA Graphic Media Design. Her personal research focus is placemaking and public space, with a particular interest in public transit and infrastructure, and their impact on communities. Since 2022, she has been teaching at the University of the Arts London, on courses across the Design and Media schools, and is currently Year 1 Lead of BA User Experience Design at the London College of Communication. She is working towards Advance HE Fellowship and PG Cert qualification in Winter 2024.

Her personal practice includes zine and print making, using riso, letterpress, lino printing, and other analogue processes. She tables at zine fairs across the UK, and sells her zines and prints in shops and online. In her spare time, she volunteers as a listener at Samaritans, hikes around the outer edges of London, and works on her daily visual diary project, in which she has created an illustration every day since 2013.

I am always open to hearing about new freelance design projects, and would love to hear more about yours. Drop me an email if you'd like to chat!