Interior Art & signage

Design, beyond the screen

I have designed and built a range of bespoke signage, and spatial objects across commercial, educational, and exhibition contexts. This work spans brand-led interior objects, and conceptual 3D installations, often produced as one-off or small-batch pieces.

Examples include café signage, interior art for offices, a wedding canopy and interior 3D art installations for Nando’s, including a large-scale Tetris-style wooden installation forming the shape of Africa.

My exhibition work includes a 3D interior art installation shown at Design Indaba 2012 as part of the Emerging Creatives initiative, where the stand was awarded Most Creative Stand.

Nandos

Nando’s is an international restaurant chain that originated in South Africa and specialises in flame-grilled peri-peri chicken.

It was founded in 1987 and has since expanded globally, with restaurants across Africa, Europe, the UK, Australia, the Middle East, and parts of Asia and North America.

Commissioned to create bespoke interior art for multiple restaurant chains Across South Africa.

Nandos Tongaat, Durban. A giant Tetris Africa.

Gateway, Durban. Wooden disc installations designed to add texture to interior walls.

MRP Foundation

The MRP Foundation is a youth employability organisation, and its JumpStart programme prepares young people for entry into the workplace, with a strong emphasis on retail-aligned skills and work readiness.

I was commissioned to design a bespoke hanging interior art installation derived from the Foundation’s internal logo. Positioned in the foyer, the piece was conceived as a bold, immediate statement of presence, reflecting the scale and impact of the Foundation’s work as visitors enter the space.

Materials constructed from CNC-routed MDF.

The Factory Cafe

The Factory Cafe was an independent café based in Durban, South Africa. It operated as a casual food and coffee venue and was known for its industrial, reclaimed-material interior aesthetic, which informed much of its signage and spatial design.

I was commissioned to design custom interior and exterior signage for The Factory Cafe. The scope included over-bar interior signage to clearly indicate the ordering point, as well as an external A-frame sign for street visibility.

The brief required the use of reclaimed pallet wood as the base material, paired with a more refined finish. This was achieved by layering black laser-cut text onto the timber, creating depth and contrast while maintaining a raw, industrial character aligned with the café’s interior.

Wedding canopy

I designed and built a custom wedding canopy for my own ceremony, fabricated from plywood and CNC-routed components. The structure was engineered to slot together through integrated joints, allowing it to be assembled without visible fixings.

The piece balanced structural clarity with a soft, celebratory presence, functioning as both a ceremonial focal point and a crafted architectural object.

Design Indaba (2012)

Design Indaba is an international design conference and exhibition platform based in Cape Town, South Africa. Founded in 1995, it focuses on design, creativity, and innovation across disciplines including graphic design, industrial design, architecture, fashion, technology, and social impact.

I was selected as an Emerging Creative at Design Indaba 2012 to exhibit a body of work.

I exhibited a timber-based body of work exploring nostalgia and childhood memory, expressed through playful interior art pieces inspired by 1990s pop culture, and was awarded Most Creative Stand across the conference.

Stand display

Left image: A visual wordplay on “afro comb,” combining African identity and everyday cultural symbolism into a single graphic form. The afro comb in my childhood was seen as a cool symbol.
Middle image: A childhood memory translated into form, blending the act of holding an ice cream with the moment it melts down your arm.
Right image: A commentary on how skate culture educated my youth, merging a skateboard and pencil to reflect informal, street-level learning.

A playful visual reference to the phrase “foxes smell their own holes,” exploring blame, humour, and childhood sayings through form.

A sculpture of a fox representing the phrase: "foxes smell their own holes"

A reimagined 1990s Nintendo controller titled “The Wonder Years,” celebrating formative childhood experiences shaped by play and nostalgia.

“Dear John”, a literal and emotional interpretation of childhood heartbreak, expressed through a heart being cut apart by its own message.

A reflection on nostalgia and hindsight, using reversed text and found materials to reinforce the idea of looking back to understand meaning.

Image from the body of work that led to my selection as an Emerging Creative at Design Indaba 2012.