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Susie Warran-Smith

Susie Warran-Smith CBE studied at the University of Creative Arts alongside Tracey Emin CBE, RA and Karen Millen, graduating as a graphic designer in 1984. The art schools that made up UCA at the time were famed for having David Hockney, Ian Dury and Zandra Rhodes as lecturers.

She begun her career as a professional graphic artist and illustrator in London working in a number of famous advertising agencies before starting her own graphic studio. She went on to spend three decades working in London and Manchester as a renowned designer, illustrator and brand specialist for some of the world’s biggest international companies. 

In 2020 she sold her company to Ernst & Young, retiring from the corporate world to concentrate on developing her own artwork once again. Sue is highly influenced by the work of Andy Warhol and Peter Blake, the typographer Neville Brody and the album cover designs of Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell. Her energetic and witty style uses a range of techniques from drawing, collage, painting and digital illustration.

Her work celebrates familiar objects and classical icons which are subtly overlaid with modern cultural references to force us to re-evaluate the original. Often ‘the joke’ will only be understood by an informed onlooker who recognises the reference and how it alters our perceptions of the original object.