Loook Right: Philip Carter and the Creative Power of Observation

Carter describes the way he navigates the world as having a kind of “visual radar.”

Walking through a city, he notices shapes in road markings, shadows on pavements, accidental arrangements of colour, typography on shop signs, or the way sunlight falls across a wall. Where most people see ordinary moments, he sees compositions, patterns and ideas waiting to happen.

Sometimes that means stopping mid-walk to photograph a shadow that lasts only a few seconds. Sometimes it means collecting an old piece of wood from a beach because the texture and colour feel too interesting to ignore.

To Phil Carter, these observations aren’t distractions from work. They are the work.

His sketchbooks, photographs and notebooks form a constantly expanding archive of shapes, textures and visual ideas. Many of them eventually find their way into commercial projects. Others evolve into artworks, collages or installations.

But all of them start with the same instinct: Pay attention.

Phil’s career began at Minale Tattersfield, in an era before digital tools reshaped the design industry. Early projects were built with pens, tracing paper, marker layouts and physical materials. Ideas were tested by drawing them, adjusting them, redrawing them and exploring every possible variation by hand.

That discipline shaped the way he still works today.

While digital tools have transformed the speed and scale of design production, Carter remains convinced that the most important stage of any project still happens away from the screen.

The thinking. The sketching. The moment when a loose idea starts to become something tangible.

Throughout the evening, he repeatedly encouraged younger creatives in the room to keep drawing, not because it is nostalgic, but because it trains the eye and the mind to work together.

“Drawing,” he explained, “is how you understand what you’re seeing.”

Alongside commercial design work, Carter has always maintained a parallel creative practice.

His studio shelves are filled with objects made from driftwood, found materials and fragments collected during travels. He builds small sculptures from pieces of timber washed up along the Thames. He creates collages from recycled paper and discarded book covers. He documents visual curiosities discovered on walks through cities and landscapes.

What connects all these projects is the same playful spirit that runs through his professional work.

Making things simply to see what happens.

In recent years, this personal work has reached a wider audience through social media, where videos of Philip assembling collages have attracted hundreds of thousands of viewers. What began as a small personal archive has unexpectedly become an international following.

For Phil, the attention is secondary. The joy lies in the process itself.

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