Kay Smith

My first job was with Tayburn in Edinburgh, a company just starting an upward curve and capitalising on the boom in both the financial and oil sector in Scotland. Tayburn, which still is in business today, employed graphic designers, interior designers and project managers and was structured like an ad agency. The 80’s boom years meant Tayburn had an office in London and Edinburgh and after years working on annual reports, company brochures, identities etc for many of Scotland’s leading companies I became the Design Director.

As usual there was all the normal agency shenanigans and disruptions, and it was there I met my husband. He left to form another company focussed mainly on 3D design, I became pregnant, and my boss ‘encouraged’ me to leave by cooking up all sorts of unpleasantness (is there a word? Well, it summed him up), consequently I joined my husbands’ company Northcross and developed the graphics side.

Northcross was an equally wild ride and grew to be a large business with offices in Leith, York and ultimately an exhibition construction workshop as well. It was predominantly a 3D company but once again we were lucky to tap into the developing world of visitor centres and major exhibitions. We worked for such well-known brands as Nike, Direct Line and most of the whisky brands under the then umbrella of Seagram.

It was both thrilling and stressful in extremes. After 10 years my husband exited the business and handed over the reins. A combination of recession, bad decisions, bad debts etc resulted in a plumet to earth and Northcross ceased trading.

We then worked from home, just the two of us, and had a few years working with a younger woman who was developing a company and needed some ‘mature’ experience, once again that was fun until it wasn’t and then we went back to working from home.

Overall, the design business was very good to us, we made some amazing friends, got to travel a fair bit, created some memorable projects and made a good living.

Nowadays I am almost retired but still do very small amounts of work, for clients I like and charities.

www.agradadesign.co.uk

We moved full time down to a small quiet town in the unspoilt Scottish Borders about 10 years ago but very luckily retained a small flat in Edinburgh so we can see family and escape the limitations of where we live. I have one son in Edinburgh, a stepson and his family in Edinburgh and a stepdaughter and her family in Barcelona.

I still ride frequently and spent years riding out at weekends at a small racing yard which was thrilling, terrifying at times and the most politically incorrect place ever known!

With friends from the North East I still get to visit Newcastle and the coast a fair bit and feel privileged to come from such a great place.