026 REPORTER


Left Design District is located within Knight Dragon’s Greenwich Peninsula development


Right Helen Arvanitakis has been director of Design District London since 2019


Below The neighbourhood’s unique and idiosyncratic buildings reflect the range of different occupants


PROFILE Helen Arvanitakis


Design District London’s director Helen Arvanitakis talks about her background and experience, and explains how the new creative quarter will help form an ‘ecosystem’ for small businesses


WORDS BY SOPHIE TOLHURST


THERE ARE MANY obstacles to being a success as a designer, well beyond actually getting the design right: from negotiating contracts to understanding taxation; and keeping up with payments for everything from rent to buying the teabags and toilet roll. Dealing with such issues


can feel like anathema to creative practice, yet it is inescapably bound into the survival of a brand. To understand how to navigate it all is something many never quite master. Someone who does understand is Helen Arvanitakis, a consultant for creative businesses


on all areas outside of design. The biggest stint on her CV is ten years at Tom Dixon and its Design Research Studio, but before that there had been a range of interesting roles: straight out of university she joined New Media in a marketing position, ‘pre dot-com crash as well, so money sloshing about, super exciting clients, like nothing else!’, she describes; Arvanitakis then worked in the BBC’s property department as they were building ‘everywhere’, including the Broadcasting House extension in W1 as well as in Birmingham, Glasgow and Manchester – ‘I mean it was absolutely bonkers’, Arvanitakis says. While there was something about


development that caught her eye, Arvanitakis realised she didn’t want to go down a straightforward development route, ‘...even on the client side, because it was quite... well at that time, and at that age and that moment in my life it just felt a bit too ... dry and straight’, she says. She applied to both a construction project management master’s as well as a course at renowned art school Central Saint Martins; getting into the latter was to lead her to a number of creative opportunities – including meeting Tom Dixon. She joined in a business development role at


a point where the Tom Dixon business was still relatively small, with around 17 employees. As she explains, the interior design studio was earning more than the product business at the time: ‘It was there really to help fund development of all these products, but also a really interesting way to learn what types of products were needed in the industry: what are interior designers and architects going to specify for restaurants, clubs, and that kind of thing. So it was fascinating, absolutely fascinating.’ As the business grew, with teams for interior design, product design, exhibition spaces, graphics and branding, her role was ‘to kind of shepherd everyone towards a common goal and brand DNA’. She admits she’s not going to give me the warts-and-all version, but she can safely sum it up, saying:‘ It was a brilliant experience, really wide-ranging. And I got to


DESIGN DISTRICT


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