I need to get something off my chest, and I’m willing to bet every design-led surface consultant and installer reading this will be nodding along by the second paragraph. There are a lot of brilliant designers out there. People with a genuine eye — for proportion, for colour, for how a space should feel. I […]
This week I want to make the case for something I believe in more than almost anything else in business: you should support independent companies. Not as a warm, fuzzy idea you nod along to and forget — as something urgent. Because the industry I’ve spent my life in is changing fast, and the independents […]
There is a moment, somewhere between signing the contract on your plot and lying awake at two in the morning, where it starts. A feeling. An image in your head. The texture of a floor. The light hitting a wall a certain way. A bathroom that makes you exhale the moment you walk in. You […]
The question I get more often than any other isn’t about a specific material at Aura Surfaces. It isn’t about a brand. It’s the one almost every new client, every new architect, every friend at a dinner party eventually asks — “Hang on, what do you guys actually do?” So this week’s Surface Notes is […]
I want to do something a bit different this week. Less about a product, less about a trip — and more about where I am, where Aura Surfaces is, and what I’m starting to think the next chapter looks like. April has been, without doubt, one of the most full-on months I’ve had in business. […]
This week I wanted to do something different — so come on a journey with me to Milan Design Week. I had never been before. And in my honest opinion, if you’re a designer and you haven’t made the trip yet, you need to go. Not just for the products. For the ideas. For the […]
I haven’t been quiet — I’ve been choosing. Why stepping back for family sharpened our design-led surface consultancy, and what’s next for Aura.
This week’s article is a more personal one. It’s a direct reflection on where Aura Surfaces sits today, the journey over the last two years, and the reality of building a business that prioritises relationships, project outcomes, and long-term thinking over volume and transactions. Below, I’ve also shared a short video expanding on these points. […]
There are weeks in this industry that remind you how much is happening behind the scenes. This week has been one of those weeks. Transport costs have suddenly jumped again. There are conversations happening around fuel and gas surcharges returning across parts of the European supply chain, and you can feel the pressure building in […]
One of the things I’ve learned over the years is that people often assume specifying materials for a project has to be a long, drawn-out process. In many cases that’s true, and quite rightly so. When someone is designing a home or a hospitality space that they want to last for decades, those decisions deserve […]