EP78 | Ian Wright | Risk, Relationships & Reinvention | Local Heroes Podcast

This week on the Local Heroes Podcast, Chris and Dan are joined by Sunderland-born designer, photographer and entrepreneur Ian Wright for a conversation about creativity, confidence and what can happen when you’re prepared to back yourself.

From spending his early childhood in South Africa and returning to Sunderland in the 1970s, to getting bullied at school and being told by a careers adviser to think about getting “a real job”, Ian’s route into the creative world was anything but obvious.

It all changed with a drawing of Bruce Lee.

That sketch helped land him his first job in print at 16, beginning a career that would take him from Letraset and darkrooms to photographing Sunderland AFC at Roker Park, shooting Kevin Keegan’s first Newcastle goal, building his own design agency Rufus and helping businesses completely rethink how they present themselves.

Ian shares the thinking behind redesigning Hayes Travel’s identity and stores, why understanding people matters as much as design itself, and the philosophy that has shaped almost everything he’s done: if somebody else can do it, why can’t you?

That mindset eventually led Ian and his wife Vicky to take on one of their biggest challenges yet — buying a derelict Victorian pumping station during COVID with nowhere near enough money to do it, and transforming it into The Pump House, a spectacular wedding venue built around obsessive attention to detail.

We get into risk, resilience, creative problem-solving, retail psychology, customer experience, Sunderland heritage and why sometimes the smallest moments can completely change the direction of your life.

And naturally, there’s plenty of Local Heroes territory too — Bruce Lee, Roker Park, Black Forest gateau, profiterole mountains, mushy pea fritters, sticky beef, sticky toffee pudding and a very respectable Greggs double order.

A fascinating conversation about design, graft, instinct and the importance of giving things a go — because sometimes one drawing, one conversation or one decision really can change everything.