Andy Murray is a multi award winning furniture and product designer based in Edinburgh. Always passionate about materials and simple design and along the way has picked up a D&AD first prize award and a commendation as well being honoured with the John Logie Baird Young Innovator of the year award 2010/11

1. Artist
At the age of 17, straight from leaving school, I decided to pursue my passion in art. Having spent my final year in school living in the art and design department, I had what I felt developed quite an interesting technique and style in my work. I spent all my “pocket money” on board for canvases, surrounds, paint, glue, plaster, cement and spatulas, do produce a series of 3D paintings. Convincing the hairdressers I went to my paintings would brighten up his white walls, I set up my first “exhibition”. I sold 1 – and to this day I still have 19 gathering dust in a cupboard.

2. Customer Services House Keeping Sanitation engineer (Cleaner)
During the summers from university I had a job greeting customers and showing them round their luxary holiday flats in Glasgow, as well as that I was the cleaner. Each flat would take 3 hours to clean, and would look like they had never been used by anyone before. The customers were varied from families, parties and once a honeymoon couple. I am still baffled by the items that people leave behind that we had to clean up. I have never used the phrases “how did they break that?” and “why is this *in the bath, under the cooker, in the fridge, in the shower, in the bed*” so much. No one ever phoned up for those embarrassing items left in lost and found.

3. Food and Beverage assistant
For 2 of Glasgows hottest summers while I was at uni, I worked in one of Glasgows coldest places. SnoBar at SnoZone, Xscape. Surprisingly I really enjoyed working here, or maybe it was actually earning money. I became really passionate about making cocktails. Or “Designing” new ones, making them, serving them…it was fun. My second week there I increased their cocktail sales by 400% at least. I can still make a mean cocktail but am still confused why my name badgd said Chuck – we got a new one every month.

4. Technical Demonstrator
I stayed on at Edinburgh Napier Uni after my undergraduate degree to do a masters while doing it, I was enlisted to teach CAD in the form of Rhino and Solidworks. This was something I enjoyed, as it was something I surprised myself that I was good at. The CAD room is a rather small underground bunker style room, with no windows and no air with 24 computers on all the time with a price list on the wall for printing black and white drawings on what I am sure is a dot matrix printer.

…and finally

5. Designer
I think I have always had one goal and that was to be a desiner. So in September 2010 I officially started Andy Murray Design. I am keen and passionate about keeping design simple and pushing materials to their limits. In March 2011 I was honoured with the Young Innovator 2010/11 award from the John Logie Baird awards having previously picked up a D&AD award for furniture design and another D&AD in book comendation for product design while at university.

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We’ve asked professionals in creative industries what jobs they have had in the past to get their foot through the door (or at least pay the rent). For more in the “My First 5 Jobs” series look here.