Alice Fraser

From not using social media for self-promotion to resisting comparison culture and making sure she (mostly) doesn’t work evenings, Alice Fraser is intent on doing things the way that works for her, outside of all the noise. In turn, it means she shows up to her design practice as her best self. Below, Alice shares a creative journey underpinned by collaboration and communication.

What I do

My creative practice
I’ve been a designer at London & Bristol-based agency Monday Nights for three years now. I started there as the first full-time employee alongside co-founders and creative directors Matt Caldwell and Dan Allan, and we’ve since grown to a solid team of five. We’re a multi-skilled group of graphic, motion, 3D and type designers, creating high-quality work through our principles of raw invention, open exploration, meaningful partnerships and simple communication.

Working as part of a small team, you have to be agile and collaborative. I don’t really have a title of mid-weight or senior designer, as I work fluidly between these different levels, working in the areas of artworking, project management and client relations at the same time. No one’s ideas are more important than anyone else's and working collectively allows us all to grow, learn and develop our skills in a supportive environment – making us better designers, communicators and people.

Influences and inspiration
I’ve never been a designer who cites other designers as my sole inspiration; I find inspiration everywhere, which is a pretty vague and non-specific answer. I’m creatively influenced by people outside of the graphic design world like fashion designer and author Patrick Grant (everyone should read his book Less), horticulturalist Monty Don and chef Angela Hartnett – to name a few. I also take so much inspiration from where I live: Manchester is a huge melting pot of creativity, from street art to interior and graphic design in bars and restaurants, music venues, historical and beautiful architecture and the people who thrive here.

From a graphic design perspective, I’m always inspired by the work and ethos that female-run design agency Edit Brand Studio produces and I love the huge variety of amazing work put-out by Studio Blackburn. I also find so much inspiration from graphic design students that I work with in my role as visiting lecturer at Sheffield Hallam: the raw invention and breadth of creativity of my students encourages me to never lose that spark and excitement that design can bring.

My training
I studied Graphic Design at Sheffield Hallam University, where I now teach part-time as a visiting lecturer. I was at SHU for three years, with an additional sandwich placement year in industry, where I interned at Manchester-based Music Agency, Sheffield-based Human Studio and London-based Interabang. I also worked part-time in the Student Comms team at The University of Sheffield for 18 months.

Upon graduation mid-COVID-19 pandemic, I joined Manchester-based agency Office of Craig as a junior designer, where I worked on various branding, exhibition, community and publishing projects. Since 2023, I’ve been working on a variety of briefs spanning the sectors of branding, event & spatial design, TV broadcast design, publication design, UX and UI at Monday Nights.

Favourite recent project
In May, I finished working on the brand rollout and event design for the Snooker World Championship 2026 at the iconic Crucible Theatre in Sheffield. Monday Nights have been working with World Snooker Tour for three years now; our relationship began with a full-scale rebrand, revamping snooker’s image to captivate today’s global audience. We’ve helped WST roll out their new brand from internal and external comms to TV broadcast design and event branding, from Shanghai to Sheffield.

This year's World Championship has been a pretty hefty task. We work on just about everything for the event: ticketing and online presence, merchandise, backstage spatial design, arena and set design, venue and fanzone areas, various hospitality levels and city-wide marketing and advertising opportunities. My job doesn’t just involve the actual design of individual assets, it’s about looking at the event as a whole and creating a design system that flows seamlessly through every aspect of the event.

A day in the life
I work from home, which definitely took some getting used to, but I really appreciate it now. I get more work done, but also, admittedly, it means I don’t have to get up really early!

Every morning at 9:30am, the whole team jumps on a call for half an hour; we chat about what we did the previous evening and what we had for tea, and then we go through everyone's working day. It’s a great way to know what’s going on in the studio, as we don’t all work on the same project at the same time. Each day can be different: sometimes I have no meetings and other times I can be in back-to-back meetings till lunchtime. I’d be lost without a written to-do list.

One thing I really appreciate about working at Monday Nights is the respect for our own personal time. We’re never asked to work late unless we desperately need to, and when we do, our CDs always make sure we know how much they appreciate it. Making sure my laptop shuts at 5:30pm not only lets me have the whole evening to myself, it allows me to come back to work completely refreshed the next day. It doesn’t seem like a big deal, but we can all slip into bad habits of bringing work home with us, so having a team who look out for each other makes a world of difference.

A starter pack for my job:
Yorkshire Tea; fast Wi-Fi; large, lined day-to-day planner; small dotted sketchbook; post 3pm snack (currently obsessed with freeze-dried apple slices); always GIF of choice:

How I got here

Starting my creative journey
I had an interesting and somewhat unconventional start to my career as I graduated mid-COVID-19 pandemic. My final four months of university were spent in lockdown in my student house with my two housemates. The three of us muddled through, figuring out how to use Zoom for meetings with our tutors and producing our final projects online with no access to printers, university resources or consistent support.

Internships and placement opportunities I had lined up went out the window, so when summer came and post-uni life was supposed to begin, I moved back home with my parents and tried to enjoy the sunny weather whilst applying to any and every creative opportunity I could (which were very thin on the ground mid-pandemic). One afternoon in early September, my university tutor Craig Oldham got in touch about an opportunity to work together on a project; things snowballed from there into a full-time position at Office of Craig for the next two and a half years!

Biggest challenges along the way
It’s taken me a long time to gain confidence and believe in myself. I always felt like I was doing something wrong and everyone was watching, which just isn't true. I struggled and still struggle with imposter syndrome – it’s an ongoing thing that I think a lot of designers in our industry can empathise with. There’s always a feeling that you should be doing more, promoting more, making more, socialising more and designing more than everyone else. So it can be a real challenge to just run your own race and not compare yourself to your peers around you.

My social media and self-promotion vibe is…
I don’t usually promote myself for work purposes on social media. I like to keep my focus on my work and try to deliver it as best I can. Social media promotion is all personal preference, but I find that my work life benefits from having a full and varied life outside of social media, so I like to use my social accounts for that purpose instead.

I do like to use social media to keep myself up to date with new projects and design news. I also like to share projects that matter to me or inspire me online, as well as new Monday Nights work that the team should be proud of.

Courses, programmes, initiatives, access schemes or job boards I've found helpful
Creative Lives in Progress of course, along with places like Creative Boom, It’s Nice That, Junior Designer, The Arena, Creative Review and The Outside Directory.

My greatest learnings when it comes to making money and supporting myself as a creative:
Start and partake in conversations about money; don’t hide away from it. Also: know your worth; you deserve a living wage; don’t do work for free.

My advice

My most useful career tips
Trust yourself and don’t be afraid to be honest and ask for help and advice. Everyone started out at some point, so we’ve all been in that position and know how nerve-racking it can feel.

What I'd say to someone looking to get into a similar role
Keep yourself active within the community. You don’t have to post online and build a presence if you don’t want to, but just being aware of who’s who, what work is coming out, who’s making it and where people are based is really important.

Keep working on passion projects and refining your portfolio. A portfolio is never finished; it’s an ever-evolving thing. Keeping your creativity active by working on passion projects in your spare time, however small, does wonders not only for your design skills, but for your confidence in yourself as well.

Be honest: creative directors looking to hire can usually tell if you’re lying. Be truthful about your willingness to learn and develop skills you don’t currently have, what your experience level really is and what you’re really after when meeting someone. Honesty is the best policy.