Building a creative career rarely follows a straight line. For Anu Köchli, the journey has taken them from studying and collaborating with fellow creatives in Nottingham to building a freelance career spanning oil painting, graphic design and video editing. Along the way, travel, nature, art, technology and a willingness to experiment with different materials and creative disciplines have all helped shape their approach.
Now working freelance through Anu Design, Köchli creates work across a range of mediums while continuing to explore what it means to build a sustainable and fulfilling creative career. In this interview, they share their creative journey, the inspiration behind their work, their approach to freelancing, why making mistakes is an essential part of the creative process, and their thoughts on the future of creativity in an increasingly technology-driven world.
How did you first get into the industry?
Like a lot of students at Uni I spent a fair amount of time socialising and networking or collaborating on different creative art projects and ideas where during that time I met Lukas Laskowski, who at the time was working for Illustr8 Design in Nottingham as a Graphic Designer and Web Developer. We worked together on a few small projects and spent time together on designs and checking out exceptional web designs from the FWA awards. Lukas helped introduce me to the fundamentals of Adobe Illustrator as I was already using Photoshop for some of the modules at Uni. Through our time together we went to various Art and Music events in Nottingham, networking and getting involved in the creative culture that's been growing in Nottingham, especially Sneinton Market. It's because of meeting and developing a long friendship with Lukas that I joined Creative Pool.
Where are you based now and who do you work for?
I'm currently based in the Peak District, UK, though I do enjoy going on trips around Europe where I've enjoyed taking myself for some cycling touring to visit friends in different countries, or when I was working as a grape picker in the Alsace region of France. I work freelance at Anu Design, creating Oil Paintings, Graphic Design works for promotional materials and some video editing.
Going freelance at the start wasn't easy so I balanced it with looking into different fields of work in previous years such as fruit picking in France, Switzerland and Australia as well as some gardening work so that I could travel and explore parts of the world whilst being a freelance artist and designer that could be available at any time and to connect with people around the world.
What is your personal background and what role did it play in your career?
Being born as half Swiss, half Australian descent meant that whilst I was going through secondary school and Uni our summer holidays were spent visiting my Grandparents in Switzerland, where I regularly went to visit the Tinguely Museum and the open exhibitions of Art and Sculptures at Art Basel on Messe Platz. I also enjoy going to the exhibitions at Yorkshire Sculpture Park and Rufford Country Park, as well as open Art exhibitions around the UK because it's inspiring and uplifting to see other peoples great works and to live in the world of Art & Design.
After graduating from Nottingham Uni I worked for the SEND Project for 3 and half years, delivering varied art projects in stencil art, urban arts skills drawing & painting, photoshop skills, space painting and music production on Ableton for young disadvantaged people or young people being referred through the Youth Offending Service teams. During that time of life I was going through a lot of Lynda.com and Youtube training videos, as well as socialising with Lukas Laskowski, learning Adobe software packages so that I could create posters and videos for the SEND Project.
In January 2017 I attended the 34th Kalachakra initiation ceremony that was situated next to the Mahabodhi temple in Bodh Gaya, Bihar, India (although this country should formally be known as Bharat), along with 200,000 devotees where I spent several days listening to the teachings of the Kalachakra being read from Tenzin Gyatso 14th Dalai Lama. It took a few years to mentally digest the teachings from the Kalachakra and had a big impact on my personal and career life where I started to let go of obstacles in my path that were potentially mental projections in order to delve more into freelance work whilst also doing charitable works for people.
If you weren’t in your current industry, what would you be doing?
I'm not sure if I would want to leave my current role or working in this particular sector of the industry as I've spent a lot of time, energy and focus living in the creative world that I couldn't imagine wanting to give it up, stop creating, painting or being available as a freelance designer to go and work in a factory or for Amazon...
If I was to stop painting or doing graphic design and video editing it would mean that I'd be looking into Architectural design and learning 3D modelling, as my interests are going in that direction sometimes.
Can you explain your creative process? What makes it unique?
One of the Managers at Faulty Towers, Basil Faulty, or at least the great creative being that embodied the life of a keen yet frustrated Hotel Manager once said in an interview a while ago something about how he felt it takes a dedicated amount of time to get into a creative process by letting go of the worries of everyday life, taxes, politics etc... in order to really delve into what you want to create.
For me spending time out in nature is primary to appreciate the world we live in with all the variety of weather conditions and birdsong along the way, to spend some time cogitating on the concept idea itself as well as appreciating that the natural world is where we get our influence of wide colour spectrum from. I also love listening to different genres of music when I'm painting or working on a design project that could be seen as related to what I'm producing at the time. I find classical music the best option to listen to when working on projects for the UKSA because the layered melodies and changes in tempo that reflect the natural world in all its beauty.
During the months of painting TEAM ARCTIC Explorers Map Paintings sometimes I wouldn't listen to any music, but listen to some audio recordings of icy glaciers knocking against each other on Youtube, or having a Sir David Attenborough show playing in the background to listen to the sounds of marine life, howling winds, ruffled feathers and sounds of water going down streams while he narrates and showcases the story of what's happening in that wildlife scene so that I can also feel connected to the natural world if I'm working inside during Winter.
With the oil paintings I work on it's always nice to play around with different pigments to find which colours work well together for creating the shades I'm looking for, as well as sometimes mixing the media with others to see what effects it creates. I found this useful many years ago when I got into making Space Paintings for people using Montana spray paints where you'll find that if you mix gloss and matt paints with some of the partly see-through shadow paints you get different bubbles and textures as the paints mix and clash. That opened me up to explore texture on my oil paintings where I could create a sort of landscape with lots of oil paint left to dry set on a framework design or piece of Sacred Geometry framework that I could paint over later so that it stands out from the canvas.
Being open to work on different materials as well was a big influence recently when I decided to move away from canvasses for the series of TEAM ARCTIC Explorers map paintings and previous scenery paintings, where I decided to paint on Mudstone that I collected in a beautiful valley in Wales, because the stone whilst being brittle also splits apart nicely opening up different textures on the stone that I could utilise for the changes in landscape of where the icy glaciers are compared to where the sea and coastal edges presented themselves.
It's about pushing ones own boundaries sometimes to develop on what was previously made and explore other ways of doing the same but change the medium, material and to try something new because creativity is not built on being afraid of making mistakes, as we have to be open to make mistakes and get some creative work wrong in our own critique to develop and play around to find what works.
How would you describe your style?
Tailored and varied.
The works I produce are tailored to the clients needs and preferences in colour, layout and themes. Working on multiple forms of creative output medium means that I can stay varied in my approach to creativity and enjoy the process of painting, designing, illustrating, video editing or growing.
Which individuals do you gain inspiration from? Do you have any heroes in the industry?
Aurora and Nettle who are characters in the TEAM ARCTIC game created by my nieces were inspiring me from the start of our game theatrical playing together, as that's what has led me to paint scenery and map paintings for them to help fuel their own creative minds.
I was inspired and assisted a lot by the working with Beth Hemus who is a great Fine Artist in Nottingham, after learning a lot of brush work techniques on a series of large acrylic paintings we produced while working at the SEND Project for a campaign working with young people in Sneinton and St' Annes.
I was also inspired from spending a lot of time with Lukas Laskowski who is a great Graphic Designer and Website Development producer based now in Warsaw, as he helped tutor me in Illustrator and Photoshop when I first set out to learn some of the Adobe software packages.
Some of the individuals and heroes I gain inspiration from do not currently work in the industry unless they are willing to reincarnate once again for another Renaissance. Leonardo Bonacci who is commonly known as Fibonacci is a fundamental source of inspiration for his mathematical works on the Fibonacci sequence of numbers as well as Euclid, where the Golden Ratio or Phi φ has been a contributing factor in some of my paintings. I love the works from Leonardo Da Vinci and Vincent Van Gogh, but in my own life I also gained inspiration from the community of friends or people I've met over the years where we found common interests in music, art and creativity, Buddhism, films and outdoor pursuits as we share a lot of knowledge and creative ideas together.
What tips would you give to aspiring creatives looking for work?
Do it because you love doing it, not because there's a price tag at the end to achieve. We need to make money find work ongoing yes, but sometimes once your tea or coffee has cooled down enough it boils down to an existential question asking if you are doing this work because you need to make money to live or are you doing this work because you love creative processes, mediums, explorations, inspirations, drawing boards and colour swatches, designs and details or whatever it is that makes it not work and just why you decided to get into creativity and potentially why you chose to incarnate in this lifetime to bring forth what is within you and share wonderful, creative and imaginative ideas to the world.
What tips would you give to other professionals to get more clients?
Don't be shy of giving away, donating or creating something and leaving it somewhere for people to find. BANKSY didn't become famous by creating artwork and sculptures just to sell, he made them and gave it away for the public's own interests and curiosities to inspire people, bring awareness about certain topics or just to have fun. Getting clients isn't about just making money but by sharing what you have to offer to the world and leave a mark.
There are some pieces of work I gifted to friends or people I've met along the way, which can sometimes help as people don't just find you from social media adverts, posters or business cards you put out in the world but by word of mouth as well...recommendations from previous clients that are happy with your work because you gave a little bit extra.
Can you share a memorable experience from your career journey that shaped your approach to creativity?
Being commissioned by Gail Marriott in 2026 to produce an Oil Painting on a large circular canvas helped influence my approach to painting where I had decided to stop painting with thinners on 2D so that I could create 3D painted oil works, by using a base of oils to create textured landscapes for painting over later. From that point onwards I decided to paint just with oils because I enjoyed seeing what textures could be left from each piece.
What kind of tools/kit/software could you not do without?
Allen keys, screws and spanners are essential for the maintenance of my bicycle! :)
Hand clippers, forks, spades and trowels for seasonal gardening work and growing food on the allotment, especially the small hand clippers or snippers as the Ozzies would call it when I was working in Australia picking grapes on vineyards in McLaren Vale, that was a working trip down under where I also picked up some freelance graphic design work through that journey, after being motivated from the grape picking work on vineyards in the Alsace region of France a year or so earlier. Montana spray paint has been very useful for space paintings or the mural I made in one of my nieces bedroom painted showing the scene of a galaxy atop blending down into sunrise and landscape with a tree that was painted before she was born and very useful for doing any stencil artwork.
Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and Premiere Pro have been essential for different work projects over the years, as well as the Windsor & Newton oil paints needed for any paintings that come to fruition. I also rely sometimes on Adobe Stock for wildlife photos and videos when creating designs or videos for the UKSA.
What’s your secret to staying inspired and motivated?
Love, Sacred Geometry and Nature. Not doing it for the money or fame or to work in a high paid role in a skyscraper building, even though I wouldn't say no to that kind of position, the work that I create or have been involved in creating through briefs of different clients is the motivation in itself by helping other people to achieve what they need. If people don't get enjoyment and the love of the process in the job they are doing then they may be in the wrong workplace because internally all of us do our work for the love it. Being in a freelance position has allowed me to be adaptable and engage with the active enjoyment of loving what I do.
As a Graphic Designer I enjoy the creative process that comes to fruition, where the hidden details people won't notice, yet I encode it into my work. For example whilst using Adobe Illustrator to create designs for clients social media ads, posters or roller banners etc...I will offer my clients a variety of colour swatches that is tailored to their favourite colour or brand identity with the hidden details that people don't see where the CMYK colours also attribute to specific numbers where I can find shades that align with Angel numbers such as 36.9, 77.7%, 1.07, or 80.1 which is 108 in Buddhism.
What’s the work achievement you’re most proud of?
Making the decision many years ago to create my own business, going freelance and self-employed! I don't want to feature any particular work achievement whether it was the videos, graphic design of leaflets and logos though the UKSA, or helping friends with their advertising needs on posters, or any of the oil paintings I've made over the years because each piece of work I am proud of on equal level, simply because in 2013 I decided to create my own brand logo and Identity so that I could go freelance eventually by creating designs that were printed on t'shirts sold at some of the UK night clubs, as well as having designs sold through REDBUBBLE and Society6 and allowing me to be available for clients whenever they get in touch for advertising posters on social media, video editing, oil painting commissions or sales and graphic design to help promote the works of the clients needs.
13 days ago I got an email that someone in Brazil bought one of my designs on REDBUBBLE, which just goes to show that even though I was creating these designs some years ago, I did it because I believed in myself at that time to get out of the general 9-5 job working for someone else and making someone else's company money when I could take the hard road less travelled to build: Anu Design.
As someone with experience in the industry, what trends do you foresee shaping the future of creativity?
The development of AI driven automation and the programmable robotics, or as those of us who are Science Fiction fans would call Droids :) - in the construction and manufacturing industries and well as the food growth technologies will allow more people to not have to do factory work, enabling them to pursue their own creative talents. The rise AI videos and images recently has been a big influence on people using it for promotional advertising as well as AI generated geopolitical video shorts or Youtube learning models. This is opening up a whole new gateway to creative thinkers, designers, teachers and influencers. The future of creativity is only limited to ones own imagination, for the it is only through that pineal gland third eye or I that can create magic over it's own physical body-nation and outwards hence:
I-magi-nation.
What do you think sets apart truly exceptional creatives from the rest of the pack?
I believe there are no truly 'exceptional creatives' or 'the rest of the pack'. Why?
First off I highly recommend watching Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk on 'Do Schools Kill Creativity?' -
where he clearly says,
“...is that kids will take a chance. If they don't know, they'll have a go. Am I right? They're not frightened of being wrong. I don't mean to say that being wrong is the same thing as being creative, what we do know is, if you're not prepared to be wrong you'll never come up with anything original – if you're not prepared to be wrong, and by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong, and we run our companies like this, by the way, we stigmatize mistakes and we are now running national education systems where mistakes are are the worst thing you can make...and the result is that we are educating people out of their creative capacities. Picasso once said this, 'all children are born artists'. The problem is to remain an artist as we grow up. I believe this passionately that we don't grow into creativity, we grow out of it, or rather we get educated out of it.”
To create a question asking if there are 'exceptional creatives' and 'the rest of the pack' only goes to highlight the education system where there are less hours and attention given to students in the Arts, Music, Drama and Dance than there are in Science, History, Maths etc...
Yes we need well educated thinkers in those subjects, but the world doesn't revolve around just academia and left hemisphere brain thinking only. Everyone is unique and their talents
are there to be nurtured and can blossom, if given the right conditions and that they believe in their creative potential.
As well as creating some kind of invisible barriers between creative people that really don't exist, yet are there if you put them there. I believe there are a lot of people who have a lot of creativity and creative potential in their own way yet they haven't had enough time to delve into it because going freelance as an artist, musician or in any of the creative fields is not an easy path to take when they still have to keep up the day job or 9-5 until it works out.
But it is worth it for people who are passionate about their work and talent because now we live in a world with a digital revolution so anyone has the potential to create, paint, illustrate, story-write, 3D Model, design, brand, type, copy, paste, digitise, animate, film, compose, sing, dance....the list goes on and on, but only if they believe in themselves. All religions are based around the power of Belief and Belief systems, and I hold respect for individual religions as I follow my own path on that journey. So I will leave you with this quote from the Dead Sea Scrolls, or Gnostic Christ:
“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you."
How do you think technology has influenced the creative industries and how have you adapted to these changes?
When I was a young not sure yet about the world artist interested in drawing, painting and pottery, I grew up watching well known films such as A Grand Day Out, Antz, Star Wars IV and Star Trek. Those films alone go to show how technology has evolved rapidly by amazing creative engineers around the world that created technology needed for the global film industry. We used to watch Captain Kirk, Spok, Chekov and Dr McCoy talking to each other on Flip (phone) Communicators...then some of us actually got flip phones, so this just goes to show how the advancement of technology over the decades has helped to influence creative industries and design engineers.
Film isn't my speciality and I have a great amount of respect for people working in that field. I remember computer screens that were big white boxes with a bulb lens, blue screen and white text, so the advancement of technology over a few decades has rapidly helped to increase the creative works of people around the globe, thanks to being able to work on whatever high end laptop or PC of your choice with great advancement in software packages designed and tailored for creative minds to fuel their imaginations.
For myself, I changed laptops several times over the last 6 years to be able to do any Graphic Design work remotely, which I had the pleasure of doing so while I was supposed to be on holiday at a beach in Faro, Portugal in 2023, and upgraded PC with dual monitors for multi tasking or video editing.
In the not too distant future Science Fiction won't be just fiction any more, it's going to become a reality with the disclosure of over 6000 hidden patents through either Space Force or other Military Alliances along with high end AI technology and robotics companies that will bring a new world evolution where scarcity is no longer the acceptable framework for humanity, giving way to abundance for people to pursue their own unique individual interests and imaginative creative potential. How will we all adapt to these changes when there is more abundance and freedom of time?
Be like water, go with the flow of advancement and evolution in technology but don't be completely reliant on it, because we still need to remain grounded to go out enjoy and appreciate the natural world around us for that is where we are getting our influence of colour spectrum in reality, love of animals in nature along with Fibonacci linked details in sunflowers, ammonites, conch shells, brussel sprout stems, romanesco broccoli, cacti, ancient fern leaves and flowers etc...
What is the one thing that you would change about the industry?
A hard question to to ask, as I've been dedicated to working freelance and would be available to any client that will get in contact with me and for companies to get in contact with any freelancers out there because going at it alone is not easy. Everyone that has got to the top of their field has done very well, much respect to them. Yet there are still undiscovered talents around the world, such as the people in Nepal where there is a growing younger generation of creative minds that also have the same potential for creative and job growth success as someone who was born in London and got into Graphic Design or Motion Editing, Animation, Illustration, Branding, 3D Modelling etc.... Yet people out in Nepal don't have the same opportunities as people in the Western World.
If there was anything to say about change in the industry it is thus: Charitable Outsource. It's all well and good for major companies on the stock exchange to utilise creative minds for their branding, logo, design, architecture, 3D modelling and print with people who have come through industry level education systems, but there are many people out there who taught themselves online and it's a competitive market. I'd say, don't be shy if you're a CEO or Art Director etc... to look out for the individuals and freelancers around the world, because we all aspire to be great and have the potential to achieve successful projects that influence other people around the world through artwork, illustration, packaging design, logo design, video editing for promo ads etc...it's only by working together that we are able to create the fantastic world we live in.
Vincent Van Gogh struggled as an artist to sell his work, yet look at what he produced and now much admired around the world and his works are so sought after.
