Ufuoma Urie
Title
Honorary Doctor
Person Type
Honorary
Ufuoma Urie is a London-based artist, illustrator, designer and creative entrepreneur. She studied Foundation Art and Design at Central Saint Martins and graduated with a BA in Fine Art Media from Chelsea School of Art, before founding Shaven Raven Designs. The stationery and illustration brand is now stocked by major retailers and cultural institutions including Tesco, the Museum of the Home, the Migration Museum, Queer Britain, Cambridge Museum of Zoology, not just a shop and The Common Press.
Her career spans over 15 years across graphic design, illustration, branding and storytelling. She first gained recognition as the creator of the cult art toy line Little Apple Dolls, an internationally distributed project combining sculpture and narrative. The work was stocked by retailers including Hamleys, Forbidden Planet and Hot Topic, and featured in media including BBC3, MTV, The Face and the Evening Standard. She was invited to meet audiences and sign her work at events including San Diego Comic-Con and at Forbidden Planet in Manchester.
She also works as a freelance designer for Marbles Effective, a consultancy integrating community engagement, social justice and intersectional feminism into its practice. Through this role, she has contributed to major civic and community-led projects, including work on the Mayor of London's Creative Enterprise Zone Archway, delivering branding, communications and digital infrastructure to support local businesses and community networks.