Translating DNA into Creativity
How designer Iona Inglesby makes human genetics accessible to the masses.
Iona Inglesby has never been one for tidy labels. Like many designers, she spent her childhood sketching and doodling her surroundings, which, in rural England, meant a lot of foliage and wildlife. At the same time, she nursed a deep love of biology and all things science. “I come from a medical family,” she says.
That Venn diagram of interests has paid off for Inglesby, who now runs Dot One, a company that turns genetic data into colorfully patterned textiles. The pieces Inglesby creates — be it a scarf, blanket, or tote — read like abstracted maps of the human genome, with each line of color representing a piece of genetic code that makes a person unique.
Inglesby came up with the idea while finishing her master’s degree at the Royal College of Art, in London. For her thesis project, she made a family tartan that used pieces of DNA to inform the fabric’s pattern. This was in 2015, at the beginning of the consumer DNA testing boom when genetics were an abstract subject for many people. Inglesby’s approach made the topic accessible and beautiful.
To Inglesby’s surprise, Dot One took off soon after graduation, and today she’s partnering with companies like 23andMe and Helix to bring her personalized DNA designs to people all over the world. Here, we talk to Inglesby about the challenges of straddling two vastly different worlds, what happens when you accidentally start a business, and how indulging your curiosity can lead to the best ideas.
The jack-of-all-trades trade-off
I’m a bit of a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to design. I just love all of it. I tried my hand at so many different facets of it throughout my education. In some ways, it’s difficult because it was always really hard to make a decision around what I wanted to be when I grew up. I always felt slightly underqualified in everything. But in reality, I actually had quite a good level of skill in a bunch of different things. That becomes really beneficial when you’re a startup and you have no money. It meant I could do so much on my own that I would’ve had to pay people for. I could design the website and do the photography, edit the videos and do the drawings and illustrations for the communications on social. It’s really handy to have acquired so many different design skills. But then I often feel like it means I’m not excellent at anything. So it’s one of those things where you have to accept the trade-off.
Finding codes in everything
While getting my product design master’s, we were doing a project with the Scottish weaving company on this tiny island, Bute — one of the oldest wool weaving places still left Europe. I went out there on a college trip, and I really loved looking at all of the weaving machines. They used this punch-card system, which is exactly the sort of binary system used in older communications machines. I liked this idea that they were creating a coded language, but this one was producing textiles. At the same time, I was doing a synthetic biology course at Imperial, which is a science university affiliated with my arts school (the Royal College of Art). I started learning about DNA and how we’re all coded entities. I started thinking about how it was this kind of transferable code where you could program one person’s code into a different material.
Indulge your curiosity
Be interested in everything. Ask loads of questions. I pretty much taught myself genetics over a year and a half. I’d sign up for every single conference and talk that I could in Cambridge and in London, and at first, I used to go and sit there and not understanding anything and feel like an idiot. I was really worried that people would ask me like what do I do, and I wouldn’t be doing a Ph.D. or something. Then after going for a few months, I’d suddenly start hearing the same stuff over and over again, and after about a year, I’d go to big conferences and understand everything people were saying and be able to contribute properly in conversations and not feel like such an imposter.
Bridging the gap
Scientists aren’t used to working with designers — I feel like they think you’re a bit crazy at the start. But I ended up so surprised at how excited the scientists were when I’d show them the designs that I was making. I was using data that they see every day in a certain format, and they had never seen it represented in the way that I had done it. To see that kind of feedback of excitement from these people who deal with this sort stuff all the time but never thought about looking at it in a different way or color-coding it or visualizing it was actually really exciting.
Make science personal
Something like numbers and data can be quite cold and alien to us. Whereas storytelling has been something which outdates everything. It’s going to human skill instead of a human interest since the beginning of time. So I think adding a human narrative to figures is just such a natural thing to do; people really warm to that. Also just applying those figures to them helps. Everyone is a bit egotistical — people want to know how the data affects them directly.
Find the right space
I cannot work at home. That’s my one rule. I have to really separate myself from my home life. I know that some people can work really well at home, but I can’t. I love sitting in cafés, because even though I’m not talking to people, I like being around busyness. I find that I can focus really well when other people seem busy around me.
Make first, worry later
Growing up, I never thought I’d run a business. I think I always had dreams of being a crazy inventor, but in an old-school style. Maybe being an entrepreneur these days is the evolution of an old-fashioned inventor. [With Dot One,] I launched kind of prematurely, without any real products. I just photoshopped loads of stuff and people ordered them, and I realized, Now I have to actually make them. If it feels right and people are excited about what you’re doing and approaching you about it, you kinda just have to go for it. You have nothing to lose. The whole time when I was starting out, I just kept thinking, The worst thing that can possibly happen is that it won’t work, and then I’ll just get a job like I would have done anyway.
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