The character arc of Yinka Ilori
A life drawn by Character Arc from the public record
Born in London in April 1987 to Nigerian parents, his father a store manager and his mother an events caterer, and raised on Essex Road in Islington. Between then and now sit childhood visits to Nigeria, the parables his parents told him, a degree in furniture and product design from 2006 to 2009, an internship with a furniture designer, a grant of three thousand five hundred pounds from a charity, a practice begun in 2011 out of second hand furniture, a job at a chain store that later hired him to design its products, a studio founded in 2015, a railway underpass and a pavilion and a playground, an MBE in 2021, and a hundred of his projects shown in a museum in 2022. The line below draws the story so far, in order.
Drag along the line to move, pinch or use the buttons to look closer. Tap the line to pluck it, or any mark for its card. Drawn from the public record of his life; the sources are at the foot of the page.
Who is Yinka Ilori?
He started with broken chairs. The museum took a hundred projects.
He grew up in a multicultural neighbourhood on Essex Road in Islington and went to the church primary school there. His father was a store manager for a hardware chain and his mother worked as an events caterer. What he remembers is the outfits worn by his parents' friends and family at house parties when he was little, all that colour in a front room. Visiting Nigeria as a child mattered too, and helped him understand where his family had come from.
He studied art and design at London Metropolitan University from 2006 to 2009, focusing on furniture and product design, and after the degree worked as an intern for a furniture designer. His first solo work was supported by a grant of three thousand five hundred pounds from a charity for young people. He began his professional practice in 2011 by upcycling second hand furniture, taking the colour and the patterns from West African textiles. Early on he also worked at a chain store in Moorgate. The same company later hired him to design products for it, including a recyclable carrier bag.
The Nigerian parables his parents told him became the source of the work. In 2013 one of them, that no matter how long the neck of a giraffe is it still cannot see the future, turned into a set of five chairs, broken and cast off furniture remade as bright abstract objects, to share the lesson of the story, which is that we should not be judgemental. His first solo show that year was called It Started With a Parable.
He founded his studio in 2015, and as it grew to include architects he could take on buildings and whole spaces. He painted a railway underpass at Nine Elms in bright murals and called it Happy Street. He built a temporary pavilion at a London gallery called The Colour Palace. He made a skate park in Lille, a launderette out of Lego, a zebra crossing on Tottenham Court Road, a playground in East London called The Flamboyance of Flamingos, and Canary Wharf's first basketball court. He has worked for a hospital trust, and for a long list of companies.
He launched a homewares brand of his own in 2020 and took a medal for emerging design the same year. He designed the trophies for a music awards ceremony in 2021 with another British designer, and was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire for services to design that year. In 2022 a London museum staged an exhibition of a hundred of his projects. His work is held in a New York museum's Afrofuturist period room, he took an honorary doctorate in July 2024, launched a clothing collection with an outdoor brand the same year, and was appointed a Royal Designer for Industry in 2025.
The moments
Yinka Ilori's timeline.
The 1980s
Born in London
Everyday. A British Nigerian household in Islington, and a lot of colour in it.
The 1990s
House parties, and Nigeria
Everyday, and it changed his direction. The palette he still uses, learned in a front room.
The 2000s
Furniture design at university
Milestone, and it changed his direction. Three years learning how a chair is actually made.
The 2010s
An internship and a grant
Milestone, and it changed everything. Three thousand five hundred pounds, and that was the whole budget.
A design job, or the broken chairs
Crossroads, decided.
The paths laid out: practice, on a small grant, taken, or a salaried design job. He founded his own studio in 2015, was made MBE for services to design in 2021, and in 2022 the Design Museum showed a hundred of his projects.
A practice out of cast offs
Milestone, and it changed everything. Other people's broken chairs, and a job on the shop floor.
The giraffe parable chairs
Milestone, and it changed everything. The story his parents told him, made into something to sit on.
He founds the studio
Milestone, and it changed everything. From a man with a paintbrush to a practice with architects in it.
Happy Street and a pavilion
Milestone, and it changed everything. A railway underpass, which nobody had thought worth painting.
The 2020s
A brand and a medal
Milestone, and it changed his direction. His own products, made and sold under his own name.
An MBE for design
Milestone, and it changed everything. Ten years after the first chair.
A hundred projects, one room
Milestone, and it changed everything. The museum counted them up: a hundred.
A doctorate and a jacket
Milestone, and it changed his direction. A doctorate, and a rain jacket in his patterns.
Royal Designer for Industry
Milestone, and it changed everything. The title British design gives to about two hundred living people.
He turned the parables his parents told him at bedtime into furniture, and then into buildings. What he set moving is public space that is allowed to be bright: an underpass, a crossing, a playground, a basketball court, all of them free to walk through and none of them apologising for the colour.
In his words
Quotes by Yinka Ilori
I use colour as a way of starting a conversation.
It's quite a nice way of opening up a topic and softening what could be a harsh reality.
My work is very much about inclusivity and how people enjoy design.
What he wrote
Books by Yinka Ilori
- 2021
Pricegore and Yinka Ilori: Dulwich Pavilion
The book of The Colour Palace, the temporary pavilion he built at Dulwich Picture Gallery with the architects Pricegore. Written with several hands, his among them.
Your turn
Every line draws a unique story.
His is a small grant, a pile of other people's broken chairs, and a museum show of a hundred projects. Yours is already further along than you think, and drawing it takes about five minutes.
Yinka Ilori: frequently asked questions
What people ask about his line.
What is Yinka Ilori's character arc?
What is Yinka Ilori known for?
How did Yinka Ilori start out?
What are the parables in Yinka Ilori's work?
What honours has Yinka Ilori received?
Where did Yinka Ilori study?
Where does this timeline of Yinka Ilori's life come from?
More character arcs
Lives that rhyme with his.
Sources
- Yinka Ilori, English Wikipedia biography.
- The 2021 New Year Honours list, for the MBE.
- Design Museum exhibition record, Yinka Ilori: Parables for Happiness, London, 2022.
- Royal Society of Arts, Royal Designers for Industry appointments, 2025.
- No Wikiquote page exists for him, so the quotations below are taken from the record above.
- Ilori, on his practice.
- Ilori, on his practice, continuing.
- Ilori, quoted in The Guardian.