A big family of my friends are used to all connecting and hanging out over the summer schedule of festivals. When the UK went into lockdown in March 2020, I was working with fellow Amateurism collective members Leo Walton, Rob Leggatt and Aymen Bensaad on a collaborative mix that we could release around the time Amateurism should have been DJing at The Beat Hotel festival in Morocco.
With all the year’s live music events cancelled, we wondered if we could do something with our mix beyond simply loading it up to a website for it to be streamed. Could we create a shared musical experience? I floated the idea of broadcasting it at a certain time via an online radio stream. Precisely one day after first discussing that idea, we launched Amateurism Radio – not just to air our collaborative 3-hour mix on a Friday night to be heard simultaneously in the kitchens of all our friends and family – but as a way to bring our musical taste and style of programming to our friends and family via our very own radio station.
I promptly designed an icon recasting the capital ‘A’ of Amateurism as a kind of radio tower complete with lightning bolts symbolising the radio signal. And from 30th March 2020, Amateurism Rado began broadcasting 24/7 – airing shows and mixes by the likes of David Holmes, Ashley Beedle, Jonny Trunk, Pete Wiggs, Keith Tenniswood and more.
Our thinking was that if we could spread joy and positivity to even a small number of people as we all hunkered in our respective bunkers – then running Amateurism Radio was totally worth it.
We’ve since wound down our radio stream due to all of us getting back to our jobs post-pandemic. However, there is an archive of well over 1,000 radio shows and DJ mixes to peruse on the Am-Rad Mixcloud feed, and we’re still sharing music with our listeners: currently, we are ‘releasing’ two-hour Spotify playlists every few weeks, compiled by our regular musical collaborators and contributors – and the occasional special guest!
In 2011, I started blogging about the burgers I was discovering under the guise of Burgerac, a burger detective hot on the trail of the finest burger in London and beyond.
The blog was soon being recommended by The Guide (The Guardian), mentioned in The Sunday Times’ Style magazine – and even name-checked in print by the likes of the Evening Standard’s restaurant critic Fay Maschler.
Writing the blog has given me opportunity to meet amazing, inspirational chefs and restaurateurs, eat awesome food and do all kinds of crazy burger-themed stuff – like working with artists to create original burger-themed accessories and homewares; judging nationwide burger contests; hosting a burger-pop up food and art event in London (in collaboration with BurgerMonday / Young & Foodish) and subsequently taking the Burgermat Show concept to Cape Town and Dublin; publishing a burger art and recipe book commemorating the Burgermat Show with Nobrow; and creating my own iPhone app (Burgerapp) that enabled users to find my pick of London’s best burgers.
More recently I collaborated with Golden Age Public Houses to transfrom my blog brand into an actual eatery: we created Burgerac's Burgershack, a kitchen pop up brand that resided at both The Royal Oak pub in Marylebone and legendary central London music venue and bar, The Social.
The Burgermat Show was a group exhibition and food pop-up that I cooked up in collaboration with Daniel Young of Young & Foodish.
For the two-night only ticketed event on 27 and 28 June 2011, I invited 24 illustrators to create original burger-themed artworks to be displayed as high quality signed paper placemats all set on tables upon which attendees were served an amazing burger cooked up by chef Fred Smith specially for the occasion.
For more images of The Burgermat Show event, check out Facebook and also Flickr.
As well as the original London event, The Burgermat Show also popped up for one night only at The Royale Eatery in Cape Town, South Africa, and also in The Damson Diner in Dublin. The Royale Eatery still features the “Burgerac” burger on its menu that I designed in collaboration with them specially for the event.
Photography by Leo Cackett.
Project Logo by Crispin Finn.
Created in collaboration with app publisher Blue Crow Media, I designed and launched my very own iPhone app, Burgerapp. The idea for the app was simple: to allow users to easily find the best places to get a burger in London by perusing my personal selection of tried, tested and rated restaurants and burger joints.
You can view restaurants by rating or browse them alphabetically, or simply see at a glance which burger destinations are nearest to your current location and read about them, gleaning crucial need-to-know info about each place to help you decide which one you’d like to head to.
The app also featured regular in-app tips and burger related news to help guide users to the best of London’s burgers.
Burgerapp was available fromApple’s App Store from 2012-2016.
WHAT THE PRESS SAID
“The battle among foodies to be the first to discover a brilliant new burger is hotting up. Now there's an app for that.” The Independent
“Finding a slammin' burger in London just got easier with Burgerapp— an iPhone app that geographically organizes the burgers featured on the popular blog Burgerac. Filled with tips, photos and reviews, the app is a useful tool for adventurous burger fans and tourists alike.” Cool Hunting
“Burgerapp has all the info you could ever want for hunting down a burger: appetising pictures and where to find the best near you, plus latest news from the London burger scene. When you get home you can check the tips on how to make what you just ate.” Evening Standard
“Any hunt for a London burger should start here. The app's reviews of more than 50 restaurants and burger stands come from renowned blogger Burgerac. Look out for the Craft Beer London and LondonCoffee apps from the same developer.” The Telegraph
“Make sure you're never too far from a great burger with this app that tells you where London's best are. There's a map, plus tips and recipes for both burgers and their condiments.” Jamie
“For the truly burger-obsessed, London blogger and self-styled 'burger detective' Burgerac has produced a burger iPhone app, telling you the best burger near your location.” The Week
“Going Up.” Sunday Times Magazine
“App of the week.” Shortlist
“A burger lover's dream.” Grazia
Another Burgerac + Rob Flowers project that I conceived and produced. We took three of Rob’s illustrated Burgershack characters and turned them into high quality, limited edition enamel pin badges. This involved lovingly art-working the illustrations specially for the format and then working with a specialist manufacturer to produce the pins. I also sourced and worked with other suppliers to create the packaging solutions – for the individual badges and also a rather splendid boxed set of all three.
All the pins were made available through my Burgerac website. The burger pin sold out on National Burger Day 2017!
Shortly after meeting illustrator Rob Flowers, we worked together to produce a limited edition made-in-the-UK melamine tray featuring the maccy dees inspired artwork that Rob originally created for my Burgermat Show project. The trays were available to buy for a limited period.
Working in cahoots with illustrator Rob Flowers, I art directed and produced this show of illustrations commissioned for my Burgerac’s Burgershack brand.
The show ran at legendary central London music venue and bar, The Social through September and October 2016 and all the artworks were printed as foamex-mounted cut outs that appeared to hover an inch away from the wall.
As well as art on the walls, Rob and I worked together to produce a series of limited edition, high quality products to launch during the show – namely three different enamel pin badge designs and a two-colour screenprinted T-shirt. These were available to buy at a launch event.