Space To Be
Ellie Chapman
Ellie Chapman has had a transformative journey from interior design student to founder of visualisation agency Lim, which supports businesses to bring their ideas to life. Now, Ellie shares her passion for breaking down creative barriers and her appreciation for the profound importance of space in communication, while letting us glimpse into a world without boundaries and full of possibilities.
Interview by Jane Imrie
Photographs by Christopher Owens
Illustrations by Lim visualiser, Phoebe Robinson
Styled by Rachel Cornick CLOAN
From just a few minutes speaking with Ellie Chapman, her natural flair for visualisation is undeniably apparent - and she is more than ready to take us on that journey with her.
With her words alone, Ellie transports me within moments of our call to the meandering cliffside roads of Santorini, to the point where one can almost feel the breeze and see the Mediterranean sun glinting off the bonnet of the convertible in which she headed to meet with her first international client, nearly a decade ago.
As founder of creative visualisation agency Lim, Ellie is ideally placed to use her almost magical powers of evocation to bring out the often-untapped creativity in brands and businesses, helping them to create and communicate new ideas in a visual way.
“There was a gap between actually having this creativity and then knowing what to do with it.”
Ellie’s passion for inspiring and optimal spaces has been with her from the very beginning of her career. While studying interior design at Northumbria University, Ellie toyed with the idea of becoming a location scout, but felt that viable career options where she could get truly creative were somewhat limited: “There was a gap between actually having this creativity and then knowing what to do with it.”
For the next seven years, Ellie travelled the world as a freelancer, working with global brands to capture their ideas visually. Collaborating on a wide range of projects across very disparate sectors, Ellie discovered a love of variety that would eventually lead her into agency life. “Some days you could be working with aeroplanes, other days it was ice cream, some days it was trainers, some days it was healthcare. It was so mixed and exciting.”
In November 2022, with an abundance of diverse experiences under her belt, Ellie founded Lim. In tandem with facilitation experts TFP under the umbrella of The Facilitation Partnership Limited, Lim offers a range of services to clients across the globe including live-scribing, creation of visual playbooks, projects and facilitation support.
A method of communication pioneered by visual facilitation expert David Sibbet (“He's like the grandfather of our world!” Ellie says with a warm smile, conjuring a notion of some wise mythical figure with ink pens for fingers and doodles for dreams), live-scribing - also known as graphic recording or live visuals - is a method of translating conversations into text and images on large sheets of paper during meetings and events.
“The way that we can work visually with groups really inspires me,” Ellie enthuses, “We work quickly because if we don't get an idea down, it evaporates - we lose all that richness and content.”
As remarkably skilled as Ellie is at conjuring images with her words, she also very much understands the importance of enabling individuals to bring their raw and unfiltered ideas to the table, ensuring that her team holds - rather than occupies - space for participants to express themselves fully. “When live-scribing you don't change the words, you don't bring in your own metaphors - it's all the group's work.”
For live-scribing to be truly successful within a group setting, progress definitely triumphs over perfection in Ellie’s opinion. For this reason, Lim encourages teams to shake off the notion of designating visual work to some jointly-appointed ‘artist of the group’ as though back in school, in favour of encouraging everyone to explore their own creativity to meet a shared goal: “For successful sessions, it becomes less about how the visuals look and more about why you are doing it, the purpose of it and getting to the outcome.”
It is the unrestricted freedom of live-scribing that enables people to go beyond their default mindsets and tap into new creative and bold ideas. “I believe this way of working helps everybody no matter who you are. There are labels everywhere, and while some might be helpful, others might be restrictive,” Ellie says, “Labels can mean that people step into the stereotype of how they need to be, how they need to show up in front of their peers, how they need to show up for themselves. The label might be ‘I'm a CEO, and therefore I don't work visually’. I'm all about removing the labels and just doing really great work together to help everybody feel heard.”
“ There needs to be the right balance of information. You don't overwhelm people with stuff, you need to give that breathing space.”
Ellie extends this inclusive vision to her own team, explaining: “You don't have to be the most perfect illustrator to be a really good graphic recorder. You need to be able to listen really well, you need to be able to ask questions and be curious, you need to want to learn and grow, you've got to be able to be agile and think on your feet. If you can draw, that’s a bonus, but there's so many other things that happen to go alongside being a really good visualiser.”
In addition to rewarding genuine curiosity, Ellie is passionate about supporting the best talent wherever it happens to be, including in her home region: “We've got brilliant talent in the North East. We know that we can train people and give them a space to learn and grow.” Her love of the North East can even be felt in her photoshoot, where she effortlessly models a trio of vibrant dresses loaned to her by local sustainable clothing hire business Cloan Rental. “Can we just enjoy supporting local businesses and amazing and creative people?” she asks - and I have to agree.
The old adage of ‘what good looks like’ is often tossed around to the point of banality within the corporate world, but for a visual person like Ellie, good communication does have a certain look, in a very literal sense. “It needs to tell a story that needs to be connected. It needs to be easy to follow. You need to be able to pick something up and understand it without having it explained to you. There needs to be the right balance of information. You don't overwhelm people with stuff, you need to give that breathing space.”
“When running or cycling outdoors, I don't listen to any music. I listen to the birds, look at the flowers and the trees and take it all in, all the colours and the light.”
I have realised that space, and not endless content, is ultimately the name of the game for Ellie. She puts it bluntly but perfectly: “You can't just be ramming content and words and pictures at people - space matters.”
“People spend so much money on doing up their offices to make the space collaborative, yet there's not a single flat wall to stick any paper to,” she laments, “When I see a whopping great board table in the middle of the room I think: how on earth are you going to get people moving around the room, collaborating, talking to each other? People need negative space; space to breathe, space to focus.”
This discernment and appreciation of the power of the immediate environment seems to run throughout all aspects of Ellie’s career and life. When she’s not travelling around the world to connect with clients, she’s training with the GB Age Group Team to compete in Europe and Australia. Even when she’s at home, her motivation and creativity is fed by engagement with her surroundings: “When running or cycling outdoors, I don't listen to any music. I listen to the birds, look at the flowers and the trees and take it all in, all the colours and the light.”
Of the many wonderful journeys she has made throughout her career, it strikes me that the journey into the future is the one that excites Ellie the most, and I get the feeling she is itching to embrace the unknown: “I can’t wait to see what’s possible - to see where this curiosity and this passion takes us,” she grins, and in her smile I can see a world of possibilities open up before her.