If you've landed on this website, you've found the doodling side of me. But there's a whole other side too, and honestly, the two are more connected than they might look.
My name is Anja. I'm based in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, and I run two creative businesses. By day I'm a graphic designer and brand designer at Notch Media. By night (and most weekends, let's be honest) I'm illustrating enamel pins, washi tape, stickers and now children's books under Anja Richards Art.
Here's how both came to exist.
It Started With My Grandad
Everything creative in my life traces back to the same person: my grandad, Graham Chambers.
Graham is a professional artist. For years he ran an art studio, and every Saturday as a child I'd sit and paint watercolours while he taught his class. He was the first person who showed me that you could build a creative life for yourself — he sold his paintings and greeting cards at markets and shows. I never forgot that.
He also, years later, handed me a hand-written and sketched children's book and asked if I fancied turning it into something. But that's a story for another blog post.
Oil painting by Graham Chambers
The Illustration Side
Long before Notch Media existed, I was doodling. Characters, creatures, ocean animals, woodland scenes, whatever was in my head at the time.
Over the last few years that doodling turned into ten Kickstarter campaigns, six enamel pin collections, washi tape, stickers, greeting cards, tote bags and a whole lot of very happy pin collectors. The Siren Spirits mermaid collection, The Reader romantasy collection, the Woodland collection, each one started as a sketch and became something people could hold and wear and stick on their laptops.
I'm based in Scarborough and I have stockists across Yorkshire too, which means you can sometimes find my work in local independent shops rather than just online.
The Design Side
A few years into running the illustration business, I needed to rebrand it. I went looking for a designer whose work I loved at a price I could actually afford. I couldn't find one.
Anja Richards Art logo before the rebrand (eek)
Anja Richards Art packaging/enamel pin cards before.
So I taught myself.
No design degree. No formal training. Just a creative background (I studied fashion and costume design), a lot of hours, and a stubbornness that's served me well.
That decision became Notch Media, which I launched in September 2023. In under two years it's become an award-winning brand design studio — Best Graphic Design Business at the UK Small Business Awards 2025, a Theo Paphitis SBS Winner, and a Start Up Strive Award winner. I've designed over 25 brand identities and built around 16 websites for small businesses across Yorkshire and beyond.
The thing people find most surprising is that I taught myself rather then having a design or illustration degree.
Why Both
People sometimes ask why I run two separate businesses instead of combining everything under one name. The honest answer is that they serve different people and different needs, Notch Media is for small business owners who need branding and design, Anja Richards Art is for people who want something beautiful and illustrated to keep for themselves.
But they come from the same place. The same love of making things, the same eye for colour and detail, and the same grandad who sat me down with a paintbrush before I was old enough to know what I was doing.
I've lived in Scarborough for nearly ten years now and I'm not going anywhere. If you want to find me I'm usually in a coffee shop with too many browser tabs open, or at my desk at an unreasonable hour finishing an illustration.
Both are very on brand.
Want to know more about the design side? Visit notchmedia.co.uk. Want to shop the illustration side? You're already in the right place.
