Tom Abbiss Smith: how I spend a proper night in

The illustrator on veggie dinners and the best Netflix series

Illustrator Tom Abbiss Smith — who designed the Sour Cream & Black Pepper flavour Propercorn packets — tells us all about his ideal night in…

How does a night in look for you?

I live in a house in Norwich with my girlfriend and our cat Lemon. My studio is in the house, so I’m often in all day. She is also an illustrator, but works part time in retail, so when she gets home we usually cook something together, which is great.

What’s cooking — and what’s on your stereo?

My girlfriend is vegetarian and a great cook, so we will be chopping veg, and quite often just improvising a dish. Our favourite is a meat-free lasagne. We’ll be listening to jazz, soul, funkand hip-hop. When I’m not creating art, I like making music — putting together beats and samples — so I’ll quite often do that on a night in, too.

What are you drinking?

Sometimes wine, other times beer, but if we’re having a quiet one, just juice. We sometimes have friends around, although a lot of them are students who operate on weird hours.

What do you watch on the TV?

We watch a lot! We get really cosy. I’ll get some candles on, get the duvet out and get on the sofa. We try to persuade Lemon to settle down with us, but she often goes off to her ownplace. We both love comic book art, so we end up watching animated stuff. There’s plenty of great series on Netflix, such as Hilda, Trollhunters and Steven Universe. A lot of the kids’ stuff,such as Adventure Time, is brilliant. We like the Studio Ghibli films, and Nine is a fantastic movie, too.

Can you switch off from work?

To be honest, I’m really bad at it. As an artist there can be very little structure to your day. I have clients in Australia and the US, and I’ll quite often get an email in the evening that I have to deal with. It makes it a bit tricky to switch off, but I do try.

What's your favourite Propercorn flavour?

I love the Sweet & Salty — although they’re all pretty good!

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