It’s what’s on the inside that counts – and it was up to Paul Symes to indicate that at Fortnum & Mason for twelve years. Following visual communications roles at Selfridges and Jigsaw, Symes spent over a decade as the Head of Visual Presentation at the luxury department store that’s home to London’s finest foods and homewares.

Since moving on from his post in 2018, Symes has turned his hand to coding and recently embarked on a new venture running his own creative consultancy. Here, he talks to CR about how to get started in the world of window dressing, learning from other people’s mistakes, and the importance of thinking outside the box in the digital age.