BBC IDM winner John Cooper's exclusive collection launches with John Lewis

As winner of the series, John also won a prize to collaborate with us on a homeware collection which launches today. Here, we sat down with him to talk about his wild ride. 

Tell us about yourself. Have you always been in the world of interior design and if not how did you get into it?

No, I'm a secondary school teacher and have been for over 19 years. I teach design and technology and art and have always been creative. Growing up my home life was creative, my mum was obsessed with Changing Rooms so I grew up watching that, she was perpetually decorating the house and we were around that all the time. I was encouraged to be imaginative and creative and that took me to art school. 

How did you become involved in the show? 

I’ve always been really interested in interior design and the one bit of my life as a teacher that I miss is being creative myself. As we moved through various houses, renovating and decorating them became my outlet. My wife introduced me to the show and I’d sit there criticising what people were doing when she said, "if you think you could do better you should apply to go on it."  So I did! I used my house as my portfolio of work and it all snowballed from there.

Would you say you have a style of design?

I think there’s lots of things that have fed into my design. Certainly on the show they recognised the graphic element to my designs and that is probably down to teaching. I taught graphics for quite a few years so that has probably filtered in there somehow.  I quite like relaxed and bohemian interiors with texture. I like grand interiors but I like them to be relaxed as well. 

The prize is working with JL and developing a collection with us. What’s the first thing you ever bought from John Lewis?

In the first house we bought together we went to John Lewis to buy our furniture. It was the G-plan vintage fifty four sofa and chairs and we picked the fabric and the colour. It was a big deal to us.

Why is it a good synergy to work with John Lewis and create a collaboration?

The opportunity to work with John Lewis is just massive because of your reach and reputation. It’s a household name and to be able to do a collaboration is incredible. It’s such brilliant exposure and I can’t think of a better way for me to be seen and viewed as a designer than to collaborate with John Lewis. It has been a rollercoaster ride - just astonishing. 

Do you have a favourite piece from your collection?

I like the redesign on the colour scheme on the Elliot lamp. The throw is just gorgeous, it's so sumptuous and well made and I love the details of the colour thread running through it. I also really like the tote bag. I originally designed it as an art work and it didn't get used so am really pleased that it worked for the bag. 

For people looking for inspiration for how to redesign a room or a whole home, what piece of advice is worth knowing?  

When you're starting I'd suggest creating a mood board and looking for common ground between the images. Is there a theme or a motif or a colour that connects all the images on your mood board? From there I pull out a colour palette which I restrain to about three colours. Then I like to find one hero piece that you can put in there. It can either be the centre of what you base the whole room on or it can just be something you love and want in that space.

Also don’t be afraid to paint things. You can always paint over it! Go ahead and make lots of mistakes because you can always undo them and you’ll learn along from them - that’s the teacher in me! 

What does the rest of the year look like for you?

It’s going to be an amazing year. I’m going to step away from teaching in the short term and am setting up a business as an interior designer. I am lining up jobs so I’m ready to hit the road running. I'm also really excited about this collaboration with yourselves and hope it does well.