A passion for the unusual

How it began

It all began with stamp collecting. As a boy, every Saturday morning after my paper round I’d hop on my bike and whizz round to the Numisery Stamp and Coin Shop, a tiny half basement shop in Reading. It’s long gone now, but back then the place was like a treasure trove of stuff, I loved hunting for stamps in there. Each one had a story, I was constantly on the lookout for stamps with errors, or flaws like the 1965 Post Office Tower Set with the tower missing; this became the Holy Grail for me. 

Surface View is all about that magic of searching and finding, and for me, hunting down new and unusual image collections is a thrill on a par with those Saturday mornings of my youth. The Surface View collection began at the wonderful Sanders of Oxford where I spent many hours searching through their vintage etchings and prints. It dawned on me that I could collect images like I used to collect stamps, and use our state-of-the-art print technology to create unique interior products based on these wonderful pictures. I really do think there’s something special about creating a bespoke Surface View for your home, and I hope you’re as thrilled as we are by our fascinating images and the amazing things you can do with them. Happy hunting.

- Michael Ayerst

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