freyja-dean | Book Bench

I made my book bench for the National Literacy Trust’s ‘Books About Town’ project. The campaign was raising money for their charity supporting children’s literacy in collaboration with Wild in Art.

I was asked by the Fleming estate to illustrate the bench representing Ian Fleming’s James Bond books. I was initially concerned about how dramatically out of my comfort zone I was (cars, guns, women as opposed to plants, animals and anatomy) but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed getting into the world of James Bond. There is a joie de vivre that is very infectious in reading the books and after several false starts I realized I should approach the design as Bond lived his life- don’t over think it, revel in some luxury and being bold doesn’t negate cheekiness.

The benches are all based on English (and particularly London based) authors and stories, all of which were be dotted around London throughout July 2015. After this they were auctioned to raise money for the NLT. They were all painted by different artists and I’m personally going to be hunting down the Ralph Steadman Alice in Wonderland bench!

My BookBench was in Bloomsbury Square, Holborn.

I'm very proud to say that at the Sotheby's auction of our 52 Book Benches, we raised over £250,000. I'm even prouder to say my Book Bench raised £9,000. I'd love to know where it is now, if anyone does know, please email me, and thank you kind bidders, it was a wonderful cause.