Artist / Sculptor / Designer / Soldier / Lover

By Jamie Ibbett • October 2026

Raised in a small fishing town of Great Grimsby on the East coast of England, I was fortunate to have an aunt that was a cleaner at the local art college that convinced the evening instructor to evaluate if I may attend the adult full-time foundation course. Learning to make oil paints, acid-etching prints, life drawing, and sculpting, I had a blast.

At 17, I arrived in Canada in 1991, where I would pursue industrial design at the then Ontario College of Art. Graduating with a scholarship and an acceptance letter to the brand-new Swedish Masters course in Umeå, where I graduated as the first person in Sweden to earn a master’s degree in transportation design.

I embarked on a design career that would be bolstered by jobs that ranged from R&D facilities to junk removal, to a Canadian reserve infantry commander, to a full-time father of twin boys contracted to help design and sculpt into reality the 2025 Ford GT MKIV.

Today I am an article-writing gardener, preparing for a 6th birthday party celebration in the rural setting of Trent Hills.

At this time of writing, the Ferrari Luce has seemingly divided the automotive and product design social media communities into three categories. The first being the highly emotional and horrified subjective traditionalists, and the passionate advocates of the EV ICE engine replacement, both polarized and frantically asserting their rationale. With a whisper from a thoughtful, objective element that thrives on a philosophical approach and would like to understand the design thinking that went into its bold statement before passing judgment.

As a person who aside from caring greatly for the world our children inherit, I also absolutely love the process of finding root problems. I am of a firm belief in a world where our creations may both outlast us and make a massive impact on the planet both practically and socially, that we take seriously the impact we may have when designing anything.

I asked many years ago now my undergraduate design instructor Helen Kerr of KerrSmith Design “what is the biggest barrier for a new graduate to getting hired at your firm?” her answer was immediate “ego”. It took for me to embark on a military leadership training program to fully understand why. Unfortunately, it was in this setting that I came to experience for the first time just how possible it is for a diverse group of people with mixed ancestral heritage, socio-economic standing, and personality to work together efficiently and effectively.

Never once did as I stand up and say “ok everyone kit up” after hours of sitting listening to heated debates from the front of the coach, feel that a single person would not treat the other as a brother or sister in a professional context. I say unfortunately as I am an artist and a lover with soldiers’ blood and as such, I want to create and that is a setting were “close with and destroy” is the official adage.

An open mind that can see they are not infallible and view information as just that will be able to retain a clear, objective, compassionate and considerate mindset. To be able to flag an emotional response and observe it will give one a much broader field of view. To be able to remove the emotion and digest two very polarized positions will give the creative mind a chance to see that last and third option of a more objective vs subjective position.

Leadership is a lonely place.