12th Jun 2026

Celebrating 20 Years at Blueprint: Chloe Sproston

Chloe Sproston, our Creative Director, recently celebrated 20 years with Blueprint Interiors.

From joining as a graduate designer to now owning half of the business, Chloe has been with Blueprint as the business has grown, reshaped and evolved through major changes in the world of work.

Here, she reflects on her time with the business, the projects that have stayed with her and what she’s most excited about in the next chapter.

How did you join Blueprint?

Blueprint was my first design job out of university. After I graduated with a degree in interior design, I applied for an admin role at Blueprint, hoping to get any role in the industry and progress from there.

Rob, Blueprint’s founder, phoned me after I’d sent in my CV and said they actually needed a designer. So I went for an interview, he offered me the job and that was that!

Twenty years later, and a lot has changed in terms of what the business does and what we’ve been able to build together. It’s been great to be a part of it all.

What first made you interested in design?

My mum was a graphic designer, so I was always immersed in that kind of world. There were scalpels everywhere, spray mount, bits of paper, all the fun stuff you could make things with.

When it came to thinking about further education, I knew I wanted to study for a creative industry. I had an interest in interiors, and the courses really appealed to me – solving spaces and thinking about the experience that could be created was exciting.

I also had the benefit of studying psychology at A-Level, so this was a good opportunity to blend the people and design bit. Workplace design was the perfect mix of both.

How has your role changed over the years?

When I started, I worked on designs while Rob would speak to clients. As we grew as a design team, I moved into a manager role and started taking on more client responsibility and leading them through the process.

In more recent years, I’ve focused more on the workplace strategy side. I’ve spent time understanding what a business is trying to achieve and making sure the whole team is behind that.

The world of work has changed so much in that time too. COVID was a huge shift, and businesses spent years wrestling with what that meant, how to re-engage their teams and what the office is actually for. People have now generally settled into new working patterns, so it’s about creating spaces that properly support them.

My role has changed as the workplace conversation has changed. It’s still design, but it’s more about helping clients work out what they’re really asking for.

Is there a project that stands out as a career highlight?

Melton Building Society is probably the one!

At the time, it was our largest value project to date. We were creating holes in floors, relocating toilets and making the interior layout work harder. It wasn’t just redecoration or relaying out desks, it was starting with a blank sheet of paper within four walls and working out how best to lay it out.

It stands out most of all because they had recently rebranded, restructured their teams and put a huge amount of investment into their people. We met them at that niche time in their business and were able to redesign their space to align with everything else going on, so it became a true transformation, helping them shape their culture and transform the business.

Why does workplace design matter to you?

People spend eight hours a day at work, and the space they’re in makes a huge impact on how they feel.

We’ve been into buildings before where you come away feeling drained, and you think, “These (otherwise lovely) people are here every day.”

But then you start having those conversations, running workshops and showing people what could change, and you realise the impact it can have. One person said after a workshop that it had given them “great hope”, and that really sums it up.

What excites you about the future of workplace design?

After a lot of change in the past few years, things have started to settle down. But there’s still a genuine need for businesses to work out what they’re asking their office to do. What are people really coming in for? Is it collaboration, focus, connection, learning, culture, or a mix of all of those things?

That’s the bit that excites me, because every business is different. You can’t just assume one way of working will suit everyone.

And then, of course, it will keep changing again. AI is going to become part of that conversation too – what size are teams really going to be, what will people be doing when they come into the office, and how could that impact space?

So it’s still about helping clients understand what they really need, and then creating workplaces that match how their people actually work.

What are you looking forward to for Blueprint’s next chapter?

We’re celebrating our 25-year anniversary this year, so it’s an exciting one! We’re talking about a 25-year celebratory year, and doing 25 pledges or acts of good through the birthday year, with the team getting involved and taking ownership of different elements of it.

It’s about growing specialisms in the team, the WELL standard, the ESG stuff and the sustainability story around projects. But it’s also about turning that focus back on Blueprint as an organisation and asking what we can do too.

There’s a lot to look forward to, and I’m excited to get into it all. And really, it’s about continuing to find clients who want a Blueprint job.