“I've always loved to paint - I was studying to do an art degree when I...” — Alek Wek Quote

I've always loved to paint - I was studying to do an art degree when I was approached to become a model - and I've being doing some design work as well. I also love just having a quiet time, sitting in my little library at home in Brooklyn and reading or watching documentaries or listening to music.

At times, we take freedom for granted. We really don't know how to cherish the freedom we have until it's taken from us.

Going on safari in South Africa was hardcore but a lot of fun - though my friend Maura was absolutely freaking out about all the bugs in her hair and having to pee in the sand.

I feel, in 2015, when we see human beings and children dying to cross the ocean, trying to find safety, something more must be done to help them because refugees are just like me and you.

The future of design is a future where anything material in the environment - whether it's wearables, cars, buildings - can be designed with this variation of properties and relationship with the environment that can take part in the natural ecology.

Pictures, abstract symbols, materials, and colors are among the ingredients with which a designer or engineer works. To design is to discover relationships and to make arrangements and rearrangements among these ingredients.

The image, like the voice, came in stages. I never sat down with anyone and said, 'Let's design an image.'

I believe that the concept of 'design' encompasses every aspect of customers's exposure to a brand, from the moment they hear about us to the first time they visit our store to the process of ordering and anticipating the arrival of their glasses.