Vivian Maier never laid eyes on most of her own photography. When her belongings were sold at a Chicago auction after her death they comprised thousands of undeveloped rolls of film. Since then, she has become known around the world for her striking images of 1950s and 60s street life.

Charlie Siskel, co-director of the documentary Finding Vivian Maier, was one of the first people to see her work in print. Immersed in an archive of beautiful city scenes, he was confronted with lost moments that perfectly blend the realms of art and reality. Maier’s images tell stories of the people she encountered, of their complexity as individuals and separate roles in the larger framework of modern American society. There are portraits of the poor and disenfranchised, of children playing in the street, of the homeless and drunk, but also of elegantly clad women stepping into parked cars after a night on the town. Whether shooting fashion or violence, Maier brings us a step closer to understanding ourselves and those around us.

But who was she? With no trace of relatives or friends, Charlie turns to the families who once hired her as a nanny for answers. Finding Vivian Maier paints a portrait of an artist who almost slipped between the cracks: Of a woman who made room for herself on the streets and captured the lives of people who, like her, were turned away from spheres of power and influence.

You approach the narrative of Vivian Maier as a mystery or detective story. Is that always how you pictured the film?

At first I thought this was a story of a nanny who happened to take a bunch of great pictures. The more I learnt I realised this was the story of a true artist who happened to be a nanny and who used her job as a kind of camouflage or disguise.

She took hundreds and thousands of images over a lifetime, day after day, working at her craft. Being a nanny was a means to an end, something which allowed her to do that. The mystery at the heart of all of this is not that a nanny was able to take photographs; the artists of the world are not stockbrokers or bankers - they’re among us. But how did this person make all of this great art while leading a double life? And if it wasn’t for the discovery, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Most great art is probably lost and made by people like Vivian and never seen.

Do you think there’s a value in the personal process of making art even though it’s never shared?

Of course. To say that a life of an artist who labours for a lifetime is without value is incredibly crass or insensitive. But it isn’t better to not show your work. It doesn’t make you more pure as an artist.

This is the romantic argument that is sometimes made about Vivian, and that I think gets it wrong. Would we think less of Vivian as an artist if she had had her work shown along the likes of Henri Cartier-Bresson or Helen Levitt? I certainly wouldn’t. I would be fascinated to see what might have changed about her art.

As a filmmaker, what have you learnt from Maier?

She certainly teaches you to follow a good story. Vivian’s photographs tell a story of the relationships between the people involved. There’s one image of what seems to be a mother smoking a cigarette and there’s a boy on his bicycle with tears in his eyes, looking at the camera, and the smoke is right in front of his face. It’s a beautiful picture and it draws you in and asks you to speculate on the relationship between those two. It also says something about Vivian. You wonder what kind of life she had and why she was so interested in children.

I find the intersection of journalism and art interesting. The documentary, for example, can be an extended news piece, a recitation of facts, cold and dispassionate. Or it can be artful and about storytelling. It can say something about the world without just documenting it in a clinical fashion. As filmmakers we take our experiences, the world around us, and try to preserve it in a certain way, but also, what art does, is transform it.

You talk about Vivian like you know her. What’s it like making a film about someone you’ve never met?

I’m indebted to Vivian in so many ways. The story of her life teaches you what it is to be an artist. It’s not glamorous, it’s not romantic - it’s about doing the work. It’s about creating and working with or without validation from others.

Vivian would be a great fictional character, but the fact that she’s a living, breathing human being, complex, and full of contradictions, makes her even more interesting to me. I’ve never met Vivian and I can’t ever know her in that way, but I don’t know if we know one another even when we meet. Human beings misunderstand each other. That’s what it is to be human. It’s to get each other wrong, not to get each other right.

Finding Vivian Maier is out now in UK cinemas.

A graphic designer, interior designer and set designer, there doesn't seem to be much that Danny Quanstrom doesn't do. We spoke to the fifth designer in our series about his work and inspiration. 

Tell us a little about yourself, and the inspiration behind your work. 

Quanstrom Studio is an amalgamation of everything I do. I work seperately in graphic design, interior design, set design and set builds; there's always aspects of each job that I wish I could couple together and make something great with, and with Quanstrom Studio I get to do just that. 

I love colour, clean lines and mess, sometimes all at once. Viviane Sassens photography is a constant source of colours and shapes, British print maker and artist Edward Bawden is my hero and Spanish artist Javier Mariscals work is really fun and full of life! Names aside, it’s all about collaboration and sharing ideas with people. Hopefully that will be the future of the studio.

Tell us about a piece you've designed with an interesting story. 

I think the first coffee table top I 'accidentally' made was really fun! I had about 3 weeks straight of making props and furniture for shops and shoots from Reebok to Red Wing and when I was done my work table was a crazy array of circular saw cuts, paint, spray, holes, pencil written notes, wood stains and drink spills. I took it off, cut it in half and put legs on it. It had such a nice response from everyone that I started to reign in the design and make them all the time.

The Work-Shop takeover will be loosely themed on gardens; what's your favourite piece for the display?

The grassy green feet of some of the benches... I think that they kind of look like mini gym horses.

Photos: Danny Quanstrom

We'll be honest, until now, porcelain figurines were definitely something we considered the preserve of our grandmothers, the collectables locked in cabinets that we could look at but must not touch and weren't even sure we wanted to.

Not anymore. As part of their The Guest collection, contemporary fashion designer Paul Smith has collaborated with classical porcelain producers Lladro, and created two fun figurines we really want to get our hands on.

Dorry Spikes graduated in illustration from Kingston College, and now lives in Ceredigion, Wales, as well as occasionally on a sailing boat. Her work is inspired by her travels and the salty stories she hears along the way. We asked her three questions. 

Tell us a little about yourself, and the inspiration behind your work.

I have always loved books and illustration. My artwork is inspired by my sailing adventures and also by travel stories - books like Bruce Chatwin's 'In Patagonia', Dave Eggers's 'How We Are Hungry' and Tove Jansson's 'The Summer Book'. Visually, I really admire illustrators whose brave and playful spirit shines through in their work. You can see that they're constantly experimenting and evolving; it's difficult to work with such honesty and fearlessness and I hope to get there one day.

Illustrating can be quite a solitary existence and so I like to get out drawing lively street scenes and busy harbours. It can be challenging, and it takes me a while to loosen up and shake off any self-consciousness about drawing in public. Port cities are my favourite places to sit and draw because they feel timeless and graceful in their interaction with the rest of the world. I'll sit there with dusty feet, swapping a drawing for someone's story. The wild west of Wales and its folklore has also had a strong influence on my work. The way that my parents' generation chose to come out here in the seventies and settled in the hills to live the good life reminds me to do what I love for a living.

Tell us about a piece you've designed with an interesting story.

I was commissioned to draw an illustrated map of a researcher’s travels in South America, based on the wonderfully vivid travel journals she wrote when she was out there working on a documentary. I was able to canoe up the Amazon and jump into the inky Ecuadorian surf from my desk in Wales. This is amongst my favourite kinds of commission and one of the reasons I love illustrating: I get to travel vicariously through drawing.

The Work-Shop takeover will be loosely themed on gardens. What's your favourite piece for the display?

The 'Rare Birds' print, because it celebrates the influential women in my life in a big bird-filled tree, from mad aunties, close friends and sisters to the art teachers of my childhood. While drawing it I kept thinking of the exquisite glass case of humming birds that's displayed in the Natural History Museum. It's one of the places I used to make pilgrimages to when out on weekly location drawing trips whilst studying illustration at University. I find that museums are really good for this kind of inspiration and visual research.

'The Owl Service' print I'm displaying at Work-shop is based on Alan Garner's version of the Blodeuwedd story from the Mabinogion. It's a magical story of love going wrong, full of passion. In Blodeuwedd, the princess made of flowers betrays her husband so she gets turned into an owl. The print contains drawings of fragments of china I found whilst digging in the garden. I like to imagine the stories behind the flotsam and jetsam of people's lives.

Next up in our series of designer interviews is Jubilique and Louise, a paper goods and homeware design company founded by art graduate Abbi Cudden. Inspired by collage, vintage prints and illustration, Abbi turned her hobby into a full-time business in 2013. We asked her three questions.  

Tell us a little about yourself, and the philosphy behind your work. 

I run my handmade business Jubilique and Louise from a little studio based in Norwich. I've made things all my life, but I finally turned my craft into a full time business last September. I am inspired by anything quirky and cute, as well as creepy faces, people, nature, and all things old and vintage. I like to ensure that everything I create is truly handmade, hand drawn, hand painted and bespoke. In such a digital, mass-produced world, I really feel the importance of creating items with my own hands, each one different with its own unique personality.

Tell us about a piece you've designed with an interesting story. 

I was in the early stages of designing some new hand-drawn signs, but hadn’t finalised the materials I was going to use. That same day, my Dad popped over to the studio for a cuppa with a big bag of beautiful bits of wood that had been washed ashore on the beach, just after the terrible storms we had last year. I immediately laid them all out on the patio to dry, excitedly planning what I would do with each piece. It was lovely to have my dad involved in this small way, as he has been so supportive and encouraging throughout every step of building my business.

The Work-Shop takeover will be loosely themed on gardens. What was your childhood garden like? 

I am lucky enough to have my studio located in an outhouse building at the back of my mum's house, so I get to be in my childhood garden every day. It’s a fairly small garden, and despite being close to a busy road and having a tower block looming over it, it’s always been very peaceful and full of colour. It has pretty much remained the same since I was a child and still holds lots of happy memories of long summer days, making friends with the neighbours, paddling pools and first pets.

Over the following week, we'll be bringing you the work and stories behind six young designers, whose work is being featured at the Oh Comely takeover of the London pop-up, Work-Shop. 

Second in the series is Saadiqah Rahman, an east London-based designer and maker whose work is defined by clean lines and confident forms. We asked her three questions. 

Tell us a little about yourself and the philosophy behind your work. 

I am an independent designer and maker based in east London. My past work ranges from product to events but I’ve found that jewellery is simultaneously the most indulgent and challenging form of design because it doesn’t bear the burden of utility. You have to be something of an alchemist to turn raw materials into something magnetic, and this is a large part of why I design and make jewellery.

I try to be completely objective with my chosen materials, because their qualities determine the form. That’s always the starting point. Not being traditionally trained in jewellery gives me the freedom to use materials in unorthodox ways.

My collection, Weight of Good Grammar, is based on the principle that you can have real presence if you know how to compose the plainest vocabulary. Each piece is a finely tuned composition of gold and leather. How the materials balance and connect is equivalent to the use of grammar, which is everything when working with seemingly simple forms.

Tell us about a piece you've designed with an interesting story. 

The first piece of jewellery I recall making was when I was 6, whilst being taught about the Celts. Each child was given a chunk of clay to carve into as a ‘brooch’. Instead, in secret, I took it apart and made a necklace. I was dead scared of getting caught and told off. In my mind it was for Boudicca the Warrior Queen – she was my heroine. I saw it in gold, silver and bone. The funny thing is that it did in fact get me sent to the Headmistress’s office but for praise rather than punishment. I still have it somewhere.

The Work-Shop takeover will be loosely themed on gardens. What's your favourite piece for the display? 

The collection’s quite androgynous so it gets attention from all sexes. The low hanging fork-like necklace is my favourite because it always gets compliments in equal measure from both men and women. Plus it’s really easy to wear with everything.

Writing about your day is one thing, but drawing about it is quite something else.

Next in the series on graphic journals is Sofia Niazi, who graduated in illustration and is co-founder and editor of OOMK. Drawing on sometimes political, sometimes contentious talking points, her delightful little zines will make you ponder a bit and giggle a lot.

Tell us a bit about yourself

I am a London-dweller and I work as an illustrator and editor from a small studio in Kilburn.

What is your earliest memory of drawing?

My best friend always tells people this story of when we first met, aged 6. We were in class and I was sitting with a group of boys with a colouring pencil in my hand. I asked 'what colour is this pencil?' and she butted in and said 'yellow' and I basically told her that she was wrong and that she should leave. I have absolutely no recollection of this happening.

In 'Internet Stories' you illustrated people's earliest memories of the internet. What is it about this that interests to you?

We talk a lot about first impressions of people, but I think there's a lot to be said about first impressions in general; I feel as though you have an honest clarity about things when you know very little about them, and that your impressions often come around full-circle. I think the way we thought about the internet initially can tell us how we might react to newer technologies. I know a lot of people who didn't like the idea of Facebook at first, and after spending several years on it have returned to the initial mistrust that they started with.

Many of your illustrations were originally published as mini-zines. What do you like about this format?

I didn't know I was making something that could be classed as a 'zine' until after I made my first one; I thought they were just little books with drawings. My friend invited me to a zine fair one day and there I realised that lots of people were making little books and that they were called zines. I like the achievability of zines, and I think the book format is a really great way to work through ideas because it makes you think about narrative, sequence and a beginning, middle and end before you've even put pen to paper.  

Some of your comics have a strong moral or political fibre. How does drawing enable you to express your views?

There's something about drawing which allows you to say what you want but still maintain some distance from it. Whenever I try to express a view through drawing it always forces me to clarify what I want to say, so in some ways drawing enables me to articulate better.

Some people say that anyone can draw - what’s your take on that?

I think a lot of people who say they can't draw consider drawing to be about making an exact copy of something that they see. For me, the process of drawing from observation is about discovery. It involves looking at something and dissecting it so that you can put it back together on paper. 

Also in this series: Brittany Long.

We have all kept a diary in one form or another, but some diarists go a step further than others. 

Graphic journals have the uncanny ability to find hilarity in the banal and mundane. They say so much with very little words, taking on tough topics and shredding them down to seem effortlessly laughable. In this series, I’ll be interviewing three artists who have provided us with an oasis of joy with their heartwarming depictions of everyday life.

First up is Brittany Long, who illustrates Comic Diaries, a lighthearted cartoon journal that Brittany has kept since 2008. 

Tell us a bit about yourself and how you got into comics.

I’m 23 years old and was born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada. I got into web comics as I grew up; the online art community was what really inspired me to start drawing when I was in high school.

What's the background to Comic Diaries? How did it start?

I started university in 2008 in a brand new town; I had few friends and was trying to get over a bad breakup with too much time on my hands and needing a way to cope. So I thought that I could make cartoons about what I was going through.

You learn from your comic that you served as a Latter Day Saint missionary in Japan; what did you most enjoy about the country?

I fell in love with the Japanese culture pretty quickly: the food, the fashion, the traditions.  However, as a missionary, I was able to experience what many tourists to Japan miss out on: the people. I was deeply impressed by how highly the Japanese value family. The Japanese people are universally known for being hospitable and professional, but because I worked with them so closely, I grew to truly love them and appreciate their kindness and honor.

As a Christian, do you feel that your work challenges stereotypes about your faith?

I feel like the majority of Christian stereotypes in the media today involve hot political topics like same-sex marriage, gun policies, government-regulated finance and education, etc. --things I don’t draw or even think much about. In my comics and in my life, being a Christian and a Latter-day Saint is about trying to be a good person and often thinking I should try harder at it. Whether that challenges stereotypes or not is up to my readers.

You recently posted the First Kiss comic, and said that you waited two years for it. How do you feel now that you’re dating?

This is the most comfortable, fun, and honest relationship I’ve ever been in. I directly attribute that to being friends for years before we started dating. Getting to date one of my best friends and start a new phase of our lives together has been an amazing experience so far!

I'm interested in the idea that anyone can draw; what is your opinion on that?

The saddest thing to me is when someone looks over my shoulder and says, “Wow, I wish I could draw.” My response is always, “You can!”