For design entrepreneurs, the path to success is often a random one. Sometimes the things you think you're meant to do are not, and something seemingly inconsequential becomes the thing that makes you. Take Sophie Kirkpatrick's story, for instance. Six years ago she was a design student majoring in Furniture at the UK's Loughborough University when she designed the following desk:

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Called the Duplex Workspace Desk, it was intended to provide a modicum of privacy. The design was unusual enough that it began to make the blog rounds in 2010, the same year Kirkpatrick graduated. Between the blog love and Kirkpatrick's talent, it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect that she'd follow up with more furniture pieces, capitalizing on the free publicity.

Instead, that year Kirkpatrick moved to London to continue the part-time job she'd picked up in college, working as an office manager for an event planning company. What she found in London was what fresh grads also find in New York: It's a horrendously expensive place to live.

Hard up for cash, she decided that 2010's Christmas presents for her family would have to be DIY items as opposed to store-bought. "I had some old maps I had collected over the years," Kirkpatrick told SME Insider, "which I cut up and made into artworks, featuring shapes and locations that were relevant to the recipient of each gift."

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The map-based gifts were a hit. "They loved them so much that they asked me to produce more for their friends," Kirkpatrick says, "who in turn wanted me to make more to give to their family and I realized that this could be a successful business."

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Thus in 2011 Kirkpatrick launched Atlas & I, her brand of gifts—created by herself, on a dining table in the flat that she shared with roommates—incorporating vintage maps into leather stationery, fashion accessories, wall art, greeting cards, journals, photo albums and more. 

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She began selling her self-made wares on NotOnTheHighStreet.com (the site is something like a British version of Etsy, but with careful curation) and while sales grew, they were initially not enough for Kirkpatrick to support herself. Thus in 2012 she took a full-time job with an interior design company that stages apartments for sale.

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But Kirkpatrick kept Atlas & I going on the side, and in June of 2013 experienced a boon: Ikea came calling. Not for the desk she'd designed those years earlier, but because they'd spotted one of her creations (below) and wanted to mass-reproduce them for sale as posters in exchange for royalties. It wasn't until August of 2014 that her poster was for sale at the store, but in the meantime, in late 2013, her online sales had grown to the point where she was able to quit her day job.

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Today Atlas & I is going strong, and here's what Kirkpatrick's venture produces:

Here's to hoping that some of you find Kirkpatrick's story inspiring. For reasons unknown, she passed on an early potential opportunity (perhaps furniture wasn't her bag), struggled to make ends meet, utilized her creativity, incorporated a passion of hers into her work, and didn't give up. Today she's a successful and self-made design entrepreneur. And ironically, her unusual journey could not possibly have been accomplished by following a conventional map.