Meet Liz Calder, Founder of BLD Studio
Liz Calder — or Biddis, as she was affectionately nicknamed by her younger brother when they were kids — is the founder of BLD Studio (Biddis Lifestyle Design).
Her love for brightly coloured clothes — not forgetting her signature yellow shoes — and a lifelong aversion to the colour black mean she's tended to stand out. She hasn't always fitted the mould, but that's fine by her. Life is too short to squeeze yourself into a mould that doesn't feel right. She believes the same is true for design: she loves to empower independent businesses by helping them embrace what makes them different and stand out from the crowd.
She takes this ethos into her design work. With nearly twenty years of agency experience, she wants to share her toolkit of skills to ensure their success, working with owner-led businesses across offices, clinics, golf clubs, retail and hospitality from her Formby studio.
Beyond BLD Studio
When she's not leading client projects, Liz also runs The Biddis Edit— a bespoke blinds, curtains and interior finishes service built on the same eye for detail and brand thinking that defines BLD Studio's commercial work.
Where It Started — A Knack for Spaces
The story doesn't start with an agency career, though. Back in her teens, while working in a bar, Liz discovered she had a knack for intuiting what felt wrong or right about a space. With a few simple changes — reconfiguring tables, reorganising entry and exit signs — she quickly made the place more functional. With the encouraging nods and smiles of customers and staff alike, she realised she might want to take this knack of hers in a more professional direction.
Not surprisingly, her love for design went back further still. As a child, she put the crew of Blue Peter to shame, building entire miniature villages out of cereal boxes, rarely seen without a pencil, rubber and ruler in hand.
She began upgrading her skills when she took an avid interest in the en-suite bathrooms her dad was building at her parents' hotel. Fascinated by grouting and fastening, she was always on hand with the toolbox after school, picking up the trade fast. She realises now it was probably then that she got her first taste for improving people's lives — by creating environments they'd love spending time in.
An SBID-Accredited Approach
That instinct — for noticing what makes a space work, and fixing what doesn't — now underpins BLD Studio's SBID-accredited design process. Every project follows a rigorous, industry-recognised standard, from a single-room refurbishment to a 15,000 sq ft serviced office.
Why "Operationally Smart" Design Matters
Liz built BLD Studio around a simple belief: a beautiful space that doesn't support how a business actually runs is a missed opportunity.
Every project starts with understanding how a client operates — then designs around it, using the studio's own Brand Bridge framework:
Confusion → Clarity → Alignment.
This is the throughline across every BLD Studio project, whether it's a large serviced office, a boutique clinic or a workplace for SMEs.
Work With BLD Studio
If you're planning a commercial space that needs to look right and run right, Liz and the BLD Studio team would love to hear from you.