Discover Top Posts Tagged with #drew turner

Plymouth Mindset had the opportunity to examine Drew Turner's major project from his final year in Graphic Design at Plymouth College of Art.

The portfolio of work demonstrates Drew's unique combination of interest in nature, the demo scene and technology.

Take a look at more of his work at drewturner.co.uk

#Drew Turner #Plymouth #plymouth2020 #demoscene #nature

You don’t necessarily have to move anywhere else to do the kind of jobs we do...the works here, it’s just how much you want it. You’ve just got to stick at it and don’t stop!

Drew Turner (June 2013)

#plymouth2017 #drew turner #inspirational #motivation

Interview with Drew Turner @Royal William Yard

by Andrew Sargeant

Drew Turner

My first interview is with local entrepeneur and artist Drew Turner. We sat on the rocks at Royal William Yard gazing out to sea during our collective lunchbreaks. Though it had been sunny recently, the day was overcast. With the cloud cover slightly miring the view across to Drake's Island, the scenery was still picturesque...

Me What made you decide to do graphic design and illustration?

Drew I was 21, I think, and I worked in various places, kinda left school and did computers. So, I wanted to be a network administrator, which sounds ridiculous, but I couldn't get a job in it after I got qualified. How fucking ridiculous, I don't know why, I was young, whatever. So after I couldn't find a job, I just worked in places. I worked in Maplin for ages and then eventually I started making flyers for bands and making t-shirts. I had no idea what I was doing so I applied to go to uni. First of all I applied to do electrical engineering and they gave me a conditional offer, which I turned down. So then I applied to do a graphic design BTEC the year after, but because I was 21 the admissions team suggested I do the full degree. They let me straight on. I started in 2006 and graduated in 2009. I really struggled in the first year as I'd never done a graphics course before.

Me So you didn't need to show them a portfolio?

Drew Oh I did. I showed them the flyers and artwork I had been doing. That was fine.

Me So you did a degree in Graphic Design at Plymouth College of Art. What happened after you graduated?

Drew It took me a while, but I wanted to find a job straightaway. I wouldn't settle for anything else, no part-time job, no stop-gaps. It actually took about 6 months from when I graduated to actually getting a job at TwoFour. I got the job the February after my graduation which was in September.

Me So that was a pretty hard winter?

Drew Yeah it was really difficult. I was sleeping on friends sofa's and stuff, it was pretty intense.

Me But you had your goal and you just stuck to it…

Drew Yeah. At one point I went to MDeck, the data entry centre. I thought I just need a job, I can't do this anymore. I went to a training session. I think I lasted about 2 hours and just walked out. I said "I can't do this, I'm going, goodbye". I went back to the job centre and told them I didn't want to be anything else apart from Graphic Design.

The job centre was adamant after 3 weeks of not getting a job that I should be looking for a different career to Graphic Design. They don't really care what you're looking for, so long as you get a job.

Horse by Drew Turner

Me So you're freelance at the moment. What happened to instigate the transition from working at TwoFour to freelance?

Drew I didn't really know what I was expecting when I actually did get a job. I was at TwoFour for all of 9 months, not very long. I left TwoFour mainly because it wasn't really a creative job. Even though I was a graphic designer, I was a junior at the time. I had some fun things to do, but not a lot of fun things. It was mostly resizing images and designing websites which I thought it was quite bland. I was restricted with my creativity, and also if I did something my name would not be on it. It's not gonna be recognised as yours, it's going to be "TwoFour". And when you do make something it goes through so many different changes it ends up totally different to what you originally designed.

I left because of a book by Paul Arden called "Everything you think, think the opposite". It's a really short book, Tom Platten-Higgins gave it to me, just saying "read this". So I read it and a couple of days after I wrote my notice and gave it in. That was a really dangerous book.

Me So then you decided to setup your freelance company?

Drew Yes

Me Did you decide to set it up in Plymouth based on the industry here, or did you just want to stay here? What were your main reasons for setting it up in Plymouth?

Drew Well I've lived in Plymouth all my life. At the time, I didn't really want to move away. I ensured I had a couple of jobs lined up before I left to make sure I would be secure. I haven't really looked back since.

Me How do you go about getting your work?

Drew Luckily enough I haven't had to promote myself yet really. I've mostly had work come from people I know, or through the internet. The internet is the best tool for it really. Freelance is such a variety and a mix of different work. I do my artwork and illustration, those are my projects, as well as client based work such as websites, branding and more traditional graphic design. They either get pulled in because they see my artwork and they want something similar to that for something like a CD cover or vinyl case. Alternatively they see a website I have done and get back to my site through a link at the bottom.

Space Elk by Drew Turner

Me You're artwork is quite distinctive. Is there a way you would describe your particular style?

Drew I'm really inspired by retro-future things. I'm heavily 80's inspired.

Me The way that the 80's imagined the future looking?

Drew Probably before that, but then it was hugely stylised during the 80's. Look at something like Tron for an example. I came up with that style originally for my final major project [in university], it happened by accident. I wanted to make a magazine full of the things that I liked and I wanted to put my friends in it. I did a couple of artwork pieces, retro-future styled. Space Elk (pictured above) was one of them. My research was around the "Demo Scene".

Me Demo Scene? What's that?

Drew Demo Scene originally came from crack intros. You used to get ilegally cracked games on the Atari and the Amiga so that you could copy them. There was usually a piece of 8-bit chip tune and some scrolling text, and cool graphics that go along with as an intro created by the person who cracked the game.

Because it was all computer generated through programming, people really wanted to show off what their capabilities were and to push the computer to its limits. Instead of doing it illegally where they would have to crack a game, they decided to just make demo's and have competitions to see who could make the best demo. Making the most outrageous chip tune music, and making polygons spin and showing how many pixels they managed to get on the screen without fucking everything up.

That was 80's, early 90's. From that I started looking at computer game artwork from that era, which I really liked. At the same time the magazine was based around mystery and animals. It all just came together, and I started making these artworks. It's been going since.

From the video 64 Legendary C64 Crack Intros

Me So you mentioned some of your inspiration came from animals and nature. Has that got anything to do with your surroundings with Dartmoor on your doorstep?

Drew It must have some sort of influence. I always went on Dartmoor as a kid, having adventures, getting lost for the hell of it.

Me So you do your own artwork, which you do for fun, to get your name out there...

Drew That's right. Also clients buy into that.

Me So it works as a promotional tool as well?

Drew Yes. I treat it as two separate jobs. At the moment on my site is purely my own work. I get jobs through that, but I also make clothes, wall art and soft furnishings and such.

Me Do you make many sales?

Drew Yes. It trickles in. I also work with resellers. I'm hopefully doing some more work with Urban Outfitters who will sell a lot more than I can on my site, and I get a kickback from that. Oh Dear are really good at the moment as well.

Me When you come to design a t-shirt or a print, how do you approach the blank page?

Drew If the client has asked for something specific, for example a specific animal, then I'll start researching by looking into that animal and looking online for images that are going to be suitable. I usually use stock photography which I buy to avoid getting bitten in the ass and to give something back to the creative community that's out there. I'll start composing how the image looks. I'll paint light in and paint colours in. For example if there's a glow coming off the floor I'll paint that into the animal.

Me So during the initial concept stage of the project you work completely solo, or do you discuss with friends or other graphic designers?

Drew For artwork, no. I found that when you start introducing people into your ideas they might have a different take on it and you may not like that. I've sent things to my friends before asking their opinion, but it really puts me off, I'll end up not doing it or doing something else. When I first start a piece of work it will look very different to when I finish it. I keep moving stuff around, pulling things in, taking things out, until I've looked at it for 8 hours straight and think "Fucking hell", but eventually you come out with a piece of artwork that you like and your proud of.

Me So it evolves over time? The artwork comes from the process itself really, revisiting it rather than attempting to draw something from your head?

Drew Yes. Sometimes is comes quite quickly and I can do it in a couple of hours, other times it can be quite hard. Really depends where your going with the image.

Me So how about the other side of your coin. The graphic design. Where do your clients come from? Plymouth?

Drew Anywhere. If I do get them from Plymouth it's through people that I know or they've seen something that I've done and they want it themselves.

With regards to the internet, I've got a few jobs from being blogged. I was in the alumni of a "Just Us" design collective who were a group of people in my year who made a design collective as their final project, and I was in that. It got a feature on thefoxisblack.com, a really popular blog. My work was featured on the desktop wallpaper project. From that people started blogging that around. I've got quite a few clients from that.

Me That's fantastic

Drew Well that's how the internet works. It just puts you out there. So if you have the opportunity to be on design collectives do it, or contact people that do sort of thing.

Me Do you get unexciting projects as well?

Drew I call those ones bread and butter. You take the rough with the smooth. You can't have amazing fun projects all the time, well you can, but you have to be more established with a larger more renowned client base. Websites are fun to design, and I can develop them also if the client needs it developed as well, but web development isn't as much fun as something like game development.

Me Game programming can be quite creative, but there are some really boring bits of that as well. There's nitty gritty bug fixing, all of that sort of stuff.

Drew Yeah but you get an amazing result at the end of it, something you can play.

Me Yeah there is that. So what is your favourite bit of your job?

Drew Having the satisfaction of it being solely mine. I've come up with these designs and I've made this work. Working for another company you don't feel like the work is yours. Working for yourself you don't care about how long you work, you can work a 15 hour day without thinking "Oh I want to go home" because of that satisfaction at the end of it. You just do it, that's your job and that's what I like. Every other job I've had has had this massive unsatisfaction [sic] thing where your never quite content. You end up watching the clock on those ones, whereas now I look at the clock and think "Fuck! I've got to hurry up".

Me Whats your least favourite bit of your job? Is there issues with work/play balance? Or finances?

Drew Because I'm a freelancer I don't expect to massively rich, I'm not. I get by with what I need, and that's it for me. It doesn't strike me as really important to get loads and loads of money, as long as I'm happy in what I'm doing then that's fine by me.

Time can be a problem, usually I end up working too hard.

Taxes, for fucks sake, and paperwork is a complete pain in the ass as well. I spend sometimes half a day sat there writing invoices, or writing contracts, or reading their contracts and their terms. But other than that it's great.

Me Is there any aspects of Plymouth and the South-West that affect your work?

Drew It helps being in a group of friends that are very creative, there's a hell of a lot of talent here, more so than people generally think. Obviously it's an amazing surrounding, you've got the sea right here and everything looks great.

Me Have you got any other comments or other things you want to say?

Drew You don't necessarily have to move anywhere else to do the kind of jobs we do. Everyone thinks you have to move to London or go to a bigger city, but the works here, it's just how much you want it. You've just got to stick at it and don't stop!

You can view more of Drew Turners work at drewturner.co.uk.

#Plymouth #Plymouth2017 #Drew Turner #retro futurism #graphic design #Illustration #interview #devon #Royal William Yard