Michael from Studio Build came in to talk to us about how he started off in the design world and setting up Build.
He has 26 years in the business.
He's fascinated in people's reference points, their points of interest.
Music shaped his design career.
Iron Maiden was the start of his love for graphic design. He loved Eddie the character on the front of the record sleeves. It captured his imagination as a teen.
Motorhead has a similar influence to Iron Maiden.
He found graphic design a fascinating and exotic world, as living on a farm with no family past experience in the field.
At school he found he was interested in technical drawing, and thought about being an architect.
Discovered Letraset in school. This was a landmark in discovering graphic design.
Did a foundation in Scarborough. Found out graphic design was what came naturally to him and was good at it. The Cramps and The Meteors were the based that inspired him whilst he was on Foundation.
Did and OMD/OND in York (gcse equivalent in graphic design) for 2 years.
Neville Brody interested him.
He is interested in and has a passion for typography.
Rod Clarke - produced and designed Underground magazine, which stood out on the shelf from others. This is when he realised what graphic design is and what it can do.
He did 2 years at Newcastle college doing a HND in graphic design. It was a well respected course but it wasn't right for him so he never finished it. The tutors didn't understand he wanted to record sleeve design. When he was there though he did a placement at i-D magazine in London. Also did a placement at The Designers Republic when he was at Newcastle. He left Newcastle in 1990.
Vaugn Oliver was his next big influence. Famous for his still works and designing catalogue for 4AD/OD? He was a non main stream graphic designer. He reinforced his career path and what he wanted to do.
He is also interested in characters in graphic design. Odd ball individuals. He admired Oliver's head down non fashion approach to designing.
When he left Newcastle he phoned Trevor Jackson and got a job with him in London. He hated London, and Jackson was a scary first person to work for. He worked on Stereo MC's album cover with Jackson.
He left Jackson and worked for The Designer's Republic. He produced a sleeve for Juan Atkin's at TDR.
He prefers people with drive and passion rather than talent.
Graphic Design with no outside influences is dull.
He met his wife, business partner and co-founder of BUILD in 2000. His wife worked at Sony. They quit their jobs and travelled the world for a year, as he felt the long hours at TDR were burning him out.
They moved to London and set up BUILD. They were in London for 15 years before recently moving back up North.
BUILD:
Doesn't specialise in one sector
They just do graphic design, and collaborate with specialists e.g. coders
Worked with Generation Press a lot (amazing printers)
Lots of iconography
Sex, Drugs and Helvetica conference in Melbourne/Brisbane
Prefer full on or all off. Minimal or crazy, no middle ground
Worked with Nike on Track & Field branding
Find small projects very rewarding - really helps the smaller companies/people, you really see the impact design can have on their business.
Summary
This was a really interesting talk, as it showed me exactly how he went from not knowing what graphic design was to setting up his own studio, and gave me real hope that if you want something you can do it. It was great to hear his influences and what inspires his work, and it was great to see how passionate he was about his work, which is very inspiring.
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