A full interview from Knowledge Magazine from a few years back. This was the original interview questions. The finished piece was cut down from this...
Give us a bit of background: Where you from? How did you come to work at Nu Urban and then ultimately set up on your own with Devolution?
To cut a long story short I did the whole uni thing and to be honest was more interested in drum n bass and my 1210’s than I was designing! However towards the end I really began to find my style as a designer and ended up spending more time on photoshop than my decks. I worked really hard in my last year and got a good degree. After finishing uni and working various monotonous jobs in offices I landed a job at a heavy metal distribution company assisting their design team. I worked my way up to the point where I was desiging CD albums. I figured I could do that for myself and decided to set up Devolution. Using myspace I pimped myself out and landed a few jobs doing the odd flyer and generally trying to work my way into a music scene I loved. The first significant dnb related job was putting together SUV’s Rhythm and Bass album and shortly after that Nu Urban contacted me asking me to come in and meet with them. Phil at Nu Urban basically was looking for someone to come in and run a professional art dept geared for the dnb scene and that’s what I’ve been doing ever since whilst still also running Devolution.
Working at nu Urban is great. As a fan of the music its still kind of weird sat working and having Randall, Bukem or whoever wonder in! It’s a good feel here everyone is in the job for the right reason and it’s a really solid and respected company to work for. Working for Nu Urban has been great, its given me direct access to the biggest artists in the scene and given my career a massive boost.
Devolution was set up as a vehicle for your more artistic and abstract work, is that right?
It was originally just a name to do what ever I wanted to do under, whether it be web design or fine art. I still run it as that primarily. I have done all kinds of work under Devolution. As time goes on I am allowing myself to chill out a bit and do work I want to do just for my own creativity and that goes under Devolution. Im quite a dark person creatively, Ive always loved art and music with a dark or moody edge and that name was a reflection of that. Over the next few years I want to Develop Devolution as a brand, covering artwork and clothing, its where uim most happy as it allows me to be as creative as I want. Im really into what im doing with it at the moment and have a constant stream of ideas running around my head 24/7.
Do you find you design in a different style depending on whether you're doing something for Nu Urban or Devolution (a bit like how labels have distinctive sounds)?
Or is there a consistency to your style that you adapt depending on what the brief is?
When I’m designing stuff at Nu Urban its very much down to what the client wants. The whole point of NUD was to set up an affordable and professional design service for the dnb industry primarily, making sure a certain level of quality is bought to that side of things. There is a kind of consistency to my style. I think you would recognize my work on its own, although what I do for Devolution is a lot different to what I do for say a new jump up label or whatever.
Nu Urban do have a large variety of labels on their books and do a lot of different music so the work can be very varied. Some people have specific ideas but a lot of smaller, newer labels just need direction in that area so part of my job is to help direct those people. Everyone at Nu Urban is professional and that comes across in how we deal with our labels. I try to steer labels in certain directions away from the clichéd ganja leaves / spray paint type thing. Its not always possible though, so if that’s what they want that’s we’ll do for them, just in as a professional and creative a way as possible. At the end of the day I am here as a design dept to give our clients what they want and try to help them develop a professional look for their labels. I’m constantly battling with labels to try to get them to think in new ways visually, dnb in particular always needs fresh ideas to keep it going and I think that goes for both the music and the artwork. If you want your label to stand out from the crowd you need to think differently and using clichéd imagery is a sure fire way to get lost amongst the hundreds of labels out there.
Which material do you prefer to work in? Is there anything you fancy trying your hand at - pottery, photography...?
A lot of my work is about manipulation and composition of images. Finding images sourcing photos etc. Putting them together. I know photoshop like the back of my hand and am always working on new techniques within that. A lot of my work is based around piecing cropped images together, Ive always been into collage since a very early age. My fine artwork I do for myself is very much a development of the collage ideas ive always had, expressing ideas through piecing together other images. Ive always likened it to sampling in music.
With my graphic design work, as I get older I am really getting into the simpler more graphical stuff. Minimal is the way! I love photography and would like to get into that, its really inspiring the way it can be used. Like the photo from Burial’s first album. To capture that mood in one photo is just amazing! You could never do that in any other way.
What projects are you working on at the moment?
My client list is growing at Nu Urban, people seem to be happy with how I work. As well as my Nu Urban stuff for labels like Playaz, Audio Zoo, Charge, etc Im pushing my own personal artwork forward. I am also working with a ragga artists and alos a soul singer (not going to mention any names yet) so that’s nice to broaden out, and I hope to be doing some stuff with a couple of big UKHH artists nearer the second half of the year that have been in touch. An extreme sports distributor in the US’ has expressed interest in putting my work onto skateboards. I’m trying to get a collection of work together to eventually do an exhibition, possible in 2010 and am selling prints and canvasses to help with the rent! I am also finalizing designs for a clothing range, which I cant wait to put out as I think its really different, kind of urban-ish but with a dark edge. As well as this I have taken on one or two web design projects as I find that interesting, both are for record labels, not sure I can say who at this point. I like to keep busy!
What's inspiring you right now?
Photography and film is big for me at the moment and is definitely an area I would love to explore. Also, I am really getting into minimal / classic graphic design and want to push this. Music is always inspiring me. Not just dnb. I listen to a lot of music, from rock, to hip hop, to soul to indy ..whatever and I’m always inspired by what I hear. Ive always thought of music in a visual way, especially electronic music. I remember seeing an interview with Goldie where he explained how he sketches out tunes before he makes them, I can really relate to that.
Im also always inspired by other designers in the music industry. There are a handful of really good artists and designers in dnb at the minute that I think really stand out. I think dnb as whole is moving away from that noisy abrasive stuff and towards something a bit cleaner, simpler and maturer sounding so I would love to be there with it reflecting that in my work. As far as designers go I absolutely love Hypnoteis from Holland and John Black of course!!
Who would be your dream client?
I love to work with anyone truly creative who I can work with and who have really creative, different ways of expressing themselves. Id love to work with that would be amazing to get inside someone like that’s head who is really creative. I think working with Goldie would be interesting on an album project and I am a hug fan of Burial so trying to convey what that music makes me feel visually would be a really exciting challenge.
Id also love to be behind a big design project, like putting together a visual idenity for Fabric or a massive clothing brand. Something that would pay vast sums of cash and get my work out to loads of people! I’m kind of a sell out like that! Having my work go out on labels like Playaz, Charge and Full Cycle is pretty rewarding already.
People can contact me via www.nu-urbandesign.co.uk or www.devolutiondesigns.co.uk also I had canvasses for people to buy online www.devolutiondesigns.co.uk/devolution_prints.html
Thanks!
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