Paul is a very passionate, London based graphic designer with over 5 years experience in the industry, specialising in print and identity based design. He has worked with clients including Orange, Royal Mail, City & Guilds, Design Council and EFFP

Paul with one of his loves… beer!

What is your favorite medium to design for?

As much as I love a new challenge and working in new exciting mediums my heart will always lie in print design. There’s nothing like getting a nice fresh box of print back from the printers, the smell is awesome!

EFFP View Magazine

What is unique about designing for identity?

Designing for identity isn’t purely ‘visual design’ I’d compare it to creating a new little person each time! Along with creating how it looks, you get to create a whole personality, it’s attitude, its opinions, it’s ethics through to how it speaks and communicates. Identity design and especially brand identity goes so much further than purely aesthetic graphics, making things just look pretty will rarely cut it in the world of brand identities. When people sometimes see a well considered identity and see the price tag behind it, it can seem alot for what people often deem to be ‘just a logo’. But a massive amount of time and work goes into the mostly invisible parts that lie behind the outer look. Think of some of the biggest and best identities, Innocent, Apple, Waitrose, Nike, they all have personalities and attitudes and in some cases they can even outweigh the visual aspect of the brand.

Identity for South London pub

Identity for skills award

How has design changed in recent years?

The obvious change has been emergence of digital in design, it has opened far more avenues for designers to work in, new ways to target people and get your message across. Many are predicting that it has also bought with it the ‘end of print’, I don’t agree, I think there are some applications where print still trumps digital. I believe its a case of both coexisting and designers having to be more savvy in their decisions as to what is the best medium for the message.

Design Council Industry Insights Supplement

In my opinion a slight negative surrounding the emergence of digital is that it has given far more people access to design software, and with it the belief from some that anyone with a copy of photoshop can be a designer. This has led design becoming slightly under valued, I have had a couple of occurrences lately were even trying to charge for some design work is laughed at!

Please describe a typical day?

Wake up, shower, jump on my bike for the 8 mile ride to work, quick coffee when I get in, catch up on emails then straight into work. I couldn’t describe a typical day from then on as they are so varied but anything from being on my mac designing to brainstorming to meetings. All mixed in with some ping pong at lunch and darts for who makes the tea round mixed in. The better days normally end up in the pub!

When creating work what do you have to take into consideration?

Again it’s difficult to answer as every brief brings its own considerations, objectives and audiences. But at the heart of every job we work on is communicating the right message in the right medium that is delivered in a way that is visually appealing to the intended target audience. For my main clients this can range from convincing CEOs to consider getting help in re-addressing their agricultural supply chains to educating the general public about ten of Britons lesser know, but none the less eminent historical figures!

Antiquarian booksellers catalogue

What makes successful work?

Something that makes the target audience stop, take note and react to the work, sometimes immediately or other times making it memorable enough to stay in their mind.

How would you like your career path to proceed?

It’s tricky to say at the moment really, I’m still quite young and still enjoying learning my craft and trying to be a bit of sponge and absorb as much as I can, not just in design but in business, client liaising, running a design studio etc. The ultimate dream would be to have my own studio, but not for some time and ideally I would like to do it with another like minded person who I find along the way. I have been around friends and colleagues whilst they we’re setting up there own studios and it seems a very exciting, if not slightly terrifying thing to do, so its definitely on the radar for the future.

What is your working environment like?

A bit rough round the edges but it has a certain charm to it! My studio is split into three main areas and I sit in the main studio with the other designers at Purpose. Its a very lively atmosphere, we are a very visible studio, we work on the walls alot so the canvas of the studio is an ever changing one. With the decor being dictated by whatever jobs are running through the studio. We’re a very social studio, everyone gets on really well so the visual aspect of how we work encourages everyone to get involved in projects and share their thoughts on the work.

How did you get into design / art direction?

My dad has been in design, printing and typesetting for all his life, when I was young and desperate for a Mega Drive I got an Apple Mac instead! To say I was annoyed at the time would be an understatement, but it in hindsight it has got me into a profession I love so I’ll let him off! My dad is hugely passionate about what he does and it rubbed off on me, being around design all my life it was in my blood and never really thought about doing anything else, and unfortunately my footy skills weren’t quite up to scratch!

What is your favorite part of your job? why?

First and foremost, I’d have to say working with the people I work with, the social side of Purpose is second to none. In a work sense I’d probably say the variety of projects, its rare I’ll be doing the same thing from one week to the next or even one day to the next. There’s a good mix of bigger projects that you can really get immersed in and small little jobs for a range of weird and wonderful clients.

What is the worst part of your job? why?

The late nights, unfortunately a necessity in our industry, made even worse by our late night take away restaurant removing the legendary ‘Big Kahuna Tuna Burger’ from the menu!

When do you use illustration vs photography?

It depends on whatever suits the brief better really. Stock photo sites do make photography alot more accessible but I do try to use illustration as much as possible. Illustration does give a job a real sense of character and its own identity.

Do you use much illustration? Why or Why not?

Every now and again, whenever I can. I probably don’t use as much as other designers as I am a very typographically led designer, so in alot of my work I tend to use type as my decorative or illustrative element. Budgets also tend to be quite tight with alot of my clients so commissioning either illustrators or photographers isn’t always possible. However it has led me to try and search out more up and coming illustrators that are perhaps willing to be a bit more flexible with there rates in return for getting to work on some interesting commercial work.

How do you discover new illustrators?

Generally I have a bank of illustrators I like, either in my head or in my bookmarks and try to use. A massive help nowadays are blogs, I was recently looking for a photo-realist illustrator and managed to find quite a few really good ones through scouring some illustration blogs.

What is the most desired skill from an illustrator?

Being able to interpret a brief and get the right balance of pushing it in a new direction whilst delivering something that is on brief. Ive rarely experienced getting an illustration back and it really wowing me and been spot on brief first time of asking, it’s a tricky thing to do but working with someone who can do that is very exciting.

What is something new you have noticed or learned recently?

Pigeons all seem to have really bad, mangled feet… why?!

Do you have any other advice for illustrators?

One thing thats always puzzled me is that we have quite a few photographers who contact us to come in and show us their portfolios but never any illustrators. We like to try and meet and see as many photographers as we can, but I’ve always wondered why illustrators don’t try the same sort of thing. Most of us designers are visual magpies, we love printers, paper merchants, photographers coming in and showing us lovely inspiring stuff so I’d urge illustrators to get out there and go to some studios and show your work.

One of Paul’s other loves, Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club
