Talking graphic design instincts with Art Comp winner Will Winston  

This week we chat with Art Comp winner and graphic designer Will Winston, who is currently still studying at NUA.  Will’s pop culture reference is prolific Peckham boy Archy Marshall, who also goes by the name of King Krule.

In his submission, Will uses a strong graphic design approach to relate the themes and concepts found in Krule’s music. His work is a mass of logos, lyrics and imagery, all presented with a varied amount of scale and contrast. There’s references to be found for a healthy amount of King Krule’s back catalogue, good stuff.

Check out our interview with him below. 

Thanks for chatting with us Will, how did you get into image making?

I studied media in college, and we had to design posters for our own made up horror movie. I obsessed over mine and spent heaps of time on it but had so much fun doing it. The project just really clicked with me and I wanted to do more so that led me to studying graphics at uni.

You recently won our Art Comp, (cheers for that by the way!) how’d you go about choosing King Krule? Any other musicians come to mind for the pop culture theme?

I ended up doing a few entries for the comp but the Krule one was the very first and came together really naturally. His lyrics create such rich imagery so this was just my attempt to try to visualise them. Despite being so popular he’s pretty enigmatic and I haven’t really seen anything featuring King Krule outside of his own merch, so I thought it was a good opportunity to create something related to him. 

There’s lots of intricate line work within your submission, was this all done by hand?

I do almost everything in Photoshop. It’s really useful to manipulate and distort images and if you experiment enough, you can discover various techniques that actually really work. For my submission, I reversed all the tones in the images and then combined the final results with a stipple texture. All the linework was then created using strokes and erasing parts of the images.

SCRT is all for the idea of demystifying the process of making, any advice you’d give for approaching graphic work?

I just graduated so I personally still have so much to learn which is exciting, but I think just always follow your gut and don’t rely on other people’s opinions too much. The only pieces that you are going to find success and satisfaction in, are those you are really passionate about. I see a lot of articles like Graphic design do’s and don’ts but there shouldn’t be any restrictions when creating, just do yo thang!

Today, more and more Graphic Designers are working entirely digitally, do you find that you fit into this category?

I definitely fit into that category. Most of the time the only physicality in my work comes right at the end during the printing process, but seeing your work come to life off of the screen gives you a whole new sensation. I don’t think there’s one right way to do anything, just go with what works best for you.

Any advice from a young creative?

Designing for clients can be quite demanding, I think it’s vital to pursue self-initiated projects. The freedom of setting your own brief and dictating your own rules makes creating so much more fun. I find it’s usually the best way to express myself as they’re pretty personal, but are definitely the most rewarding. My advice would be to experience and try as many new things as possible, you never know what might inspire you.

Favourite Film?

Surfs Up and anything by the director Gaspar Noe 

Dream Client/Collab?

I would die for Kanye West. 

Finally, any artists/designers we should know about?

Jack Marshall does almost all of Krule’s visuals such as album covers, music videos, tour posters etc, some of his illustrations are incorporated into my submission so big shoutout to him. Also, shoutout to my Dad, Guy Winston, he’s a huge inspiration.

Cheers!