Josh millgate Interview

Josh is a graphic designer who has given me feedback throughout first year and is someone who I very much looked up to for advice on projects. He works on alot of music based projects, this is an area of the industry I have often wanted to explore myself, it also reflected my cop project very well at the time of the interview. Josh has worked with numerous artists as a freelancer and not so long ago become a designer at push magazine. A magazine which focuses on emerging hip-hop and targets a audience who are more interested in producing culture than consuming culture. However Millgate design practice is based around digital processes, he recently learnt to code and is often creating interactive landing pages, or animation. my Original ideas for this interview based around creating something digital a possible animated poster, a music video which used one of his animated and moving text or a digital zine. These seemed like very obvious response which when thinking about josh makes sense. However after some more thinking and rereading the interview a number of times I came to realise. My interview is very much based around joshes insights and knowledge to me, to help my practice. He has answered my question in a very selfless way they are not a way for him to boost his ego and talk about himself. He has used it as an opportunity to help me and give me some very useful advice. One of these pieces of advice being to 'Just try things' even if it doesn't make sense to. An example laser cutting onto a piece of wood and then smashing it up for the sake of it. This would have absolutely no relation to joshes practice but by using this method im taking his advice and im trying something which wouldn't in a normal situation make sense. It also takes advantage of the facilities we have here at the college.

 laser cut your logo into a block of wood and then break it into pieces just for the hell of it.

‘Digitally customised cars’ 

1. What sparked your interest in design?

When I was around 16 years old I fascinated and transfixed on the idea of customised cars. I used to get these customised car/street racing magazines and somewhere within a few issues there was a section for people who ‘Digitally customised cars’ using software such as Photoshop. I remember handing the magazine to my stepdad at the time and asking him if he could get me “Photoshop”. The rest is history.

2. How important do you think social media is, in building a presence and for getting work?

For me personally, my career was kickstarted by social media. It all depends entirely on what area you want to work in though, I utilised social media early on because it was a sure fire way to reach out to my preferred choice of client and their respective target audience. But over recent years my preference of client and target audience has changed and therefore I don’t utilise it so much anymore. It’s important not to confuse 1. Using social media to get clients and 2. Using social media to build a following and/or receive commendation for your work. The two require very different approaches and require much different aspects of your personality as a designer. They also have very different outcomes, most of the time people use social media to receive likes and satisfy the ego, this is not the way.

3. I’m curious by your creative process. How do you like to start a project and where does it go from there?

It really all depends on the project at hand but most projects require a very thorough discussion with the client so that I fully understand two things, 1. What they need and 2. What they want. I then have to either do my best to win the client over through a process of explaining what they need over what they want or vice versa. Then, unless a solution comes to my mind within the discussion phase, I usually get down to sketching ideas, writing words, brainstorming or doodling on paper until something manifests. From there I will start a process of back and forth with the client until they’re happy, I’ll present ideas, they’ll provide feedback, I refine, repeat. Sometimes I get it in one go, sometimes it takes weeks or months.

4. What would be your advice to an emerging graphic designer?

I remember starting out as a student and thinking that I couldn’t compete with the big guys out there that are putting out amazing work but the truth is in fact the opposite. The ‘big guys’ in graphic design are usually set in their place in the industry producing the same work day in day out. They usually find a lot of inspiration in the unconditioned, fresh and new emerging work from students and new comers to the industry. So my advice is to not be afraid, pretend the system works in reverse, the newer you are to the industry, the more tasteful and relevant your work is. Utilise everything in your environment as a student, use everything your university has to offer even if you don’t know why you are doing it, go print something on the 3D printer, laser cut your logo into a block of wood and then break it into pieces just for the hell of it.

5. What motivates you to push yourself and your practice and how do you cope with creative blocks?

My personal philosophy lies around being the best person I can be in every sense of the word. So generally I am motived by life itself and don’t require much pushing. I most definitely didn’t start out with this outlook though and it took a long time to develop. In regards to creative block, my advice is to just remember that the block is only being created by you. You are standing in the way of yourself - so to avoid this, move out of the way of yourself for a while. Focus your attention elsewhere and push the task at hand to one side for as long as you can afford to. If there is a deadline looming then it’s more likely that the block is not a creative one but a wall of anxiety built around the fact there is a deadline looming and nothing more. Take a break, meditate and get back to it, push the wall down.

6. Music seems to be a key component in the work produce. What does music mean to you?

It’s a very good but vague question, music can mean a lot of things. But most importantly, I think music affects peoples state of mind on such a fundamental level but deep within the subconscious. It affects your emotional state without you even noticing it, so with that in mind, consider if what you are listening to is emitting an emotionally positive vibe within or the opposite. Even if you enjoy the sound of a song it may sometimes be affecting you negatively under the hood. You need to be conscious of a songs content and its influence on you, I like to ask, 'what does this song promote emotionally?’ when I start music design projects because then it taps into the fundamental aspect of music and communicates with an audience without them even knowing why.  

7. What has been your biggest mistake? How has this informed your work?

My biggest mistake was being so naive at university. I thought the world of design revolved around Adobe Photoshop but I couldn’t have been any further from the truth. I really missed out on all the fantastic utilities and help available at my university. I wish I tried new things just for the sake of trying. For example, let’s say I’m working on a digital album artwork for a project, in my mind I can’t see how a 3d printer might help me - but so what, I go 3d print something anyway to see what happens. Then I melt it down and photograph it in a studio and it turns out better than any of the digital concepts I worked on in photoshop. It also took me a long time to find healthy inspiration on the internet. I used to just rely on google images at university but I now have a tonne of fruitful blogs and platforms online that inspiration is pouring out of my ears.

8. Where are you and what are you doing when you get your best ideas?

My best ideas usually come just before I fall asleep in bed, as I’m crazily overthinking every aspect of my life just before the lights switch off. Most of the time i jump out of bed and sketch it down or type ideas into my iPhone.