Drew Millward

Today, artist Drew Millward came in to give us a talk on his profession. His work is extremely intricate and expressive, crafted in the 'old fashioned way' drawing using pens and pencils; although over time he has used digital processes to enhance the quality and process of his work. 

Some examples of his work:

Millward started by saying that the things we look at when we are young are the most important. Pictures can be extremely powerful through story telling, and those images often stay with us for a long time. Some of Millward's favourite childhood illustrators include Jan Pienkowski, Maurice Sendak, and Richard Scarry.

Growing up, Millward loved music and as a teenager him and his band played at local gigs in and around Bolton. He attended Leeds Metropolitan/Beckett university at 18 and studied fine art, although throughout he was more interested in Graphic Design and felt like he never fitted in.

Later on, Millward became very interested in gig posters. The poster by Jay Ryan entitled 'squirrels taking risks' opened up his eyes to opportunities in creating posters, and at this point his work really kicked off as we was extremely lucky to become involved with the right people at the right time.

Simultaneously, his work also kicked off with screen printing as he was able to make and sell more physical products at the same time as working with bands and promoters. He said that if you have an interest in something you enjoy, make it pay for itself!

As his work began to further develop, he acquired a more professional process of working. This consisted of drawing in pencil, scanning it in and tracing it in photoshop and then screen printing. Millward became accustom to working in a restriction of four colours. This wasn't too much or too little, especially as the colours allowed to mix within the screen printing process. Despite also being colour blind this was a great success.

Millward stated that one of his personal flaws was becoming easily bored with the way he works, as a lot of customers demand and expect the continuity of his explosive and expressive style, he finds it difficult to try new things out.

In 2012 he aspired to try something new, and this resulted in the creation of the florence and the machine bestival 2012 poster. However he did worry that it 'didn't look like his work'.

In 2013 he began to make things simpler and work in two colours.

He said that no matter how your style changes and improves, some clients ask you for the 'same old shit'. A lot of his work has been extremely successful, working for well known companies such as nike, having his love of beer open up opportunities to create posters advertising beer festivals and his enthusiasm for music increasing his strive to make striking gig posters. 

To conclude, Millward left us with this venn diagram.