PPP3 : Jack Grafton - correspondence

Jack Grafton is a recently graduated friend of mine from foundation. He graduated last summer from Edinburgh school of art and has since been interning like a mad person and achieving some great placement opportunities which have lead him onto a job as a graphic designer at burberry. I have decided to reach out to him to find out his opinions on graphic design from the point of view of a recent graduate who has been at many studios this year and so will have encounted many different experiences of graphic design. As we are friends the tone of the email is slightly different compared to the emails I have exchanged with, with professionals who I do not know :

Hey Suzy Moooooore!

My pleasure – sorry, this are going to be shity…

I think that it's a combination of the two, I have almost like a checklist of things I do when approaching a brief, brainstorming and building up a library of relevant inspiration and research. I guess you kind of hope inspiration strikes at some point along the journey.

Creativity is important in that its the backbone of all design. I think an individual who works in the creative field who isn't creative, in some sense of the word, will struggle to make anything of value. I think that everybody is creative in some way.

If I hit a wall with a project or direction, I always try to over compensate by doing a million variations, sometimes it works and others it doesn't. The best thing for me to do is to seek the opinion of someone who has nothing to do with the project, often they say something which you can use as a trigger or notice things you hadn't seen before.

I like to have a very clear space when I start and finish working, I reckon the space actually influences you more than you'd think. Architecture, music, company, books and other ephemera must surely have a bearing on creativity and productivity.

Let me know if you need any more or to elaborate man!

BIG LOVE

SUNDAYYYY

X

Jack Grafton

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+44 7541 304130

http://jackgrafton.co.uk