Hi, I’m Chris Smith and I’m a 3rd year student in Visual Communication and Design, Perth. I’m originally from Inverness, and currently based in Edinburgh. I had some previous experience in design from college a while ago, and worked freelance before commencing this course last year. My specialities in the fields of visual communication are graphic design, illustration and traditional print making techniques such as screen printing and lino cutting. My work is heavily influenced by my tastes in music and popular culture, with heavy metal, horror films and literature significant points in my personal style. I am also influenced by tattoo culture and the variety of ways it has been integrated into modern day consumables.
I came into higher education relatively later on in life, and spent my twenties and early thirties playing in heavy metal bands and working in bars. When I started working as a live music promoter for a venue in Edinburgh, one aspect of the work entailed designing posters for some of the upcoming shows. Despite my cringeworthy early Photoshop attempts, this rapidly became my favourite part of the job to the point where I left the company and started a NQ in design in the local college. Personal reasons resulted in moving to Spain and not completing the course, but I studied hard in my free time from home and picked up some work for bands using my contacts I’d built in the years previous as a musician. I carried on doing small jobs here and there after moving back to Edinburgh; while working in the hostel industry I lost my job due to the pandemic in March 2020. It made sense to finally finish off my education, the course appealed to me and here I am!
As I stated, I’m influenced by a lot of imagery from heavy metal and horror media. With regards to the music side of things, I am a big fan of the work of Ken Taylor, Skinner, Branca Studio, Tristan Eaton, Arik Roper and John Dyer Baizley. All those artists work in a variety of media, but primarily illustrative and digital-design based and have done extensive work with a number of bands. With regards to illustration, I am a particularly big fan of the work of horror manga artist Junji Ito, who conjures up truly nightmarish imagery from pen, ink and screen toned paper. I am also a big fan of Jason Alexander, John Kenn Mortensen and Charles Burns. Finally, the design work of Aaron Draplin, Lincoln Design Company and Brett P Stenson all continually inspires with their diverse concepts and fearsome work ethic. From my own portfolio, I’d like to show two pieces of my work from very different times in my journey in the creative arts.
The first image is a poster I designed using Photoshop and Illustrator for a concert in Edinburgh, headlined by the band Elder from Boston. This poster was designed in 2016, and was done roughly at the same time I moved to Spain and was spending a lot of time on YouTube tutorials and trying to absorb design information and tips and tricks. This piece represented a breakthrough for me personally, as I achieved a level of professionalism previously thought unachievable, and was a big hit with the band and gig-goers.
The second image was done in Procreate this year, and is now being used as the front cover for the new release by solo heavy metal artist Tommy Concrete. Getting a tablet was a game-changer for myself like so many other artists, and I love the freedom and possibilities that arise when you work purely digitally. A lot of my work these days is now much more illustrative, and I enjoy meshing motifs from tattoos and horror into character design that appeals to a certain subset of music fan, myself included.
My plans just now are to finish fourth year, and keep improving on my existing skills while learning new ones with the field of motion graphics particularly appealing. I am also keen to start looking into work in AR, all while still keeping in touch with traditional print making and working with ink on paper. I have also built a small screen printing studio at home, and am looking forward to working in that medium over the summer on projects both personal and commercial.
Comments