Episode 28: Doing Your Best Work with Matt C. Stokes
Matt C Stokes is an illustrator designer based in Brighton, his work has been seen in UK National Geographic & Discovery channels. He has painted murals for pubs and restaurants and designed T-shirts for clothing labels. He has been part of a number of teams at agencies & firms, including Yardpartners, McFaul Studio, Radford Wallis & CompoundEye Design.
Image 1: Protect and Survive
“It’s the first thing I had published back when I was still a student. It's for some kind of free music magazine. Protecting survivors is the famous campaign in the 80s to prepare for a nuclear attack. It's got this eerie kind of feel to it. The dodgy kind of public information, videos, and then there's so much attached to that, like nuclear fallout and that film Threads.”
Where did you study?
“I studied at the University of Brighton. It was a good place. It's like everything - what you make of it. So if you didn't engage, you probably wouldn’t get that much out of it. It was really good to just do lots of different work really, looking back on it, 99% was rubbish. That started me on my journey of having a portfolio showing people work that I was interested in doing and wanting to do more of, rather than showing them the work that I didn't want to do.”
Image 2: Boxfresh T-shirt
“I think I started looking at old pattern books, there was a kid's coloring book. I can't remember what it was called and it had just all these different patterns. And I started drawing some more of them, and then taking bits away or adding bits and making, making it repeat. Like that you've seen with the IR imagery, I start with everything in pencil, and kind of if I want to move something I'll Photoshop it over.”
How do you bring the brand’s DNA to life?
“A lot of the time, it's kind of looking and researching and then kind of going alright, what is it that? What is it that makes that a Ben and Jerry's illustration? I've often had to work within constraints which can be really good in a way.”
Image 3: Create In Brighton 2012 Competition
“I suppose it was kind of like my calling card for a little bit this image. And it led to getting other images in the same style.”
Image 4: EYEYAH! Internet Smart Devices
“So as the internet, how many puns can we get away with, we've got to remember that it's an international audience. Like the worm and the spam and stuff like that. I quite enjoy thinking of things like that, as I was putting them back together. And then what other ones that I thought, will anyone get this, there's probably something in there that I've put it there and then forgotten. Something about junk, like the cat in the bottom right-hand corner has junk food randomly. I think that was junk mail. I don't know why the washing machine is that about money laundering, and then he's got plants in his hand. Some of them are just stupidly fun things to draw and include.”
Why are the people blue?
“You asked me about that recently about the blue thing, I think there's a cartoon and that's what inspired me. I think it was Frank's cartoon, Ulysses, and it has these species of people that are blue all over.”
Image 5: Podcast Covers
“The reason why I include all three of these here is that it was a really great challenge having to represent something visually, that didn't have anything visual to go on whatsoever. And it all existed completely as audio. So, I started by listening to it and listening to what the Sound producer has done with the kind of music input beginning to think more. What does that sound like? What would that look like if you could see the sound?”
Advice to young Illustrators and Designers
“I'd say do the kind of work you want to be doing. Don't go and share a portfolio of stuff you don't want to be doing. Try as hard as you can to be doing the stuff you like. Because if you're doing a project, and you have no interest in what the subject matter is, and no interest in how you're doing it, and you're not pushing yourself to try and learn something new, then you're really not going to do your best work.”
Media Recommendation
The Illustrator’s Guide to Law and Business Practice by Association of Illustrators (2008)
The Star Trek: The Next Generation® Technical Manual, written by Rick Sternbach and Michael Okuda
Phllip K. Dick Books (Famous Science Fiction Author)
More from Matt C. Stokes
