top of page

Interview Connor Dyer - Graphic Designer!

  • Writer: Kerry Thompson
    Kerry Thompson
  • Mar 8, 2017
  • 4 min read

"Anything that sort of breaks down the barriers between work and life where you get to have some cool life experiences out of your work, I think that’s an imperative thing in terms of a dream career."

Connor Dyer is a graphic designer currently taking his MA in Graphic Design at Portsmouth University, we met there to talk about his work.

Why did you decide to work in a creative career?

"I guess as a kid I liked getting creative with basically anything I could. I didn’t really think about the career side. I went straight through school chose the options I liked, carried that on at college then at university and I’m still here and I want to be a graphic designer and be creative."

What challenges have you faced so far?

"Well there are technical challenges like learning computer software because I’m not always the most efficient learning stuff like that. With creative projects you have to allow for errors and screw-ups so time management can be quite a big deal. It can be quite annoying and quite taxing when you’ve spent time on a job that should have taken an hour but instead, you’ve spent a week on it because it’s just not going right."

Describe your typical way of working?

"I tend to get lots of books and articles, stuff like that. I research quite heavily on contextually, that’s how I get ideas. I need to read things and see them on paper then I’ll go and take experiments from that and work from there. I’m quite regimental with my routine I have to do it in the same sort of time frame everyday. I don’t just work here and there I have to do it in a block. So I’ll come in here all day then I’ll go home and I won’t do anything, I have to learnt what times I can and cant work at."

What has been your most successful project and why?

"Probably The Undiscovered Country - ISTD competition entry last year, we had a whole year to look at something we’ve never really done before. We had to look at typography in such depth and learn what it did and to just the way you see that come together over the time frame from how you start to how you finish it becomes really successful because you have to dedicate a lot of time towards it you can really see yourself progressing as a designer and then you have a really nice artefact at the end of it. I had a sixty-page book exploring the DMT and its relationship with death and that’s was pretty nice to have."

What projects are you most interested in doing?

"I really want to get involved with editorial, magazine design and stuff like that. Which is why I’m trying to get my Masters. So I suppose continual design where you design around the content given, I quite enjoy that I find that quite an interesting challenge. I guess that stuff appeals to me like print and layout."

If you could spend the day with any artist dead or alive, who would it be and why?

"Not necessarily for his work but there’s this guy called Skinner who produces these really cool trippy illustrations. Just because of the videos I see him in, he just seems like a right laugh to hang around with. He seems like a guy who really doesn’t take himself too seriously just talks a load of crap and that’s someone I could in vision spending the day and not getting bored with."

What would be your ideal career in Graphic Design?

"Working for a magazine doing editorials even just conducting interviews because I feel with that you’ll meet so many cool people and get to go to a lot of cool places. Anything that sort of breaks down the barriers between work and life where you get to have some cool life experiences out of your work, I think that’s an imperative thing in terms of a dream career."

Is there a technique or method in working you have found useful and would recommend to other artists?

"Just recently I’ve started using thing technique used in grunge typography like David Carson. Just cutting, splicing, scanning things in and just messing things up and that’s just seems to be kinda dead now, nobody seems to be doing it or want to do it. I don’t know maybe I’m just weird and I’m the only one who likes that but yeah I just love doing that cutting ripping things not needing to have any idea just being creative and hands on with things."

Do you have any pictorial product or equipment you’ve found useful and would recommend?

"Well yeah I think brush pens is always good to have if your arty or illustrative because some the effects they can create and there’s a lot different types out there. Personally at the moment I’m just loving any old printer or scanners half my stuff just goes through that so many times or old photocopiers stuff like and you can just Photoshop little bits out of that. It’s a really easy way that everyone can do if you have a scanner or a large format printer is useful but I would recommend that because there really expensive"

Are you working on anything at the moment?

"Just my Masters really at the minute, which is my final major project. I’m looking to do something that gets designers, visual artist or anyone that really wants to do it as a hobby to embrace chaos again and make design a little less wooden. I just looking at all the chaotic visual and nobody seem to do that anymore. I like stuff a bit messier so I’m try do something with chaos but I’m still finding my feet with it so Ill let you know how its goes."

The Visual Spill would like to thank Connor Dyer for taking the time to talk to us. There are links below to the products discussed today Next week we’re joined by Sophie Jess stay tuned!


 
 
 

Comments


500 Terry Francois St. San Francisco, CA 94158

  • Facebook Clean
  • Twitter Clean
bottom of page