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Featured Designer Richard Nabarro

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This week we caught up with Richard Nabarro, a young graphic designer from Manchester. Richard’s work has been featured on some big design blogs over the last few months since graduating, so we interviewed him to find out a bit more.

Q1 UBD Network was drawn to your designs at D&AD; and noticed your collection displays a lot of colour and texture. How would you describe your creative style?

My work is often described as a mix of photo illustration and graphic design, but I usually find that my style shifts depending on the nature or requirements of the brief. Regardless, I always aim to create engaging compositions that are efficient, vivid and striking. Photography is a great passion of mine, and whenever possible I plan my designs around it. Capturing my own imagery is an integral part of my work, as it allows me to visualise my ideas in a precise manner. Bringing my final ideas to life requires extensive digital manipulation, and I often incorporate texture to give a greater sense of a depth.

Q2 When creating graphics, what do you feel is the most important aspect, planning, design or implementation?.. And why?

That’s a tough question! I think it depends on the project, but planning is always an extremely important aspect. Even a small amount of planning goes a long way, because it allows you to consider your ideas and how you might go about visualising them. If you don’t have a clear process in your head, then crafting the design will always be difficult, and implementation will be somewhat fuzzy.

Q3 Your collection of posters promoting London Showroom captures a unique 3D feel. Could you tell us a little bit about this brief and how you constructed the final concepts?

In September 2008, Fedrigoni UK opened doors to its London Showroom, a place to showcase its fine and speciality papers. The purpose was to have a space that would bring the paper company closer to the design community. The showroom is open for designers to use as a meeting space with clients, exhibition space, sample library or simply as a private event space. For this project, the challenge was to encourage more designers to visit and use the Fedrigoni London Showroom.  In response, I wanted to emphasise the creative possibilities of paper, and communicate the spacial freedom provided by the London Showroom. Throughout the construction of the final concepts I utilised Fedrigoni paper, photography, scans, and digital manipulation. I called upon Sean Knowles for my modelling purposes, and carried out two separate photoshoots to attain all of the necessary imagery. Some posters were much more complex than others, and required a bit of compositing to get the desired effect. For these I constructed simple origami structures which were then photographed, edited, and arranged digitally.

Q4 What has been inspiring you lately?

I take inspiration from everything I see, although mostly on a subconscious level. I frequently check blogs & websites to keep up with the latest trends, and I keep tabs on fellow designers around the world. I love design with a retro vibe, such as the work of Scott Hansen, and Matthew Lyons. I’m also extremely appreciative of the clean cut, conceptual work from Olly Moss.

Q5 Tell us about your company Neon Gravy? Did you start your business whist at university or is this a venture you have achieved since graduating?

I went into my placement year at university with the intention of setting up a design initiative with fellow friend & colleague, James Burlinson. We wanted to experience the business side of design first hand, and working in a collaborative environment was the icing on the cake. Individually we both had very different skill sets, making it easy to bounce ideas off one another and ultimately produce great designs. As a team we were able to tackle a variety of work, including branding, typography, web design, illustration and even product design. This variation gave me the opportunity to try things I’d never done, and better myself in the process.

Q6 Do you have any advice for designers thinking about freelancing or starting up their own business?

Don’t give in to clients asking for dirt cheap design, stick to your guns and justify why you charge the amount that you do.

You can see Richard’s Portfolio here

by Sasha
Wednesday 25th August 2010