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My Poor Brain ~ Tim Smith

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Hi Tim, can we start by you telling us a little bit about yourself?

Hi. My name is Tim, I was born and bred in a small town in North Wales, after which I studied Graphic Design at the University of Gloucestershire. After completing my degree, I took a year out to work on some self promotion including my (old) website. However, I soon became side-tracked with internships in London as well as some design competitions and freelance work. I now live and work in London. I have an interest in film and music, frequently attending gigs and cinemas. Science fiction is always something that has fascinated me and I would like to say my work is inspired by my interests, but it is not, someday I want to really do something inspired by this.

2. Your client list is very impressive. What projects have you enjoyed working on the most?

That’s a really difficult one. I have been lucky enough to work alongside Sony PlayStation a lot, and the press kits I work on are always a lot of fun. You don’t often get a project where you are designing the structure of something, the look and feel, the surface design, disc design, literature, contents, digital aspects? Not only that but you get to conceive the whole idea, what the physicality is and in what context that is appropriate. I’d call myself an ideas man, so these are very challenging and really gets my poor brain (ahem) working. I also enjoy good old fashioned pure design projects. I love working with ideas and illustration, but when your task is to design something that gets a message across or delivers content in the best, most efficient way - when successful this is very rewarding. For that reason projects I’ve done for a well-known mobile phone manufacturer and The London Library have been a couple of my most enjoyable projects.

3.Which other designers do you draw inspiration from?

I draw inspiration from creatives from illustrators to photographers to design agencies, not necessarily just designers, though they inspire me too. From an illustration perspective I really enjoy the work of Pete Fowler, James Jarvis, Jon Burgerman; those guys are now almost house hold names, but I’m not going to say I knew them way back when, that would be a cliche. Collectives such as Vault 49 and CIA are always great at what they do. Design wise I really like the work of Olly Moss at the moment, his movie posters are a fine example of where a great idea meets beautiful and simple design, somewhere I aspire to be. There’s plenty of great design agencies too, there’s so much talent out there, sometimes it makes me want to hang up my Mac and be a JCB driver like I aspired to be as a child.

4. If you could pick any client in the world to work with, who would it be?

I’ve thought about this many times before, and while sometimes it changes, it almost always comes back to the same answer, and I’m afraid it’s another cliche. I’ve always wanted to do the complete album and tour campaign artwork for one of my favourite bands. Growing up and even today I’ve been a massive fan of Feeder, back in the day they were as trendy as any band today, now-a-days I guess I can’t simply discard them and perhaps I follow them for nostalgia’s sake, though they still are making great music (not all of it mind). Anyway, it’d be great to design their album artwork, plus the singles that came off it, merchandise, promotional material, website, tour collateral, the works. The campaign for their second album ‘Yesterday Went Too Soon’ and everything that came off it was really great, it had a strong concept with a story that unfolded and developed the more the campaign grew, single after single, gig after gig. The photography and design was also great. Other bands I’d love to work for include Mew, 3 Colours Red, Basskniv3s, Sigur Ros, Mogwai, Foo Fighters and Nine Inch Nails? if they’re reading this (yes I know a couple of them are no more).

5.Do you have any advice for young designers with aspirations of breaking into the design industry?

Oof, hard one. Don’t listen too much to the things you hear about the industry; not everyone wants you to make their tea for them, you don’t have to like the work of Neville Brody or David Carson and you shouldn’t spend every waking minute thinking about, talking about, or reading about design. Be yourself, be honest, work hard and try to stay inspired even when inevitably times get tough?

but you should definitely dislike Comic Sans.

My website: www.mypoorbrain.com Follow me on twitter: www.twitter.com/mypoorbrain

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You can see Tim’s UBD Network portfolio here

by Sasha
Friday 12th August 2011