Watchlist Magazine

29 y/o Drew Millward has been designing characters, posters and merchandise for 5 years, building up a considerable reputation. He prefers to assume that his success is somehow accidental, such is his modesty. His imagination translates brilliantly onto paper, bridging us with his world of weird, complex characters. Drew’s skill for personifying his subjects, and developing a sense of story around his designs brings his abstract characters to life in a very powerful way. Monster ice creams and bleeding cats have never looked so good.

Drew’s journey began by illustrating poster designs for his friends and favourite bands around Leeds, leading him to today’s international commissions. His prints now sell around the world to an ever growing army of fans. Here is a great example of creative talent emerging without the hidden hand of a PR team – essentially going viral through a variety of social networks. It is easy to see how word-of-mouth has sparked up so much interest in Drew.

A string of music industry and poster designs – racking up recent credits with Flight of The Conchords, Gallows, Sonic Youth and Mogwai – have allowed Drew to reach new audiences, attracting a wave of new fans to his online galleries.

Exploring the detail, you discover an extraordinary quality of design. You enter a world of multi-dimensional craftsmanship… a glory-hole for design junkies. Here, for me at least, is an artist of real depth.

It may come as a surprise to many that Drew manages all of this without the use of vectors. He freely admits that digital workflow would speed up his process, but there is an underlying reluctance to change. It’s nice to see such loyalty to traditional practice. His passion for the craft even spills over into producing his own screen-prints – an additional challenge normally left to specialists for good reason. We should all be very glad of his passion for illustration, and his enduring will to create.

Talk us through your creative process…

Pencil->Pen->Pixel->Screen Print.
I start with a sketch that would make no sense to anyone but me. I usually trace over it a few times and add in more detail each time until I’m happy with how it looks. I’ll then ink the final image. From there I’ll scan it in, and either colour each separate layer in Photoshop, or using additional layers of tracing paper…. Depending on how I want it to look. Everything is then layered and assembled in Photoshop. Separated for printing, or saved for whatever purpose it is intended.

Tell us something everyone should know, but probably doesn’t.

I’m colour-blind. I’m allergic to dogs. And cats. I’m allergic to dairy products. I was always last to get picked in PE.

What have been the critical decisions in your success?

As times goes on, the more I realize that the world is made up of millions of people wandering about not knowing what they are doing. Doctors, lawyers, parents, MP’s – pretty much everyone. I am no different, I muddle by on a day-to-day basis, and from time to time something is asked of me that seems like something that is worth doing.

I started drawing by accident, I gave up my job to draw full time on an ill advised whim, but somewhere along the line it’s ended up working out OK. I cannot think of any critical decisions that have been made that forced the path of fate in this direction, just hard work, lots of drawing and a hermit like existence.

What contribution did your education play in your success?

Um, very little. I studied art from GCSE to Degree level, but I can honestly say that I produced not one thing that had any merit whatsoever. Before then I recall loving drawing, but when it was formalized in any way, I didn’t enjoy it half as much. It wasn’t the teaching that was at fault [through high school and sixth form I had a great art teacher called Andy Smith], but the very fact that it was structured in any way at all. I guess the fun was sucked out of it somewhat.

I am in no way saying that education and training is a bad thing, but for me, personally it wasn’t what I should have been doing. My heart wasn’t in it, and you can only hope to get out of something what you put-in… in my case that was pretty much fuck all.

The bottom line is that I don’t really like being told what to do, and regardless of how unstructured Fine Art courses can be, I think it was something that I would have been better bypassing.

Tell us about some of the themes in your work: much of it has a fantastic sense of humour about it, but there are also some pretty morbid undertones… How have trauma and distress found their way into your illustrations?

I never really thought about it like that. I suppose I have always had a morbid sense of humour, and I’ve always been fascinated by things that are sinister and alluring all at once. I can’t say I’ve had a massively traumatic life, so that can’t really account for it.

I suppose I’m a fairly cantankerous and miserable person, so that will always filter in there somewhere I guess, but at the same time I like to look at nice things.

Do references to The Eye of Ra mean something in particular to you personally?

Maybe.

Tell us about some of the risks have you taken and their consequences. What contribution have certain risks made to your work?

I suppose the biggest risk I ever took was walking out a job I hated. Realistically, a few more months there I would have lost my mind anyway, so the choice was losing my mind or sitting about in my pyjamas drawing pictures all day. When you look at it that way, it’s not really much of a competition. Although sitting about in pyjamas drawing pictures all day certainly sounds like a by-product of losing your mind, so perhaps that already happened. When all you do is draw all day, you really start to develop, so I would like to think that since taking that risk I’ve improved as an artist/illustrator/designer: whatever I am.

What kind of adversities, constraints and scepticism have you had to battle with?

None really. It’s all been plain sailing. Honest.

What is the value of Internet technology to you? How have you benefited from the digitized world, and how do you see the future of your line of work evolving in terms of emerging artists finding success?

I’ve discussed this with so many people, and I’ve not met anyone who doesn’t think the same, in as much as “what the fuck did people do before the internet?” I assume people who worked in offices and such probably actually did some work instead of posting about their latest existential crisis on Facebook, but in terms of the creative industry it’s a bloody wonder anyone ever saw anyone’s work at all.

How would you describe your attitude and your perceptions as a frustrated art graduate, and how has that changed over the last few years?

I was never a frustrated art graduate, I just sucked it up and went and got a job I hated in an office I didn’t like, in a town I actively despised.

Now I am content to eek out a living drawing my pictures until I am no longer in any sort of demand. After which I will most likely go back to working in an office or teaching.

What kind of assumptions have you made in the past that have proven unhelpful?

That people know what they are talking about.

If you were able to press the reset button on your professional life, what would be your 1st priority?

Probably to get a website; something that after 5 years of doing this sort of stuff is still proving elusive.

Who or what do you see as a force for positive change in the art world?

The Internet. Admittedly it’s mainly filled up with pornography, social networking sites and scams involving the Nigerian Lottery, but I’ll be fucked if I know how else to get your work seen. It’s a bit of a double edged sword in terms of quantity and quality, but it allows people to see and hear what they want from anywhere on the planet. It’s like a massive gallery filled from floor to ceiling with every image you would care to imagine, and some you wouldn’t. Brilliant.

See more at: drewmillward.com and flickr.com/drewmillward