Dan used to front the band Bastion and now can be seen in The Dead Beat. Dan also designs some amazing fliers, we caught up with him to chat about his work….
Hey Dan, thanks for chatting with us here at Lights Go Out, we appreciate it big time. Let’s get on with this quick interview then….What made you get into designing gig fliers and logos for bands?
Hi mate! nice to be back in Lights Go Out! I’ve tried being in a band and can’t seem to make any money out of that, so thought I’d give this a try – I’m ALL about the benjamins. I guess that probably seeing Iain and Dan’s artwork for bands and posters made me get the arty itch again. I did A-level art back in 1998-1999 – and then decided against doing an art degree, so kind of stopped drawing until now.
Where do you get your inspiration from for your artwork?
I’m not sure really – probably a combination of friends who draw cool stuff (Underfire Comics, Dan Bell, Iain Buchanan + Artists I like Vince Ray (cool tattoo/rock n roll stuff), Rene Magritte and Salvador Dali (dead Spanish and Belgian surrealists) for the fact they just drew totally weird random stuff. But mainly I just do a bad pun based on the band name, think of an idea and then just doodle until something works. Sometimes it’ll just be a random picture that has nothing to do with the bands, but looks nice. Not really any particular method…
What has been your favourite piece so far?
Probably either the Upcoming Dillinger Four/Hard Skin/Arteries/Zatopeks poster – good line up eh?! The Assorted Jellybeans Poster with one of your bands (Second In Line) playing – or the Night Marchers poster with the Ghouls – mainly as I love the Night Marchers so it was just awesome to be able to do this one!
You do fliers for loads of shows, do you end up getting free tickets for these shows?
Sometimes, I’ve had a few guest lists – some I’ve taken, others I haven’t been able to attend, I’ve been paid for a few of them – nothing major yet, but it all helps to pay for pens and wine. I won’t name names as not fair to people really – but I appreciate anything promoters have thrown my way and the opportunity to do them, and build up my portfolio as I’ve really just been starting out and improving what I do.
Are there any artists out there that have influenced your design work?
I don’t know about influencing me as my style is nothing like them, but stuff I’ve seen that I really like is Chris 3D glasses, Jamie from the Arteries stuff is pretty cool, the chap from Calvinball’s stuff is brilliant too – don’t know his name. A friend of a friend called Russell Taysom (in the band Micro Penis) also does wicked stuff. Dan Bell from Bastion has shown me the basics of photoshop and even him explaining about leaving areas to fill using photoshop, and leaving spaces between lines etc has been really helpful, but not sure if I have the same style as any of those…
What projects have you got that you’re working on (other than a front cover for a future issue of this very zine!)?
Well that’s top of the list obviously! Other than that I’m doing one for The Peacocks show in Brighton next year, probably some artwork for a couple of bands including my own (The Dead Beat), I’ll just do whatever is chucked my way really. Hint Hint.
I know you have a Myspace page for your work, is this the best way for people to get in touch with you about getting you to design something for them?
Yup, myspace is helpful – also danbowdendesign [at] hotmail.com is probably the best way to get in touch and let me know if you’d like something done.
Do you feel there is a whole culture within gig fliers and that they need to be amazing pieces of work by themselves?
I think so – if you look on gigposters/carbonmade there’s some amazing stuff out there (above and way beyond the standard I’m currently at!) There’s a great pub in Brighton called the Windmill that showcases loads of amazing gig posters by Vince Ray and Tara McPherson among others – it’s really cool. I think it’s a valid medium in itself, but it’s tricky if like me you’re doing posters that are actually being used for the show to promote it and have the info – as the promoter always wants a load of text about tickets/times/addresses etc – the more established artists get commissions and it seems can just have really minimalist artwork with not that much info – a lot more artistic licence….but not complaining – even chosing a decent text / font type / writing the details by hand is a skill in itself I think.
And finally, what are your all time favourite movies?
Probably: 1. The Big Lebowski 2. Spirited Away 3. The Usual Suspects but what’s that got to do with anything? I think you meant to ask ‘Anything Else?’ – my answer to that is well as having a peek at my gallery, also check out Underfire Comics of Brighton’s work for awesome independent Comic / graphic novels and Russell Taysom’s work as they’re all dudes and have great stuff.
www.myspace.com/danbowdendesign
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