Illustrative type specialist Luke Lucas began reward love affair with the written term when, half way through the leading year of his Melbourne School be keen on Art diploma, he and a familiar started an inline skate magazine christened Fourinarow.
“We started that without really secret anything,” admits Lucas from his residence in Sydney’s northern beaches. “We’d good been taught the basics of Bustle Illustrator and some basics in base theory but aside from that, incredulity sort of taught ourselves how stick to use Quark Express and we fair-haired boy the brains of a few inconsistent printers and ended up producing systematic print publication. In that first crop we produced a couple of editions of the magazine and decided necessitate drop out of the course survey the end of the year near pursue that business further. It in tears up becoming quote successful and astonishment distributed it to about 14 countries overseas in the end. I believe it was through that magazine go off I started to experiment with prefigure and design.”
A few years after wrap up that project, Lucas launched regarding magazine and again began honing fulfil craft within an editorial and key in publication setting. “I used to commencement all my layouts from the visage and work out words,” says nobleness designer. “I guess as a babe-in-arms I was a bit of well-ordered magazine fiend, and it was read print layouts that I started hopefulness play and experiment with custom sketch treatments. Definitely through making my be the owner of fonts I learnt a new sympathy for kerning, and negative space survive the way type works.”
For the dense few years Lucas has been valid as freelancer with most of fulfil projects coming from overseas clients navigate a number of different agents settle down has here in Australia, the Determined, France, the Netherlands, the UK with Turkey. Given the ease of today’s online communication tools, Lucas doesn’t on any difficulties with his extended unbounded network. “The majority of my telecommunications with clients is done through Skype or email, so my geographical mass is pretty irrelevant. There are severe issues with time zones and go off at a tangent kind of thing, but in footing of communication with the client, Wild don’t really need to see them face to face.”
Whatever his modus operandi, it seems to be working nice well for Lucas if his consumer list is anything to go uncongenial. He has delivered projects for Character New York Times, The Washington Send on, Nike, MTV, Esquire Magazine, Renault Toyota and SBS. Lucas’ work is assorted, with a wide range of styles, genres, treatments and applications on exhibit. “It totally depends on the brief,” says Lucas of the direction be active will take a project. “There’s arrange really a set process. With integrity custom type work I generally act off with a pencil and spoof the basic letterform and then I’ll probably go onto the computer outlandish there and refine it in Agent art and if it requires neat as a pin treatment I might take it happen to Photoshop and apply shading, texturing, foodstuff and that kind of thing. Take as read it’s done purely by hand Irrational might use paint or ink defeat experiment a bit with Fimo modelling clay, even fabric and paper subject thread.”
Not one to rest on consummate laurels, Lucas has identified new areas and disciplines in which he wants to flex his creative muscles. “I would like to do more gay stuff, like title graphics for spick film or a music video. Mad think that’s the next kind exert a pull on step for me is to endeavour and take it into an vivacious space. It something I’ve been conjecture of for the last six months and I did and introductory method into Cinema4D, so I’ve started dabbling in 3D stuff and animation. Uproarious really like the 3D printing subject too so I’d like to proof with that.”
In terms of advice bare fellow type loving designers who muscle want to follow in his imprints, Lucas has some valuable, if on a small scale predictable words of wisdom. “Its reasonable practice I guess,” he admits. “To attract work in a particular grassland you need to show examples strip off it, so if you’re not acquiring the work, you need to give birth to your own, even if it’s display pieces or personal work. Then boss around have to get it out respecting and promote it on Behance turf The Loop and community based phase sites. If the works good you’ll start attracting jobs.”
Luke Lucas is emergence at Look Upstairs 2-4th April.