Ollie Hirst: The bionic man, humanising content

20 Dec

INTRODUCTION

Illustration makes me tick. Though it’s not the only thing that does. I’m a cardiac pacemaker patient. So, whilst I put my heart into drawing, it gets help from time to time. I have a natural affinity to science and the human body, but I tend to just love subjects that resonate in the real world.

I like my work to hinge on a strong idea and the concept usually drives it, helped by a splash of colour.

Clients include: New Scientist, The Washington Post, Vodafone, Harvard Business Review, Space NK and Pets at Home, among others.

This interview took place over video call in November 2020.

How would you define ‘illustration’?

“Illustration” to me is a term kind of thrown around without people truly understanding what that means - especially in environments where design rules. The word “illustrate” comes from the Latin to “illuminate”. So when we consider what that means, I like to think of it as a manifesto of what illustration should do: shining a light on something, giving a different perspective, going beneath the surface. These are all qualities I aim for my own work to have.

© Ollie Hirst for The University of Sheffield

What does a day in the life of a conceptual editorial designer look like?

My illustration style is very ideas driven. So usually you’ll find me stuck into a sketchbook, hashing out a lot of thumbnail sketches to work out the best way to attack a brief. This is usually step one, then a conversation happens between myself and an art director to agree on the chosen idea, to then progress with the rendering of the image. I drink lots of tea during this process!

Aside from this, recently my client work is winding down for the festive break, so I’ve been working on some ideas for personal work that I’ll hopefully be able to share in the new year. I think it’s also really important to allow natural pauses in your creativity. So to do this, I put some music on, listen to podcasts and go out for walks to ‘recharge’.

“I think it’s also really important to allow natural pauses in your creativity.”

Very few grads leave university fully prepared for the world of work, and just how tough it can be out there. How has your mindset adapted and grown since leaving university? Do you think you were armed with the information you needed to be successful when you graduated?

My mindset has changed for sure since graduating into the real world, but I don’t think university can ever truly prepare you for that. You need to try navigating the industry first yourself to then understand what it is you feel like you’re missing, in order to achieve what you want.

I think there’s a slight misconception (that every student is guilty of having) that when on a creative degree, university is almost like a “passport” to success. When in reality, it’s a place that gives you the time and resource to explore who you are creatively. The real work begins when you get outside the four walls. Remember that.

© Ollie Hirst for the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists

How do you think current students can make the most of their time at university?

My main advice is to fully immerse yourself in the course. What I suppose I mean by that is leave everything you think is currently “your way” at the door and be fully prepared to be challenged and questioned. Be aware that it’s ok for your approach to change. That’s a completely normal and healthy process that happened for me on my degree too.

Another bit of advice I would champion is take advantage of your environment. I appreciate that with the pandemic currently, this may not be possible, but printing, drawing, textile, photographic facilities available in your university are not freely accessible things when you leave. Use them while you can and allow them to sway you if it feels natural to you.

The important thing to remember is that it’s an individual journey. Don’t compare yourself to anyone and stay focused on what your offering is to the industry.

“Leave everything you think is currently “your way” at the door”

What’s the difference between an ‘approach’ and a ‘style’? And why do you value one over the other?

I hate the word “style” as I think it leads other illustrators and clients into a false pretence that it’s all about how something looks. For me it’s much more than that. It’s the “approach” you take, in all manners of that word. The clients you work with, the industries you operate in, the methods you use, the interests you have AND how it looks. These to me are the qualities you can dissect from “styles” of really successful illustrators who are killing it. There’s a unison.

© Ollie Hirst - Speculative work for Creative Review

As a life-long cardiac pacemaker patient, you’ve taken your personal experiences to build a level of expertise and niche within illustration, for the health and science sectors. Was that a conscious decision or did you naturally fall into that industry?

So in my final year of university, I focused on making an experience for facilitating communication that, as a pacemaker patient (essentially a bionic man), can be very difficult to verbalise in a way that cardiologists and other people can relate to.

Images are a universal language that transcend all barriers. Although I don’t do this now with my illustration career, I feel like the sentiment behind why I was making the work is very much still a thread that runs through my work today.

I like to make work with purpose, true intent and real world themes that humanise content and where I can, this is definitely a make or break factor in why I accept a brief. I think my level of expertise in the health/science fields come from a genuine interest. Having a pacemaker is all I’ve ever known. I’ve had one for 23 years and it’s enabled the life I enjoy today. So in a way, I’m indebted to biomedical science. The least I can do in return is take an interest!

“Having a pacemaker is all I’ve ever known. I’ve had one for 23 years and it’s enabled the life I enjoy today. So in a way, I’m indebted to biomedical science. The least I can do in return is take an interest! ”

How did you land your first commission with The Big Issue?

So I was at a point where I’d decided I wanted to illustrate full time, I’d been doing speculative work to build up my folio and I felt ready to send my work out. I’m a member of the AOI (Association of Illustrators) who offer directories you can buy. At the time, not really knowing what I was doing in full, I bought the editorial directory with commissioner details across the UK.

I emailed my work to The Big Issue editorial team up in Glasgow, Scotland (not expecting a reply). A few weeks went by and then I got an email fairly out of the blue asking my availability for a brief. It was a book review illustration for “Last Witnesses”, a book about memoirs of a childhood in the Soviet Nazi regime and WWII. To see the project in full, visit my website!

When we first started chatting a few months ago you’d just launched your virtual mentoring sessions. Why did you decide to offer out this support to your network and how have you found it?

I think I cast my mind back to graduating and how lost I felt in terms of being overwhelmed with what direction to follow. Aside from the obvious family and friends, I didn’t have anyone in my professional network who could critique my work or advise me from a place of business, not love. So I decided to try and offer that service to those people who potentially feel like I did back then.

It’s actually been so much more successful than I could ever wish for. The response has been fantastic and it’s humbling to speak to so many talented up and coming creatives. It’s reassuring to me that these people trust my advice! It’s actually been really therapeutic for myself too - nice to focus on someone else’s experience for a change, especially after isolation and lockdown where everyone’s spent way too much time inside their own heads!

Working on incredibly tight deadlines and quick-turnaround briefs, such as that for the Financial Times, how do you handle the stress and pressure to deliver?

I think a lot of that comes down to my character and who I am. I’m a bit of a perfectionist and always want everything I’m working on to be the best it can possibly be. I’m slowly learning that it’s not always possible, but I’ll give it my best shot!

I can’t remember who it was, but I also was given some advice in the early days saying “you’re only as good as your last job” and I think that haunts me a little bit. I’m aware that the editorial industry is very well connected and word travels fast for both the right (and wrong) reasons. It’s important you maintain healthy client relationships and the best way to do that is by doing a great job, sticking to deadlines, being professional and above all delivering.

Of course, it’s stressful, but the immediacy of editorial sometimes forces you to just stop overthinking and quite often it can be some of the best work because of that fact, I find. The adrenaline kinda keeps me on my toes.

“I’m a bit of a perfectionist and always want everything I’m working on to be the best it can possibly be. I’m slowly learning that it’s not always possible, but I’ll give it my best shot! ”

What are your top tips for getting the work you care about as opposed to the work that pays the bills?

So I think in order to get the work you “want”, clients/agents/peers need to know who you are creatively to know what the thing is to offer you. For me, the way I do that is by having a point of view. I think there’s many different ways you can do this, but I’m quite vocal on what inspires me, what angers me, what frustrates me, political viewpoints, etc and that helps those people understand who I am and what makes me tick.

Another bit of advice I learned while working in advertising for a short while was that clients don’t just buy the work, they buy the person too. So by doing this, you appear more like a human being to them as opposed to just a business service. In my experience, that’s worked out well for me.

If I had to summarise:

- Don’t niche too early. Give yourself time to explore what you are passionate about

- Treat every client with respect, no matter their size

- Always have some kind of contract or written terms

- When working on personal work, give yourself a deadline which reflects a real job

- Lastly, never be afraid to say no.

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