The Old Fashioned Way


Back

Using design to inspire the UK Food and Drink industry

How BAGGI designed the Mmmake your Mark campaign
Innovation

Design Council Digest: Designing for Planet-Positive Business

An international perspective on the strategic importance of design
Opinions

Diversity in Design: 3% just isn't enough

Diversity in our sector is in a dire state, so what can you do?
Studio Spotlight

The Splash

Click to see our favourite creative projects this month...
The Splash

Design Council Digest: New government, new missions. Real change?

Can designers transform the public sector form the inside out?
Opinions

Olga Treivas - Redefining Crystal Glass Design

Driving the modern age of glass design.
Icons

SODA Spaces: the best interior design projects of the month

Expect a pub, a hosting kitchen and a vinyl cafe in this months column.
Innovation

Circularity and functionality: the principles behind Aesop’s retail design

Read more on how the skincare brand's new location takes sensory retail experiences to the next level.
Studio Spotlight

Design in the Olympic and Paralympic Games: where would we be without it?

Learn more about the history of the Olympic and Paralympic Games through the lens of design, with analysis of posters, pictograms, torches and more.
Innovation

SODA Spaces: our favourite interior design projects this month

SODA's favourite interior projects in the realm of hospitality, retail and culture.
Innovation

Designing out e-waste one kettle at a time

New Designers winner Gabriel Kay explains his graduate project Osiris and gives his view on modularity and repair
Innovation

Meet the Grad: Glasgow School of Art's Elle Crawley

Can AI ever truly be human? Check out this graduates project to find out...
Innovation

Bringing opportunity to the northern design territory

The Northern Design Festival is a new event set to return in 2025 after a successful first year.
Icons

The SPLASH

A creative round up of our favourite recent projects and initiatives.
The Splash

LGBTQ+ history is not finished yet

To mark the end of LGBTQ+ History Month, the SODA team looks forward to three historical moments that still need to happen in queer equality
Opinions

This is our Virtual Reality

How is VR changing our reality as we know it...?
Innovation

The Value of Public Art

SODA highlights some of London’s best examples of public art for good.
Innovation

To Build a Place

What makes a place a place
Innovation

The SPLASH

The week in creativity explored...
The Splash

Plastic Free July

Plastic Free July round up
Innovation / Opinions

Movement in Colour

An exploration of how colour is used to define different movements
Innovation / Opinions

Jesper Eriksson - Transformative Materials

We sat down with the London based artist to discuss coal, fossil fuels and the nature of materials.
Icons

KASIA WOZNIAK & LISA JAHOVIC

Photographer Kasia Wozniak and set designer Lisa Jahovic present 'Negative Mirror' ...
Innovation

Loading...

The Old Fashioned Way

Drew Millward likes to draw ‘the old fashioned way’, using pencils, pens and his love for the craft of illustration. His website proudly bears the subheading, "Custom Hand Drawn Illustration For The Modern World". While he uses digital technology to speed up his process, it’s his rule never to draw anything that he couldn’t replicate by hand. He was born in Coventry, studied in Leeds and now lives in a quarry in the Aire Valley where he enjoys creating work for an ever growing international client base.

How did your interest in and appreciation of hand-drawn illustration begin? 

A lot of my early influences were really rooted in the hand drawn aesthetic seen in Sendak, Small Films and Scary. Over the past few years I've realised how much of an impact those early influences have had on me. When I started making work myself, it was simply through necessity that it took the form of hand-drawn work. Initially I started making posters for gigs I was putting on with my friends, so they went from a hand drawn image, straight into a photocopier, a lot of the time. 

Where do you think the balance should be between drawing by hand and using digital tools?

Digital technology is a brilliant tool. It streamlines workflow, it can speed up a process and it can make your life a bit easier, but, like anything else, you only get out of it what you put in. If you can't draw or design without it, no amount of machinery and software is going to solve that. I always liken it to learning to play the piano, and then switching to a synthesiser, you still need those early foundations to build on. 

In my work, the two disciplines are reliant on each other. Although I draw more and more using my Cintiq, I can't ever really escape from starting with a pencil and some paper and I try not to do anything digitally that I couldn't replicate by hand. 

‘Craft’ and ‘authenticity’ have all been buzzwords over the past few years. Might we see a counter-trend where everybody wants digital soon?

It's almost impossible to say. Trends and fashions are fickle. The ebbs and flows that we see happening are usually caused by oversaturation of a particular style. The swing towards 'hand drawn' work was very clearly a reaction to the overuse of digital imagery. For a time, work that was very clearly the product of Adobe Illustrator, or other vector packages, was everywhere. Gleaming, shiny, clean and, when done poorly (and there were some people who used that aesthetic incredibly well), entirely soulless. There is always something to kick against. For a number of years, colleges and universities were churning out graduates who were making work very reminiscent of David Shrigley. I think there is a move slightly away from that, and people are looking toward work that is rooted more in the traditional 'craft' of image making. 

Do you feel that clients and companies need to be educated about the benefits of hand-drawn illustration versus digital? Or do people come to you already knowing that they want a hand-drawn illustration in your ‘style’?

I'm not really sure it's the client's job to know about these things, that's why they are hiring an illustrator/artist/designer. It's up to the individual to assess what the final outcome will be, and work with the skills they have to reach the best conclusion. Digital work has become an increasingly large part of my process, but I use it to speed up my work process, not to create things that I couldn’t otherwise create by hand. 

Why will hand drawn illustration always have a place in the world, no matter how technology develops? 

Because you never have to backup a sketch book, a pencil will never run out of batteries and you can always carry both of those things with you at all times. 

soda-s
  • Drew was Interviewed by Alex Mills
Further Reading:
fullscreen
close

Subscribe To Our Newsletter

Catch up on all the latest news from State Of Design Affairs right in your inbox.

Remind me later
Please dont ask me again

Thank you for signing up, don't forget to check your inbox to confirm your email.