Artist Interview: Matt Taylor

llustration A-Lister Matt Taylor talks to us about beginnings, ambitions and the inspiration behind his renowned work

There’s a definite buzz in the Brighton studio of Matt Taylor, a space he shares with an inspiring mix of artists and illustrators to bounce ideas around with. Today he lets us dig into where it all started and where it might be going.

"When I started out, I just lifted pieces from artists I liked, comic books and graphic design annuals and sort of mashed them all together in a pretty naive way (there was a lot of Jamie Hewlett and David Carson initially). Over time, I’ve tried to broaden my horizons a little and take in art of all mediums to draw inspiration from. It sounds pretentious and I doubt anyone can see it but me, but I’ll be able to look at a piece and see how it was inspired by a painting or a photo or a film I saw.

These days I move forwards by - and I realise this is going to sound really boring - just by endlessly drawing. I tend to get bored if I do the same thing for too long, so whenever I find myself starting to drive into that rut, I start to push my work in a slightly alternative direction (I’d say this happens roughly every couple of years). It never feels that radical in the moment - just changing up brushes or colors, or focusing on different styles of composition or typography, but if I look at my work now compared to five years ago the cumulative affect of all these small changes is work that looks wholly different.

I’ve started doing a lot more of my initial sketching on paper and in sketchbooks, and I try to take in one or two life classes a week with Draw Brighton who do amazing zoom sessions. I’ve found those classes more than anything have improved my art of late - I’m trying to become less reliant on tracing image references and building more illustrations from scratch.

Thinking further back, my family wasn't hugely creative when I was a kid - but dad would always draw with me, I think in another life my dad might have pursued art rather than bioscience, but he definitely passed along a spark for drawing. I’ve tried to pass that on as best as possible to my own daughters (although they’re lucky to have a mum who is also an incredible illustrator as well namely CIA's Harriet Seed, as musicians and animators in their extended family).

Unfortunately I went to a school that was very focused on traditionally academic markers of success, so I was often asked by year tutors why I was wasting my time with art when I could be pursuing something more worthwhile. Thankfully I largely ignored them - I had a couple of good art teachers by the time I got to sixth form - whose names completely escape me now - who nudged me towards digital art (using a definitely-not-pirated version of Photoshop my dad brought back from a business trip to Hong Kong). They also told me about art foundation which was a really joyful year making art all day when we weren’t in the park or the pub playing pool.

Here I am now and I’ve been fortunate enough to work on some amazing collaborations. Some of the best projects are with bucket list clients who I’ve always wanted to work with (hello DC Comics), there have been others with art directors who are the best of people and push me to be a better artist (Rob Jones at Coda is the all-star of all-star ADs) and there have been projects that have just turned out an illustration which I really love. I’ve been extraordinarily lucky that most of my projects have been really enjoyable of late - even though drawing for a career is objectively awesome, it’s still a job and there are days when it can feel like a slog, but there have been thankfully few of those of late.

In terms of the most recent stuff I’ve been working on, I’d say my posters for Paul McCartney and No Doubt with Collectionzz, the run of Flash covers for DC Comics, the Skulduggery Pleasant covered for Harper Collins and the Dune Part 2 poster for Mutant are the best.

When I consider what may come next, I think I’ve been lucky enough to work with most everyone I had on my long list of dream clients. Unfortunately I’ve found that sometimes just because someone is a dream client the work or the project might not be a whole lot of fun - and in one case led to an absolute horrific six months on a gig where I was working fourteen hour days for weeks on end and completely burned myself out. It was a sharp wake up call that big name clients don’t always equate to fulfilling or satisfying projects

So nowadays I take every job as it comes and give it the same care whether it’s a movie studio or a small indie brand. That said I’ve never made a cover for Marvel comics and I’d still like to do that. One of my favourite artists (and humans) is Daniel Danger - we’ve been talking for maybe five years about making a collaborative piece and maybe one year we actually will. We know what we want to draw so when the stars align - and our respective schedules are a bit clearer - we will make it happen."

You can view more of Matt's work here. 

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