Alumnus Tom Gordon returned to the College in spring to give a masterclass on graphic design in the music industry.
Tom Gordon at Plymouth College of Art
Tom, who attended the BA Hons Graphic Design course is a successful freelance designer and works mainly in the music industry, specialising in artwork for band tours and merchandise.
He has worked with well known bands including The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Katy Perry, Bastille, Queens of the Stone Age, Cypress Hill, Deftones, Avenged Sevenfold, Cher, Rod Stewart, Rudimental, and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers.
Tom specialises in T-shirt design for band members and merchandise and his advice to students who wish to work in the music industry was to focus on extensive research.
He said he frequently looks at clients’ interests on social network websites to see what T-shirts the band members wear so that he can relate to them even more when he is pitching his designs.
He said: “A lot of research is the best way to know what the client likes.”
He also looks at similar bands to his client and uses websites which show other similar bands to make sure he knows what is potentially the best style.
Other advice included always having a point to a design otherwise the design is probably not going to be very efficient.
And type is very important as is learning the basics of type such as kerning and weights.
Technical advice included cleaning up layers when using Adobe Indesign, because if you sent a client a messy document it will look unprofessional.
And work big instead of small, because if an image is needed to be enlarged it won’t cause a problem in the future.
And finally, do not get hung up on detail either, work fast and polish later. Less is more, if you have to add detail to a design then it is probably a bad design.
In terms of client relationships he said it is difficult at first to take criticism, but don’t take it personally and react, as you could regret your reaction later on.
After the talk Tom ran a workshop for students who were asked to design a T-shirt for a band called Bring Me The Horizon, Katy Perry or Haim.
