We've featured a lot of designer interviews over the years on Creative Bloq, but a lot of the time we end up with very similar photographs. Here's a designer sitting at his Mac with Illustrator open and a bunch of vinyl toys on his desk! Here's a designer in her studio, with lots of inspiring artwork on display! Here's a designer leaning against a wall! And here's Stefan Sagmeister with – put some clothes on, Stefan; you'll catch your death!
We fancied seeing something a little different, so we asked a bunch of top creatives to delve into their archives and send us pictures of them as we've never seen them before. Here's what they came up with...
01. Jeffrey Bowman (opens in new tab)
Designer and illustrator Jeffrey Bowman has always been a devotee of the outdoor lifestyle, and spent 2013 living and working in a log cabin in the Norwegian mountains. "I'm constantly looking for the next peak to climb or the next slope to ride down," he says. Here, though, we see him in a slightly more relaxed mode, fishing in the Lake District. "That was Buttermere, with High Stile in the background," he tells us. "Sadly didn't catch anything though!"
02. Matt H Booth (opens in new tab)
We featured Matt H Booth in a previous feature on designers and their tattoos; since then he's acquired some new ink that he's keen to show off. "I've wanted to have my hands inked with something for quite a while now, but what to have on them?" he says. "My arms are almost completely covered now and recent tattoos have harked back to the old school style. So I decided to combine this style with my boys' names: Oscar and Noah.
"Now I had a style and theme, it was time to decide who to design them. There was only one person I wanted and that was designer, friend and fellow tattoo lover, Ollie Munden (opens in new tab). Various emails went back and forth with ideas, colours and so on until we simplified the design to two different swallows with the boys' names incorporated in a ribbon.
"There was only one person I trusted to tattoo such a visible part of my body and that was Louis Molloy (opens in new tab), who has inked the majority of my tattoos over the last 17 years. An hour in the chair and a little pain later, they were done. I just need my hands filling up with some more ink now."
03. Kerry Hyndman (opens in new tab)
When she's not illustrating or creating bespoke maps, Kerry Hyndman loves to grab her snowboard and get to the mountains. This action shot of her catching some sick air was taken a few years ago in Switzerland.
"I was training to get my snowboard instructor qualifications at the time," explains Hyndman, "and then worked out there doing a bit of teaching afterwards. I try and get out to the mountains as often as I can these days, and still have a pipe dream of moving back out there again..."
04. James Oconnell (opens in new tab)
Manchester-based designer and illustrator James Oconnell has been working on a new style of late – you can see the results of his experiments on Dribbble (opens in new tab) – and he's used it to create this striking self-portrait. "The image represents how busy I am at the moment," says Oconnell, "Snowed under with work, hence the buzz lines around my head, and a tired crossed eye!
05. Jeremy Kool (opens in new tab)
3D artist Jeremy Kool, creater of stunning iOS animated adventure The Paper Fox, came up with this gorgeous self-portrait in which he's turned himself into a Muppet. "I've always loved the Muppets," he tells us. "I was watching an old episode and was inspired to create a CG felt puppet. I created some materials and displacement maps that worked well simulating felt – but the problem was I didn't know who or what to make. Eventually I decided to make a self-portrait, I think it turned out nicely, but I'm certainly goofier looking in real life."
Next page: five more candid photos of designers!
