Graduates 2010: Luke Archer

A recent graduate from Bath School of Art and Design, Luke Archer grew up a little further up north in York. Currently interning at Proud Creative in London, Luke will head a little further south in September when he moves to Switzerland to study and at ECAL.

When it comes to graphic design it’s his attention for detail that he prides himself on, making sure every last millimeter of the page is correct, “the worst feeling is when you get something back from the printers and there is even a tiny error. I especially hate spelling mistakes.”

What did you want to be when you were growing up?

The first thing I can remember wanting to be was a professional cyclist, then I realised how horrible it is cycling in the rain, in winter, for more than twenty minutes. I still cycle and it’s a massive inspiration to me. Annoyingly I’m missing the Tour de France because I’m staying with a TV-less, internet-less friend at the moment. Funnily enough the other thing I wanted to do, like Miles Gould another featured graduate, was to be a drummer. There are definitely some similarities between drumming and graphic design; your basic rudiments in percussion can be likened to the building blocks of typography like kerning, leading and grid systems.

In reflection, how bad was your work in the first year?

On the whole it was quite bad. It’s funny because it was actually worse than my foundation work, but I think that’s only because there were so many new things to take in. There was one piece that I’m particularly fond of, which was a book cover for Primo Levi’s ‘The Wrench’. It was still bad, but I think it was the first time I used any typography.

If you could show a piece of your folio to one person, what piece would you choose, and who would you show it to?

I would show my Michael Marriott poster, which is one of my favourite pieces of work, to Eike Koenig. I would absolutely love to work for Hort.

If you had your own studio, who would you share it with and why?

I’d like to be part of a large studio collective, I love working with and around other people. I would have a typography exam that they had to pass in order to be part of it though. If you can’t tell your em dash from your en dash I don’t want to know.

If you’ve got any left, what will you spend the last of your student loan on?

Printed Matter by Karel Martens.

Where will we find you in 12 months?

I’m moving to Switzerland in September to do a two year MA at ECAL. I’ll probably be desperately trying to earn money to fund my second year there because I’ve just found out that our wonderful bureaucracy won’t give me a postgrad loan, so all donations are welcome!