Yohance

Okay, guys, so welcome back to Design on Air. I'm your host, Yohance here with my amazing co host Cheerio. And we're here with the phenomenal Richard Turley and we're gonna hop in to some design questions and hear about his process and his wonderful career.

Juriel

Yeah, so Richard Turley is a creative director and graphic designer from the UK. He is an editorial director, or was for interview and the co founder of civil civilization magazine, Turley became well known for his work redesigning the visual strategies of Bloomberg and MTV. And now runs a creative consulting agency under the name Food. He has been awarded 35 DND awards for yellow pencil awards. Eight awards for creative design from the type directors club also several awards from Art Directors Club of New York and has been featured everywhere from it's nice that to day's magazine, we have some fans of you here at the office. Thanks so much for taking the time out of your busy day to be here.

Yohance

Oh, yeah. Sweet. So what is your average day look like? What is ideal day look like.

Richard Turley

Well, my ideal, I'm lucky. My ideal day and my average day kind of quite similar, which I mean, if you're talking specifically women, obviously, my ideal day would be me sitting on the beach and kind of, you know, St. Louis or something. But that notwithstanding my ideal day its boring, because I just like working, I kind of I get up at about seven, which is just, I wake up about them, make some coffee, make some coffee for my wife, keep my kid out of bed. And then I'm trying to leave my apartment by about 830 Again, and about nine, another cup of coffee. And then I just work and boring and really boring. And like my mod. Ideally, I'd like to do loads of different projects, which at the moment, I'm never quite Luckily, I've got that. So I'll just kind of like toggle from like half an hour and one, maybe two hours and something. I mean, I'll just let it go until I get bored. And then I can just like switch over to something else quite like just to keep that sort of flow, you know and not get too bogged down. Now actually well you know, I'm you know that that would be an ideal day go out, go to a gallery opening and go and meet some friends. Come back, do something kind of social thing and be in bed by about 11 Ideally, because I'm old and I need my rest. Are you a night owl? Usually no, no, Early Bird. Good. Quite happy got to battle at half nine. If I'm being honest with you. I mean, this is a new thing. And as I said, I'm an I'm an old man and some kind of a youthful face. But unfortunately, it's kind of you know, the interior is kind of like rotting and aging. And I just I need to be in I just get sleepy, I get sleepy. And but I think actually my body clock is more. It's just more a mornings, I think in ideally I'd probably get up at like six in the morning. But I think that would just be too disruptive for the floor of our house for me to do. I don't know, I just like lay on my bed.

Juriel

I'm jealous.

Richard Turley

Well, now I'd and I'm Joe, I'd prefer to go out. I wish I was more of a night owl like, yeah, no, I do. Yeah. I mean, I wish I was a bit more sociable sometimes I kind of, you know, sometimes I just feel like I just say I'm too tired to do anything. And then I just don't do anything. And then I get home and I don't know.

Yohance

You mentioned a gallery opening. Is there like a gallery opening in mind going on right now that you would attend on an ideal day? I saw him too.

Richard Turley

No, but like, you know what actually gallery opening was just it was a bit of you know, it was weird that that came out of my mouth more. I like got you know, they like there's a lot of kind of spoken word events now, you know, happening and I liked those you know, and I'm be I do some designer magazine called heavy traffic, which is a sort of short story short fiction, which he did, which do kind of live events, and I'm looking forward to that. We've just finished an issue. And so we're gonna, we're there'll be a launch event, I think in March. So I'm looking forward to that. I mean, I'm hoping they'll go out before then. My resolution this year was to be more socially active and just to get myself out the house a bit more. So Andre 3000. Yeah, you like it?

Yohance

Man. That was amazing. Yeah, same one. I don't know. I went to the one at St. Ann's Yeah, the church. I went on day 2.

Richard Turley

Tuesday. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I was honestly going there worshiping the church of Andre more so than the kind of the flute work I thought they should beautiful flute work to be in His presence. I think that was the kind of the primary kind of like motivator. Yeah, and I love it. Yeah, no, it was a beautiful thing.

Yohance

What was the coolest thing to you?

Richard Turley

So I mean, I think the I think it was just it was honestly it was the it was the communion aspect of it in all in all its forms you know, it was it feels you know, you were share I mean, I know that he talked a lot about that about kind of it's one piece of music will never be repeated again. There was a kind of a you know, and I you know, you were very aware I was very aware of just kind of like, you know, a couple 100 people, two or 300 People money kind of collected each taking their own piece of that out with them in the world and kind of like carrying it around with them. I thought, yeah, I thought that was it was beautiful. And then I enjoyed the fleet work, you know, I mean, I think it may be the first hour was there I liked it when it got a bit more chaotic. Yeah. When it really started to get unhinged.

Yohance

I think that's what he was going for too. But I what I appreciated about it, and then we're gonna get right, you're gonna talk. But I think what was cool that he did for all artists, especially musical artists, is he said it in the beginning, he's like, you're gonna hear songs that sound like a new Blu sun, but it's not going to be exactly that. So he gave himself as an artist space to experiment. And not to be tied into however long this tour cycle is performing the same thing day after day. And he encouraged people from the crowd to make noise and scream. And I think people could have taken more liberty on that. But it was a new concept. For most people. It was also a Tuesday night. It was a Tuesday night. And I mean, I think there's a good amount of people who are just there to be like, I went to the Andre 3000. You know, so they weren't even expecting like, Can I really scream?

Richard Turley

Yeah, I know, I already felt like screaming a few times. I mean, just to sort of to see what happened. You know, I mean, I just haven't got the guts to do that.

Yohance

I was doing a little bird sounds.

Richard Turley

Yeah, he invented that language.

Yohance

Oh, I was so glad that he addressed that quickly. Because at first I was like, What is he doing? He was like, I'm just joking.

Richard Turley

Yeah. No, I mean, like, you know, he's, he's probably my age, right? And so kind of he, you know, you see, as you go through your life, and you're kind of maybe this is related to typography and funny sor of way, like, you know, just seeing how you need to bring new things into it. And you can, you have to just keep on building and like, there's just if you rest, you kind of get cranky, and you know, you cease up. So he is just a huge inspiration. I mean, beyond I mean, I do kind of wish he played out of eight years, you know, if I'm being completely honest with you, I would have liked that as well.

Yohance

But at the same time, it would have been kind of crazy if he did that.

Richard Turley

It was a dumb thing to say. You know, it was, but ya know, it's it's, you know, I don't know, it's a it's a story about how you kind of keep learning, you keep experimenting, how you, you create vulnerability among around yourself. And, you know, there's, there's not a ton of, of kind of good male role models are kind of, you know, for kind of correct creative types, you know, I mean, you know, like, it's sort of, no, no, there's, you kind of tend to kind of as you get older, you kind of calcify and you get more stuck in your ways, and you kind of become a bit more rigid and kind of cynical, and it's great that you have you know, that we have someone for whom has taken a different path. And, you know, I mean, how can you have, I mean, that GQ interview, do you read that? It's cool, man. He's just the coolest.

Yohance

He's not trying to force anything.

Richard Turley

No, no, he's just, there's just a few. There's not many people in the world, which are just, you know, sit through an hour and a half of flute work.

Yohance

That's cool. And even how he was able to commend the other artists too, because he spoke to how like, Yo, I was started playing with some of these guys, and I didn't realize they were legends. And he was like, I'm glad I didn't realize they were legends because I would have been intimidated. You know, just messing around flute seemingly with these guys. This is their profession.

Richard Turley

That was a legend. That thing few doors down from Leonardo from like Sonic Youth. So you have these kind of like crazy. Now, there's a lot of people in our audience that we're kind of you know, that a lot of heads in the audience. You know,

Juriel

I wish I was there.

Yohance

If you want to get design related, the merch was nice.

Richard Turley

Yeah. The line was too long. My friend, the guy I went with was there. He was, like, 20 minutes. I was just like, you know, I've got to I need to get rid of clothes. Like, bouncy was that was that? You know, it was very cool that he's like that puffy. So..

Yohance

The letters were Yeah, they were tactile. Yeah, he was. Yeah, sorry.

Juriel

Sorry to cut you guys short. I just wanted to hear a little bit about your journey, how you started in graphic design, and creative direction and where you are now?

Richard Turley

Well, I started out from being kind of reasonably good at drawing school, if you're gonna go way, way, way back, and I couldn't have I could do something with a pencil that people responded to? Well, I think so I think in some ways, that was the kind of the first thing and then, you know, I got into graphic design, just as someone once said to me, you should be a graphic designer and I thought, Okay, I'll be a graphic designer. I mean, it was really literally as simple as that a teacher said, you know, you know that what you're doing and the skills you have, at the time, and this was in the 90s may sound a bit crazy to say this, but there wasn't really very many opportunities for kind of creative people when I was kind of growing up or in the environment where I grew up in. It was pretty straight. You know, you if you did art, then you became an art teacher. Or I guess he became an artist, but like, there was no money in art back then. I mean, that you know, probably was some money but like this is before in England, like Britta and Damien Hirst and kind of in this big kind of explosion that three more I lifetime like, Oh, it's just kind of grown and grown and grown. And now it's almost like a career, you know, which before it just wasn't solid. So I think that's kind of why the, the teacher said, we're probably doing that album covers and stuff like that, and just kind of, you know, I can't quite remember what my process was around there or what I was making posters, I think I did a lot of school posters in like plays and performances and stuff. And so anyway, so then, then I went to art school, and I did in England, you it's kind of splits, you do this for four years, the first year, it's called Foundation, and you just do a little bit of everything. And I did a little bit of graphic design, and just thought that was what I wanted to do. And so then I went on, I did a study that officially then that the last three years, you kind of specialized, it's a little bit more specialized over there, rather than it's in a university, it's not quite as broad as you have over here. And in the last year of my university, I mean, actually, my, I was not a good student, I got kind of fucked up a lot. And it was, you know, I was more interested in kind of hanging out with my friends. But, and I kind of got frustrated, because like, the course was just, I was making kind of book covers for books that never exist, you know, I was doing kind of like these projects, which just sort of, I guess they were good, and it got you thinking but like, you know, the thing, you know, graphic design in some level, and kind of like what we do, right is about the interactions is about placing something into the world and kind of getting people excited about it. And kind of instead of, you know, the interesting thing happens between those sort of, you know, between the idea hitting, leaving my head and entering yours, you know, that's where kind of it gets interesting. So a long way of saying that, I mean, my friend Jimmy, approached one night, we're getting kind of fucked up, honestly. And we bumped into the editor of the student magazine, the University, School magazine. And we said, well, we'll come in and we'll do your, you know, we'll design the the university magazine, which at the time was just like, no one really cared about what the design looked like the I mean, it was just kind of like someone that's like laying out. And Jimmy and me we always love Miami magazines were much more of a kind of a cultural form back then it was in the faces come back, but the face is very big English magazine, dazed and confused, ID, these are all kind of aware kind of culture happened, you know, culture was kind of incubated within these pages, and whether the photographers and the graphic design of the magazines themselves and in a way that it may be a little bit hard to kind of understand now, you know, just how scarce I mean, you know, you can kind of pick up your phone now and kind of have access to any kind of, you know, any any genre or any any subculture. But back then you had to really make an effort to go and find that stuff. And that stuff was, you know, those kinds of subcultures, I'm a big fella music, you know, you can easily read about those things in magazines. And so kind of magazines were far more important back then, and have remained very important to me, obviously. So we did our university magazine, that ended up winning the award, I got an internship at The Guardian newspaper, I learned my trade, I mean, this is a little bit of a short way of saying it, because I'm going on, but the, you know, got, I got an internship there, got trained there and kind of got a job there. Then about 10 years later, I kind of did this Bloomberg magazine, which kind of brought me to the United States. And that completely changed my life. I mean, I was I was, you know, I was a reasonably good graphic designer for the first 10 years of my career. And then I came over here, and it just kind of like blew up caught on, you know, honestly, I wouldn't be sitting here if it wasn't for that magazine, and kind of that experience. And so and that was quite unexpected. For me anyway. And then it since then, I've worked from TV for a bit with for one Kennedy, a bit kind of ad agency. And then I set up my own agency with a couple of friends of mine. In addition to that, I still do Interview magazine, actually, I'm still the editorial director without got my own magazine now could not, I don't know, just make things I might make. You know, I'm particularly making kind of magazines, and you know that that's still what kind of dry all the work that I do that I get paid for is really just about how can I spend some time making magazine?

Yohance

Wait, so was that first magazine that you're making for your school? And you got awarded for it? You said? Yeah, so was that your first award? Because when we started on jury, I'll write it off and you're decorated. So was that the first award and battery in your back?

Richard Turley

It's a you know, there's any number of ways of answering that. You mean yeah, quite simply is that you know, but then also, I've just, I just have I'm not kind of ever really happy with what I do. You know, I mean, you know, you think someone you know, I don't know how successful I've really been, but I think in order to have some success, you've got to be missing something. And I'm definitely missing. So I don't know if my mom didn't hug me enough or something. But you know, I mean, like, I'm missing something, and I need a pat in the back, you know, and I've always needed that. And so yeah, and I think that kind of winning that award probably did you know give me something that I wasn't getting, you know, on I think that I mean awards really, I mean, I don't really enter don't enter awards anymore, but like they served a purpose for me and you know, and you know, to kind of do you do kind of create Um, you know, you kind of create an idea about yourself in terms of kind of, like, you know, for presentation purposes, and often internally when you're working with big teams, you know, review in a magazine interview and some awards, and people kind of start taking notice. So the award thing is, is a little not complicated, but it's, um, it's kind of a bit dark, in other reasons for kind of doing that kind of stuff in some ways. But I suppose it was, then it was just Yeah, I mean, if you get kind of pat on the back, then you realize, okay, I can actually do this, you know, whether that Pat, on the back comes with a teacher comes from an award program comes from getting a new job, I mean, I personally am needy, needy person who needs kind of validation and feels good and nice and polite, you know, hit the like button.

Juriel

Your style is very raw, witty, in my opinion, quite pervasive. How do you, how did you kind of land this style? And can you walk us through the evolution of it?

Richard Turley

Well, I think maybe what you're talking, I mean, I like I think humor is a really good way of cutting through, I think, if you can make someone smile, then they let you into the, you know, into their brains a little bit more. And I think kind of, we like to be entertained, and the thing. So I've always sort of like had use humor and kind of liked humor, and kind of and and had have been quite provocative with it. You know, I think, you know, undoubtedly, I think in some ways, they will also kind of conditions at the time, you know, maybe some of those covers that I did, and some of those some some of the kinds of provocations I did, maybe wouldn't even wash anymore, you know, and I think that, you know, I don't know, necessarily whether I did a cover with some with, you know, which is hedge fund cover at Businessweek. And Bloomberg is a very, you know, high eminent sort of financial institution, and we did a basically a dick joke on the cover. I don't know if we could do that. Now. You know, honestly, you know, I don't you know, I don't know, maybe, maybe we could, maybe there are good reasons for not doing a dick joke on the cover of a bussiness magazine. But I like making people smile, you know, I like to be entertained. I like comedy in our life. And I think it's a very effective way for me, and I enjoy being on the receiving end of really good comedy, and I think it does cut through I think, you know, you know, a very serious story, you know, presented in a kind of in a in an insightful way, you know, just makes it easy for everybody to come together, get their heads around it. I think. I don't really start out to be provocative, though. I mean, it's some innate, there's not an intention to poke them. Trying to agitate. No, yeah. But then, you know, I mean, but maybe there is I don't know, I mean, you know, it's, I think there's a civil honesty that I think humor kind of allows you and and there's not really a process for it, it's, you know, not all my work is funny, you know, I mean, I think some of the things that I may be better known for a kind of more humorous and have a kind of a slightly different weight to them. But it's, it's, you know, I actually kind of thought recently that like, the thing that really, most of my work really is about words, actually, you know, I mean, like, it's, it's, I mean, as a graphic designer, inevitably, you spend a lot of time worrying about words and thinking about words, whether that's just at a basic level of appetite face. So I think my kind of love of words, and is means that, you know, the language and kind of how those words are used, and maybe, maybe some designers kind of drop off a little bit when it comes to actually what the words say, and cared a little bit more about what the words looked like. But I don't really believe that necessarily. I didn't just sort of, you know, my own preoccupation is my is definitely more than what the words are saying, rather than necessarily what they look like, and it's that way round. But, ya know, I just, I think I just like to make people laugh. I like to make people smile, I kind of like, you know, I do like to be a bit provocative, honestly, or kind of, I don't fear it. You know, and I don't think that many of my provocations that necessarily harmful or, you know, they just usually quite tongue in cheek, and usually I kind of are poking fun at humans and our behaviors, mostly, or capitalism, or kind of like an idiot. Because it isn't, it's all kind of maybe our ways of thinking about money and status. There are things that are kind of quite like to test it of Nora.

Juriel

Yeah, I was reading some interviews, and you talk a lot about kind of like creating without stopping, or letting yourself stop or correct things or fix things. And also, and not about caring about perception too deeply. Is this still your process?

Richard Turley

Becoming even more my process, actually, and it's funny, so wait, yeah, now there's a really nice quote that I read that maybe I think was sort of around that piece that maybe you're right reading was, um, that you could sometimes, you know, this guy was saying, you got to make so much work that the work makes starts to make itself I think is a really good Andre like that, you know, and I think that there's a sort of that is a really it's a good way of thinking about it because you know, you, you know, what you really trying to do and it's hard being a kind of, it's easy to do that on the flute, honestly, you want it to get into into a state where you're not really sure what you're doing and like your arms and your kind of your hands are kind of operating, and you're totally in control of them, but you're not really thinking about what you're doing. I mean, I did a project, or I'm doing a project at the moment, I was kind of reflecting, I had to reflect on it kind of like where, you know, you explain to them, like where this idea comes from. And I honestly couldn't remember, you know, and I think that's probably that's because I was just kind of in like a flow state or something, or was in some, you know, just I don't know, I just did it, you know, I mean, it just couldn't emerge. And then it became the thing that, I remember the day I did it, but I can't really remember much around it. So I think that kind of, you know, and it's made me I don't know, how much of this recording will be kind of go back to what we're talking about before. But before we were talking I was talking about for perfect day was and kind of spending 20 minutes on one thing an hour on something, just letting something go until I've got bored of it. And I've you know, that sort of is another way of encouraging just different types of thinking and not getting too stuck, and kind of just letting kind of the work make itself and kind of just just letting it go for as long as you need to. And then moving on to something else, I think is a good another good way of just of being slightly out of control of what you're doing, you know, just like letting something else gonna kick in and take over, you know, in your experience and your ability to handle and to enter kind of to control what you're doing. But then also letting kind of God get in the weeds, or some kind of higher force to take over and finish it.

Yohance

That's exactly what I was thinking about. As you're speaking, I thought of like someone catching a spirit, like somewhat of a church.

Richard Turley

I believe that I'm not like the most sort of spiritual person in some ways. And I do struggle with kind of sort of certain definitions. But I do believe in in, you know, and no intention. And I think I think that we can kind of re tap into things that are bigger and beyond, you know, beyond ourselves. And I think that's kind of part of it even down to kind of something as idiotic as kind of graphic design or kind of just doing all kind of what we do. Normally, I think if you let it happen, and if you let it, if you open yourself up to it, some people are artists of color coded like the muse, you know, like in history of kind of, like just letting you know, being dictated by your muse or, like instincts and other way of thinking about it, and kind of just been kind of driven by that. But ya know, I think it's something I think about, I don't really think about it too much. But I think about it as not, you know, what do you think about it, I do think I'm gonna have thought about it quite a lot in the last kind of couple, I did just did this magazine called nuts, which, and a lot of the way that we produce that was, was to to take advantage of these kinds of I don't know if they're necessarily call it flow states, but it kind of would take advantage of moments. And we would, you know, we'd have sessions where the very, very long magazine and kind of we would print all the pages out and then reorder them kind of in a very quick amount of time when he's trying to kind of capture something of the energy of just sort of quick decision making. So I think that in doing that, you kind of just kind of create a fluidity and a looseness about approach. Now, honestly, I don't know if the you can take that and kind of figure out what the the the equivalent of kind of doing a social media deck for a kind of, like, you know, for some kind of like lifestyle brand or some kind of like cooking brand, but like now then maybe there's that, you know, so I think that for me, that is more about kind of my own work and kind of the need to kind of keep on doing my own work in order to, to kind of keep sane, because I think if I just did commercial work all the time, it does go you know, it does drive me crazy. Anyway, so I just riffed.

Yohance

What about commercial work do you like and what don't you like you said it could drive you said it drives you crazy.

Richard Turley

I actually like all work, I'm in I'm kind of pretty sad around that or kind of pretty, you know, it's I think every you know, with every project, there's an. I sound like an elementary school teacher, but every opportunity, there is something to learn from, you know, and whether that's meeting somebody learning from them, or kind of overlapping a situation, which may be sort of, you know, a slightly different one from you're used to, or everything's completely the same. And you learn from the fact that, well, you know, everything was completely the same. And guess what, everything turned out completely, you know, so I think there's always an opportunity just to, to learn from something. And so I always kind of, do enjoy kind of commercial work. But the reality is that there are limitations to it, you know, whereas, you know, it's about a brief, it's about delivering a set of ideas of a nice set of kind of very kind of prescribed, you know, thoughts into someone else's brain, which are kind of developed around buying something engaging with something. And, you know, there are kind of, as I said, there were kind of big limitations on that in the messaging itself, and also in the kind of the means of kind of making it and distributing it. So, it's, it's, I think, it's, it's not particularly sensible to kind of assume that, you know, take a kind of more kind of creative kind of art based approach if you'd like to those kind of things, but, but I, you know, I do, I'm probably a bit more analytical when I have a brief like that I'm old enough now, and experienced enough now to be able to kind of talk honing quite quickly on kind of what the problem is and how to fix it, or, you know, what the brief is and how to kind of react to it. I think experience experience allows you to kind of cut through a bit of the bullshit and kind of just, you know what, actually this is, you know, they say this, but actually really they mean this. You know, let's not get too caught up.

Yohance

Why does that happen, though? Why do clients say things but mean something else?

Richard Turley

Well, I think they probably had a nice interesting question. I don't I haven't really got a kind of a smart answer for that. I think sometimes maybe they're, you know, kind of creating briefs, which kind of in order to kind of to get you guys on board, let's say they kind of create more of a, a sort of more excitement around a project that maybe there really is, you know, because they kind of fear it themselves. Maybe they're trying to get themselves really interested in their brand and kind of like what their briefs are. I don't know if it's a virtue signaling, but there's a sort of a kind of a virtue signaling process in doing that, isn't it like, oh, it could be all this. And it could be this, but that, you know, you're sort of signaling to someone that it's, you know, that that it has all these kind of metrics involved in all these these ideas kind of involved in it when it really kind of like, doesn't, so yeah, I don't know, I mean, I think ultimately, groups of people together behave sort of weirdly, and I think corporations tend to be groups of very large people behaving weirdly, you know, we all interface with that, on some level on whether that's just as a brief or whether we in part of that, no groups, you know, groups are weird, you know, group dynamics are kind of the odd and, you know, they're odd, whether you're, you're attaching yourself to them as as a as a client, and they're odd if you're working with them, you know, as a kind of a creative unit.

Juriel

This is switching gears a little bit, but you, I saw that you have a particular interest and Scott King, as well, as I'm sure The Internationalist is Alex Ward. What about this piece of text draws you in?

Richard Turley

First situationalist, Scott. I mean, well, Scott, I mean, I've actually become quite good friends with now and he, and, well, I mean, what I love about Scott's work is just it mean it's it's He comes from a very similar mindset, to me, really, which is just sort of mean, he made me for more, so really just like ultimate truth telling, you know, cuts through and kind of he's, you know, he's an he's really kind of identify as much more as an artist now. And his work is. Yeah, I've just, I mean, I've just grown up with it and always loved it. The Situ I mean, situation ism is is is, you know, has become, you know, quite an interesting kind of phenomena in a sense and kind of in its Yeah, I mean, it's quite surprising in some ways, the way that it's kind of keeps on becoming kind of, or having increasing relevance to people.

Juriel

Let's focus on then the debriefs Manifesto by Scott King. Yeah. And his work. It's clear to me when I see it, that there is a strong influence on your work. Do you kind of still channel this from this text? Do you think?

Richard Turley

No, I don't really, if I'm being completely honest with you, I sort of published I was one of the people who published the debris text. I mean, I think I'll read it once and kind of scan through I mean, it's like, what's that text really is like, Scott? Yeah, it's like, I mean, my interpretation of that is, is it's, it's Scott looking at himself, and kind of finding all the faults and kind of all the things that kind of trip him up and kind of, and, you know, kind of creating a performance piece out of it, he's now he does spoken word events where he can read the whole text out, you know, it's, it's a kind of, I mean, hopefully, it'd be, like me say, it's almost like a cry for help, really, you know, it's like, you know, it's, it's the kind of frustrations of being a kind of creative and being frustrated by your own limitations, the limitations you place on yourself and the kind of the, you know, the fear that you have, over making work releasing work, it's his, it's his kind of manifesto, in a sense to kind of how to get out of that state and do it and some strategies that that he uses, and I use strategies that have a loose context, because it's essentially kind of comedy. Sort of comedy, it's sort of, you know, comedy as much as sort of, I suppose my comedy is comedy, which is as insightful, we're using language and using kind of, you know, your own shortcomings as a vehicle to talk about bigger themes. And it's connected to Andre in a funny you know, light lately, you know, the, in as much as, you know, you hit a certain age and, you know, I'm definitely kind of our inner the oldest in this room by some margin, you know, where, you know, there's three of us in this way, you know, where you need to, you know, you need to know, I said to my friend, the other day and kind of in in quite an eloquent way, I thought, it's just like you spend the first half of your career knocking things down, knocking obstacles down and kind of trying to find ways around and charging through things and to pretending that just having a lot of energy and kind of bursting through and then you spend the second half of your career putting the obstacles back up. So you have something, something to run through again, because you sort of you need, you know, like when you do a lot of things in your career and when you kind of you have kind of EEE To your point where, you know, you need to sort of reinvent things or invent things to kind of to keep yourself interested in them, you know, and in so I don't know if that's necessarily what Scott was kind of tacking into the I don't think he really was tapping into that. And the I think he was, again, he was all about kind of freedom and kind of like knocking things down. But my observation is that, about my own work and my own kind of process is that I'm needing to create to create more limitations for myself now, and and I'm more interested in things that are kind of non stem that I might my own process in the moment is one of kind of creating problems myself to solve, you know, whether that's time based problems. I mean, I've talked about that nuts magazine, where I just was like, well, we're just gonna do it in a day. So that's kind of creating a time based limitation and kind of frustrating myself, you know, in order to kind of to leave the room, I have to have done it. So yeah, so but I do think that is also the consequence of kind of, as I said, being a kind of a middle aged kind of creative person, man, maybe, you know, that is requiring in a more inventive ways of keeping yourself on task.

Juriel

Do you have a personal manifesto?

Richard Turley

No I don't no. A lot of no's. I mean, like, my, my brain was going, there's any number of texts, poems, pieces that I can, you know, that I use as inspiration, jumping off point, but you know, we'll be here all day, you know, I mean, it's, you know, I'm just, I absorb a lot and I'm very, very voracious for it enough. So I'm just really just like a consumer of of, of ideas and kind of content and any any sort of any day there's it's a slightly different kind of different. That takes a slightly different form. But, you know, it's..

Yohance

And for you, would you say you're constantly bookmarking writing down? Or do you have like a photographic memory where you're just you remember, and you can recall?

Richard Turley

No I often write that mean, it's funny, I had, I had a really great day on Friday, in January, I did not have a good January, nothing really happened. But some, you know, it was just a sort of it, just, you know, those months were just feel like you're kind of like walking through treacle or something in molasses, you know, nothing's quite gonna work. But I had a really great day and went on Friday. And I ended up writing just on Saturday, I woke up and just write that down. A really good day, you know, and I learned a lot that day. So sometimes I will write it down. Sometimes I'll just kind of put an I put something up on my wall, which reminds me of it. I'm not great at cataloging it if I'm being honest with you. So I don't have like a sort of journaling, kind of scrapbooking kind of mentality.

Yohance

So like even bookmarks on Twitter, something?

Richard Turley

I don't you know, no, I screengrab a lot of things. But then I've got but then my desktop gets so messy that I just end up forgetting, you know, then I have this folder called Clean Up, which I kind of put on my desktops, just so otherwise just total chaos. And so I end up just like dumping everything into there and then just like kind of losing it, but no, I'm not I'm not kind of great at documenting it or kind of just remembering it. I think it just got to me but I think it goes in on some level. And it just sort of...

Yohance

Still influences what comes out later on.

Richard Turley

Yeah, yeah, and I think I miss remember it sometimes, you know, and I think that's quite useful where you can think you've had a thought and actually the thought was completely different, but then it's just quite useful. Yeah, no.

Juriel

I know you have a lot of kind of more of your well known works. Do you have any personal favorite projects that maybe people don't know as much about?

Richard Turley

I mean, my favorite thing at the moment is this nuts magazine, which I like like that. That's my kind of to give to you is you know so I suppose but I suppose the answer that question is kind of whatever I'm doing at that moment is my favorite thing. And if I'm not really doing anything at that moment, then I'm probably thinking about what my what to do because you know, I do you know, I do need to kind of just invent stuff on me I mean, I'm not somebody who can just go and sit you know, just just be unhappy at work really generally, if I'm unhappy at work I'll go and physically do something that to get myself out of it and for me do something is make a zine or make a kind of magazine or just do something to kind of collaborate with someone so yeah, so my favorite bits of my favorite thing at the moment is nuts for sure. But I've got you know, having better known pieces of work or less one is one thing I mean what I find is that certain groups of people are aware of bits some bits of my work and others and totally ignorant of others you know, I mean know that Formula One branding logo thing I did lots of you know, that gets petrol heads and kind of people who like cars and stuff and you know, like the civilization thing I can see that picture there like a lot of art people like that in that scene, you know, and kind of like literate literary people obviously got interview which is kind of like fashion you know, actually art people can like the business week project kind of crosses boundaries in a sense, because, you know, that keeps on coming back. But startup people, for example, really like because they're I suppose that coming from more business background, we like the business work, so I don't know I just I just have, which is actually a problem because I was talking someone about this last week where I'm like, you know, I've just been too scattered, you know, I mean, like most people just kind of like, you know, they have, you know, they do fashion and everyone understands that they do fashion and my I, I'm just, I think, you know, it's maybe not a terrible thing, but it just does mean that I'm kind of bit unfocused in terms of kind of how people think about me and somebody,

Yohance

Are you asking to be put in no box?

Richard Turley

Well, in some ways, yeah. I mean, I, because it would be a bit more helpful, because I think, you know, when I'm getting new work, for example, or kind of, if I'm approaching somebody and say, Well, I like to work with you. Well, I like to do this, and they go, Well, wait, you could be bored doing this, or kind of this isn't new and light? And I mean, well, no, no, I mean, like, like, I've got that, you know, I don't know, you know, it's, it's hard. I mean, people and for very good reason people like to be, you know, you understand how to do this. You know, and like, you know, and I think sometimes they look at people look at my work. And because it's kind of really all over the place. It comes from a lot of different kind of sources, people just, you know, don't get a bit spooked by the fact that, you know, here's a kind of logo for some kind of crypto company next picture of, you know, LM off, like jumping on a trampoline, Yuo know what I mean its very hard for me, you know, and understandably, again, it's hard for people just to kind of facilitate those two things together.

Juriel

Yeah, it seems like I think designers can tell the skill range of another designer, but perhaps like, the client has a hard time grasping what all of everything means. But when I see your work, it's very clear that all of the messages are kind of the motifs are similar, although, like, they're all very different.

Richard Turley

And yeah, I'm glad you said that. Like, honestly, I was in a conversation two weeks ago, with someone saying completely the opposite. You know, it's, it's weird, it's weird how people, I mean, maybe that's just kind of like the nature of humans and what people process, you know, but it was like, something I kind of show, you know, I changed some work to this woman. And, and she, you know, she was very complimentary about it, but she was just has done a lot to do with it, you know, this, this, it's that it's, you know, so it's already, you know, I think some people just really like specificity and just kind of like, and, you know, this person wasn't even a client or anything, it was just more of a kind of observation. And there wasn't as if there was a sort of anything kind of, you know, around the conversation that had been kind of conversation. But yeah, it's all you know, it's not people take different things from your, you know, what you do and the work that you do, and, you know, there isn't me for certainly, for my inner, there's just, like, not much connection at all, you know, or rather, people, it depends me, I think you either really like my work or just don't understand it. You know, I mean, there's not many, I think there's a bit of understanding, oh, okay, it's kind of, I've seen this, I kind of, I understand it as a piece of kind of, kind of graphic design or kind of creative work. But I think I'm a bit chalk and cheese, I think people either really like it or kind of don't really understand it.

Juriel

Right, which is the thing is kind of, like the goal, right, is to be either very liked or...

Richard Turley

Tell me what the goal is. I mean, you I am lucky and as much as I've been able to somewhat do what I wanted to in, I've been able to maintain something in myself in my work, and I do you recognize that has been very lucky to have done that, you know, not many, not everybody who starts out is able to kind of have a degree of authorship kind of around their work. You know, I think I think I know why they've done I mean, I do that because I just a lot of the work that I'm that I do isn't client based and so it's enabled me to kind of to not only have a degree of authorship around my work, but also use that work in order to get other work, you know, and so that but you know, the sort of the magazines that I've done are the I have to mean that you have two reasons to exist Firstly, it's to because I go crazy if I was just doing kind of advertising all the time, but also their their shop windows, you know, their storefronts, and so kind of when people see that other people are much likely more likely to see that work and then and then get in contact with me to get paid work. So it kind of it's, it's a sort of a double, not a double edged sword because that sounds like it's a negative is basically the the two positives are really just I mean, but like they, and I think it's enabled me to have perhaps more of an idea of round self authorship and maybe it's kind of, you know, it's not like people have been since you adopt been asking for me to get to do it's taken them seeing the work, you know, the magazine work, the newspaper work and kind of other other stuff to in order to kind of get that. Yeah, commercial work with.

Juriel

You talked a little bit about nuts, which I know we've already chatted about, but to people who haven't seen it yet. Can you explain what it is and how you got to that since it? Yeah, it seems like a new direction.

Richard Turley

Well, it's taking, so I do Interview magazine. And so then that was the first time I really have into you know, kind of played with I mean, I've always been interested in fashion, but I've never it's the first time I've really ever done a kind of a fashion project, you know. And so it was it was taking some of those learnings and applying them in my own. And with my own in just in my own interest really, you know, I mean I'm I'm totally interested in kind of what what do you magazine is but you know, I wanted to play with fashion and play with clothes I mean fashion is probably it's not really a fashion magazine it is to play clothes and how that how they wear us, you know, her clothes wear us, it's a blackout is a very long black and white magazine is printed, you pick it up, it looks like a brick, but you pick it up, and it's very light. It, there's lots of lots of text in it, it uses language, you know, like every piece of commercial sort of design work or kind of commercial work in it, you know, like, it's about modifying things, you know, words modifying pictures. So there's a lot of words and pictures, which you don't really see a ton of in fashion magazines are kind of style magazines anymore, because it's mostly just sort of photographers don't really like words on their pictures. So it's a sort of a, it's kind of marinating about the kind of the human condition, using pictures of people all over the world pictures in that form in tons of pictures in China and people from Iran, pitch them Colombia, really tried to kind of like have a magazine that doesn't, isn't focused on New York, London, Paris, Berlin, you know, these kind of traditional centers, and there's a lot of stuff in the desert and kind of in the southwest. But you know, it's funny actually kind of trying to sit with something that is really difficult somehow, because I'm not even sure what it is, you know, and it's a sort of it uses the sort of the structure of, of what might be a fashion magazine, where there's kind of credits in the column, the pictures, to tell a very different story, you know, to tell a story of kind of, maybe people who aren't really sure, aren't really sure, you know, I'm kind of like what we do, you know, a lot of my work is quite, sort of near ballistic in a way. And a lot of it sort of, certainly like civilization sense that if you actually read civilization, it's just a lot of people fretting. It's a lot of people kind of like wondering what they're doing and kind of why they're doing it and how they got to that place. And I think it's just a different version of that same impulse really.

Juriel

Yeah. Going into the civilization issue. I know, you created an issue in 2022, using AI generated content. How is your perception of AI changed since and what do you see for the future of it as it relates to design and advertising?

Richard Turley

Well, I mean, it's realistically, it's probably going to take a lot of people's jobs, right, because, you know, I mean, I think I think, you know, really the future if you think looking at it in terms of design, because he will be in I can envisage a place where Squarespace will probably just build out a kind of an AI component where you go to Squarespace, not for just for your website, but for your appetite, you know, where, you know, I just can't see a place where those tools aren't, you know, much more easy to access for kind of lay people. And just as the same way as now you go to Squarespace, instead of going to a web design company, I think you've probably got some maybe even Squarespace to then sort of do kind of, you know, more kind of creative works about logos, things like that I just cut, you know, still think probably there'll be some other people who kind of controlling those kind of AI decisions, you know, we'll have some power, and there'll be kind of like jobs there. But it's, you know, it's just kind of, you know, and I think could have actually been like wrangling and kind of typesetting I think it was still, you know, it'll still be adverts made by humans right now, there still be No, there's not going to be all totally kind of doom and gloom, I suppose the kind of, you know, the first half of that question is where, you know, that project, I mean, I actually way prefer AI back then when it was bad, you know, like, you know, when it was robbed, you know, and it wasn't perfect. And, you know, I you know, we used a kind of a program called pseudo right, on that civilization issue where we can fed in old interviews, and then got it to reroute it to write new interviews, I mean, that was kind of about being bored with downtown New York, which is kind of like where I live and kind of work from, and kind of like the whole time Time Square thing kind of unlike a lot of civilization was kind of predates that and was kind of was talking about and talking about that area kind of prior to Tibbett sort of blowing up in there kind of pandemic and I think kind of what we were what I was doing there or what I was spoofing in a sense or kind of what I've marinating on is just it doesn't really matter who these people are doesn't matter who says all these things it's just you know, it's just it's kind of in on Mars or just be computer he's still he's just like being interviewed at this point. You know, they will just you know, in every magazine it's just the time and like the drunken canal and newspaper which is just you know, which actually I have no problem with but like if you were to be sort of somewhat critical of it it's just a bunch of people kind of self promoting and you know, and and and I think I kind of again was sort of interested not interested in that totally uninterested in that and cycling the idea of again like you know, computer kind of spitting out all these kinds of you know, a computer crying is way more interesting or was way more interesting to me than a kind of someone else that you know, human crying about kind of in a heartbeat like woe is me and how terrible their life is. But again, like like back then siderite which was a kind of very, very early, you know, sort of Chat GPT piece of software. was really bad and it would just spit out garbage. But it was brilliant garbage. It was beautiful garbage and like, you know, the end. And the fact that it just, you know, there's this one piece in which I still love actually, it, it just 111 day just like kicked out all this stuff about kind of this girl walking around a beach and a video. And it's like the girl in the video that got it was just like, wow, you know, and there are moments there where it's kind of where you just want it felt out of control. And you know, where it was just taking language and using language in these kind of really unique ways, which unfortunately, I think is gone now. I mean, I was actually talking again, talking to someone about this last week about trauma kind of, you know, unlearn, you know where we are AI will unlearn itself and it because I think actually is a tool, just a pure tool to kind of creative thinking, having a mis-functioning machine is way more useful. And a functioning machine, you know, you what you're wanting to do is to find mistakes and to you know, because you know, when you know what you're doing, you have an expectation of the result. So if you know, if you want a piece of AI to kind of give you what I know, it was more interesting to me at the time to kind of do to have things that didn't make any sense. And to have things that kind of that that was more interesting for me and I kind of and gave me more ideas, then then AI being able to kind of just to perfectly resolve the conversation. If you're not fit, you know.

Juriel

I see a common thread. And what you're saying is that you kind of appreciate the mistakes and you find joy and kind of working through those mistakes or learning challenges.

Richard Turley

Yeah. And as it goes forward. And as it becomes more and more efficient and more smoother, then again, as a tool, it becomes much more useful, I suppose, but then inevitably leaves behind some of the some of the more interesting things, but then I'm sure that they'll figure out a way to kind of unlearn you know, there's probably little slider which you can kind of think a proto, amateur as of No, no, you know, there may be ways of doing it. But ultimately, I find AI totally fucking depressing. Scary and I'm not cool with it.

Juriel

Yeah. Cuz, earlier, you had said, Do you think that AI will probably take a lot of people's jobs. And at least currently, when I use the AI design tools, like it's very obvious that it still needs like a human hand. Even kind of the logo generators are still off, you know, it's not completely, like it doesn't completely, like relate to the story around or whatever. Do you think that it's just gonna get so spot on to the point that they won't even need human designers?

Richard Turley

I think so. Yeah, I think that, you know, I don't know how long they'll take. But yeah, I do think so. Yeah, I do. Unfortunately, I mean, I think, you know, and I still think there will be a human component in it, probably no, and I think the wrangling and the kind of polishing and the kind of I can't, I don't see that being kind of completely eradicated. But I do see a time when you will be able to just type in, I want a logo for, you know, my new yogurt company, and it will give you a few, you know, enough of, you know, the versions will be good enough for kind of people to be able to begin that process without needing kind of expensive branding help.

Juriel

I think at the end, maybe it just would be about designers having to really hone in on their, like style or taste. Maybe?

Yohance

I really like that no, because I haven't heard that answer. When we talk about what is what's going on with AI how it's the answers, you know, you just gotta get with it. Or the answer that I've heard and have you been regurgitated is that oh, AI is not going to take your job, someone who knows how to use AI is going to take your job. So I like this, this is fully a different perspective for me.

Richard Turley

And personality and kind of and then and so and sense of self worth, I think I mean, self authorship of it, maybe. But I think it was something about that. Yeah, I think that being I think that's becoming that will be more important just to have a sense of a sense of identity, you know, to be a name to be kind of so I think I'm doing, you know, being kind of a trusted voice. Having kind of being kind of public with your work. I think that will become more I mean, it's already important. I think that will become kind of more important, I think. Yeah, I would probably say that. I mean, like my experience of just broader life is that that you know, that there's a lot of kind of predictions around kind of technology and where we might be flying cars is a good one. You know, like, there's a lot of promises that technology makes in its in in early stage, we're kind of people can kind of really see how you know, where it's gonna go and how it might build. My experience is that things take a lot longer than that, you know, and maybe the kind of the short term panic around things isn't quite as bad. You know, it's, it's, you know, we're very good as a civil society in spooking ourselves and kind of just saying, it's all gonna be over. It's all everywhere, you know, it's gonna be some, it's gonna crash. You know, I mean, we've just lived through a pandemic, which is kind of like spooked everybody and kind of just, you know, and so I think we're very attuned to that. Feeling to panicking. You know, we're very, there's another way of thinking about this is that, you know, we as a species, we're very, very successful because we've got a very high, you know, very good spotting danger, you know, and that's great when you're in a jungle and like a bear is attacking you or, you know, like, you know, spotting danger in that environment is very useful. But, you know, like, do we need to spot danger quite as much as we, you know, we, you know, we, you know, we're, we're constantly looking out for threat, we're constantly looking out for things that can kind of in, and I think that does get in our way, and I would probably, you know, I don't know, quite the journey of AI, obviously, but it may not be too dissimilar, where, you know, we're panicking ourselves and kind of, you know, we're kind of creating this idea of our own obsolescence a little bit prematurely. And as I said, my experiences that in our life actually doesn't really change. I mean, you know, I don't know, I mean, I think there's definitely kind of differences in how, where I am as a person and who I am as a person, you know, going back kind of, you know, 20-25 years, I don't know, I'm still living in a crappy apartment, it's falling down. I mean, I'm still kind of, like, frustrated by things, you know, my fridge is on you know what I mean, I know, these, it's, nothing's take a lot longer to change, then maybe sort of, you know, that we're companies would like us to, in that it's their job to sell us on the vision, it's their job to get money to sell us the vision, it's their job to kind of, you know, VC companies to kind of to create this vision of the future that enables them all to get like paid very, very well. But like, you know, Uber, for God's sake, I mean, Uber came along, like, totally fuck the taxi system you know what I mean its like, walked away, they have a habit of making things way worse. Right.

Juriel

So as technology kind of advances, it's more important for us to really hone in to our sense of identity.

Richard Turley

Yeah, I mean, I think practically, it just, I would, you know, I think a good failsafe is, is just being, you know, just having a proper about having a decent profile, you know, make it you know, making sure that you're, you know, people are aware of who you are your work and I think that is in my observation about kind of how I'm getting work and kind of how my friends and kind of kind of colleagues and younger and, you know, as well as, it's the networks, they're part of, it's the relationships that they have is their, their, the way that they kind of present themselves and the way that they are able to kind of communicate about their ideas, in sort of, you know, in a variety of different ways. I'm not just talking about social media, you know, but kind of, you know, doing talks in a particular way, I think that probably is a reasonably good, you know, reasonably good kind of, like, balanced, you know, doing your company know, like, you know, these things help, you know, these things kind of create an idea of, of you in other people's brains, which is more than he or she can, you know, do it, do it, you know, do some kind of, you know, good Instagram design or Evangelion. I mean, I don't mean to be dismissive. My hunch, again, is that people will want to work with interesting people in our, in our side sounds very reductive, to say, as being as interesting as you can is, is probably the thing to do you know, is to try and be as interesting as you can and be as different as you can and kind of people will want to work with people who have different mindsets and who bring different things to the table. So working on that.

Juriel

My next question is actually, if you had any advice for the next generation of designers, which might already be tied into what you just answered.

Richard Turley

I think my advice is, you've got to remember that, yes, this is a job. But it's not the job is often not the reason you got into the, into this industry and go into this kind of, you know, into this way of thinking, you know, it's, it kind of comes back to something we said at the beginning, like, you know, you we all probably came at some point from art, right, from kind of being fairly good at art school, you need to remember that all the way you need to remember that, like working for Coca Cola, Pepsi, whoever Do you not mean is not necessarily enough for most people, in my experience is not going to make them feel kind of creatively satisfied. Some people will some people 100% It does. But for a bunch of people, it's not, you know, and ng X, having the expectation that working for a big brand is going to make you feel creatively satisfied. Is the mistake, you know, or is a mistake, you know, because it's just because then when you're not creatively satisfied, and you're kind of like, well, why why I've got the job that I wanted, and like I'm not happy, or I'm not really feeling kind of, you know, this isn't really giving me what I need. Well, you know, the reasons kind of obvious really, you know, it's just it's not you know, you're not using your skills in the way that you've kind of it would be creatively nourishing for you to to use them. So always like having side projects. Doing, unlike when I buy side project, I don't necessarily mean you got to go and invent your own startup. It's just like, going on a painting course doing doing some photography, just keeping yourself interested in the act of making something will make us right. You know, the act of making some thing is incredibly rewarding, some people require an audience to do that in front of other people just just do it for the sake of doing it, you know, and, but I think keeping that going is the most important part, because my experience with that is that it all starts to feed into itself. You know, I mean, you know, like the the paid work that you do the, you know, the kind of corporate work, if you like that you do start doing form, the smaller work and smaller work gets more corporate work more paid. I mean, that's definitely my story. You know, we've talked about that a bunch, right. But like, you know, it's just this, you know, these two wheels really, that I visualize it one big wheel, which is the money wheel, the corporate wheel, and then a small wheel, which is now your own, you know, your small projects and your kind of your personal projects. If you can kind of keep those two spinning, you're doing a good job. And I think you'll find that the corporate work and the kind of big thinking the agency thinking to start to inform the smaller work and smaller work starts to inform the bigger work. So, but but just keeping both but understanding that both of those things are as are as important, you know, I mean, it's the Andre in a way, right, like Andre got his Outcast, we'll, you know, I know, it's not quite simple as that. But you know, it's, it's, it's that piece of nourishing your own. Yeah, just making sure that you're nourishing your own kind of soul, really, you know, your own kind of, you know, your creative journey. And, like I said, of, you know, working, you know, there's lots of really good stuff to be learned from kind of like working with big corporate clients. And there's often a lot of really great work to be done working for big corporate clients. But I think having the expectation that is always going to be like that is maybe a mistake.

Juriel

Yeah, that's a really good advice. I think it is really important to kind of make sure we have our personal projects as well. But yeah, I think we had a lot of great takeaways to that today. And yeah, we're so happy to have you here. So thank you.

Richard Turley

Thank you for your for inviting me. I've enjoyed it's been really fun.