Not Turning Up
When I was 15 I wanted to be an Architect, the one subject I excelled in at school was technical drawing or CDT I think it was called then. We had career advice on what we thought we wanted to do/be and I was ‘advised’ it was never going to happen, the school wouldn’t let me do the a-levels required to get to Uni to study Architecture. The disappointment at that age has never really left me, but it has made me stubborn and being told you can’t do something makes me want to do it more.
I was never very academic and I went on to do art, geography, CDT and maths a-level. Maths was dropped pretty damn quickly. I knew I was going to do something arty as a career, but what…? It was at this time I got deeply into music, I can remember buying Pop Will Eat Itself - This is the day, This is the hour, This is This. 1989, the cover blew me away, this is what I wanted to do, graphic design. In my next career meeting I discussed my love of music and how I was inspired to pursue design and dreamt of designing record covers. Again I was advised I would never design a record cover, it was too niche, I needed to aim wider. Fuck you destroyer of dreams!
After A-Levels I went onto an Art Foundation as a pre curser to Uni, a year playing around and experimenting in all the art forms. Here I was told I should do Textiles, that is what they thought I was best at, not Graphics, but I insisted I apply for Graphic Design degrees. I built my folio and travelled round the country going to universities for interviews. Once again I was denied my dream, I didn’t get in anywhere. A tutor at the time called a friend of his who ran a degree course at the then named West Surrey Institute of Art and Design and although they didn’t have any places, I could go for an interview and be on the reserve list if they saw potential.
I can remember my friend driving me over for the interview. I was terrified, this felt like my last throw of the dice, I was losing hope, was I just not meant to do this, was I really that bad!! The good news is they saw my potential, I got on the wait list. The bad news, I needed someone to not turn up.
I was at a bit of a loss for the next few weeks, what was I to do, just wait for the phone to ring? So I packed up a bag and decided to travel round the country visiting mates, that sounded like fun. Then the phone rang... someone hadn’t turned up, I could have the place if I wanted it. The next day I started my degree, 4 days late.
In my second year we had to write an essay about something that inspired us. I got in contact with The Designers Republic who had designed the PWEI cover. They were the people who had inspired me to start and I suspect got hundreds of letters a day with similar requests, but they agreed. I travelled up to Sheffield and spent a few hours discussing all things music design and they gave me loads of swag much to the jealousy of my mates at Uni. I went on to graduate and moved to London straight after to follow the dream. I managed to wrangle some work experience at a company called Negative Space who designed all The Chemical Brothers and Charlatans covers and my first task out of Uni was designing flyers for the Heavenly Social club night.
My first proper job was with a company who did a lot of work in the computer games industry and we worked on the launch of the Nintendo 64. It was at this agency we started to get into digital work, developing enhanced cd’s for the music industry. My second job continued along these lines but in Soho for an agency who worked more in advertising land. Three years after leaving Uni, 3 of us left the company and in ‘99 and set up our own agency, called 3zero. We became specialists in creating digital work for the music industry and produced stuff for the likes of Depeche Mode, Nick Cave, De La Soul and MTV. The company split up 3 years later over ‘creative differences’ (all the 3’s). Two of us created a new agency called Version, and we developed our digital offering into creating online games, producing work for the likes of UEFA and the FA.
After leaving London in 2007 I set up another agency with two friends from Uni down in Brighton called Hold. Alongside all the digital work over the years we always produced a lot of print work from magazine design to brochures and branding work.
I now reside in sunny Somerset and work under the guise of Mr.O, primarily it seems working on branding projects, and with a number of reasons to be cheerful. At this point I get to stick two fingers up to my career adviser as I have indeed designed many record covers over the last 24 years, probably hundreds in fact. I still wonder what happened to the person who didn’t turn up, are they working in design or did they take another path? Wherever and whoever they are, I owe them a thank you for not turning up.
And the moral of the story for me - turn up and never give up on your dreams.
Anthony Oram
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