Inspiration. Some find it in their environment, creative words, at the bottom of a bottle. We find it in people. Everyday we get to meet and work with the most interesting people who don’t just talk the talk - they strut the shit out of the walk. Alongside the bigger opportunities we are working on, we love finding other excuses to create inspiring stuff to share.
Interpret/inspire
‘Interpret/Inspire’ is an ongoing series where we challenge inspiring people through super simple, but open, briefs with little time to deliver. The openness on one hand and restriction of time on the other leaves no choice but to get excited and make it happen. Not for everyone, but there is something liberating about removing the ability to overthink, and force you to rely on your raw talent and whatever inspiration is to hand.
For the first of this series we enlisted seven people whose work we admire. We gave each of them a letter to replicate in their style, within 48 hours. Now, I said that people inspire us - not that we are inspired in our creativity - therefore, surprise surprise, the letters spelt out Gather.ly.
The core of Gather.ly is enabling people to collaborate and create work they couldn’t alone. So, the rationale was that it made perfect sense to give the name back to the community to interpret. Alternatively, we were potentially being a wee bit narcissistic. Either way the enthusiasm and results blew us away.
Introducing our amazing artists...
G - Edward Carvhalo-Monaghan.
Getting Ed involved was a no brainer. We first met Ed when he worked with us on a collaboration with Debenhams. He is a seriously talented illustrator who takes his inspiration from the psychedelic sixties and is happy as long as he is doing what he loves - which is putting a record on and getting stuck into one of his colourful illustrations. Ed ended up creating a seriously amazing piece of work for us to use for our giant billboard last month on Old Street. You can read about that here.
A - Scott Grummet.
A still life photographer, Scott was in the studio when we called him up and asked if he was interested in pulling together a letter for us. He was playing around with a heap of props at the time and the result was this formation of ants drawn to the sticky sweetness of an icy treat. We’d just enabled Scott to achieve one of his dream projects ‘The Scene of the Crime’, making him was the first subject of our passion projects mission, where we aim to help people achieve things they wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. Check out his project here.
T - Florian Meacci.
There couldn’t have been a better fit for this project then the very talented French born, London based illustrator. He has recently been involved in an exhibition with his best friend in Paris where they split the alphabet in half and each illustrated letters. Florian has been doing some great work recently which you can learn all about here.
H - Matt Lyon.
Hypnotic, vivid, blocked shapes and patterns were what attracted us to Matt’s work. We've been big fans of Matt Lyon of C86 for a while now and were just itching for an excuse to work with him. We were stoked when he was eager to get involved and create a bespoke letter for us to contribute to the collaboration.
E - Joanna Bucur.
Exceptionaly talented Joanna took on this challenge after previously working alongside Gather.ly for our Art of Interpretation project. Both projects have been collaborative ones and Joanna is always really eager to get involved with anything we fire her way. Joanna is a real creative chameleon and general inspiration to everyone she meets, and we’re so stoked to have her as part of the Gather.ly family. Check out our feature on Joanna here.
R - Alec Doherty.
Reflecting on working with Alec, we were entertained as much by his sense of humour as his unique work. This was the first time we had approached Alec and we were really keen to get him involved in something because we just love his style. We got so much more than we bargained for after doing a feature on Alec, he’s just an absolute legend. Go get to know him here.
L - Joe Earley.
Literally one of the first members of the Gather.ly family, Joe has backed us since the beginning. He’s an intriguing and talented photographer with a nice little (not literally) Instagram that we fell for, and he fell for us right back. He loves what we do and is always so up for getting involved and working with other like-minded people. Joe took over our Instagram last weekend, which you can catch up on here.
Y - Joseph Larkowsky.
You never know what reaction you will get when you contact people via Twitter. Lucky for us there was an instant spark with Joseph. He's just so damn passionate about what he does that he totally leaves you in awe. Joseph lives and breathes fashion and puts everything he has into his beautiful illustrations. We can’t wait to work with Joseph on future projects, you can read about him here.
Collectively these guys pulled together some amazing work. Hopefully, their work can inspire you too to get involved. Now is your chance...
We're pleased to announce the introduction of our Community page - the home of creatives who want to progress their craft. Here, you can sign up to become part of our network of creatives. At your fingertips will be assistance, opportunities for collaboration and critique. We can't wait kick this one off!
