Interview with art director Dan Hancock
Dan Hancock is a designer, art director, part-time illustrator, screen printer and printer. He likes to go on hunches and work fast. Dan describes his designs style as, “loud, rad and a bit punchy”.
Studying on the Sunshine Coast, Dan started his design career with a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Design and Marketing. Soon after completing his studies, he moved to Brisbane and has worked in and freelanced for many leading design studios.
At the end of 2011, Dan collaborated with a few friends complete the insane Mario and Sonic artworks. These pieces were made from around 5,000 tiny squares all cut from cigarette packets. Although not a smoker, Dan describes that the addiction to the nicotine from cutting the packets over so many days. See the progress and completed works here.
For those of you who follow the awesome daily t-shirt designs from Made in the Now, Dan, has in fact designed TEN t-shirts for this project now.
Keep up with Dan’s latest projects on his Facebook page and visit his website for all other links.
How have you got to where you are today?
I loved drawing and the idea of planning it. This idea morphed into Graphic Design. High School was fun (except for my art teacher, usual story). Then I studied at The University of The Sunshine Coast. I liked how they taught me to think. Study there. I’m really impressed with what the Coasts are doing compared to a few years ago.
From there, I’ve spent time in some agencies in Brisbane as well as in-house roles. Since 2010 i’ve been doing my own thing. Has it’s ups and downs.
In a few words, describe yourself…
Quiet, loud, kinda funny I guess. I get real excitable real quick over the dumbest stuff. I can be a real brat too.
If I don’t know you though, probably shy, reserved and hopefully polite. Takes people a couple of times to remember my name.
What are you spending your time on at the moment?
I’m really keen to do more t-shirt design and paintings. I always try and fix to fix my paintings like they’re in Illustrator… out comes the nikko! And I’d also like to get into more poster design. I love posters.
Do you have a ritual for getting into the creative mindset? Or a creative process?
It’s just get going. Music on, check out Ffffound or cool hunter, brown cardigan, old art books, anything Swiss, German or Japanese and the brainstorming begins. I like to sketch and make a mess and most times I get an outcome.
What or who inspires you?
When I really need inspiration it’s usually from non design stuff. But Artists I like are Claudio Kirac, Beastman, Shida, Lister, Ben Frost, Numskull, Jak Rapmund and Glenn Smith. Oh and Brown Cardigan.
I like using fads and trends in the wrong context (now that I’m getting on).
I like stuff that’s a bit crooked or that I can see faults in.
Otherwise I’m like, yep, how’s your vector stock going. This is how I justify my own technical deficiencies. I HATE photoshop. Adobe, consistency please. It’s not that hard.
What are you most proud of?
I really need to do some rad stuff first, so I’m going to say my family. They’re ace. Oh, and I love spending 5 minutes on something and getting the right outcome.
When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
It went from Builder (like Dad) age 5, to architect age 7, to artist age 10, to graphic designer 17. Sometimes (all the time) I wish I’d just gone to the mines and I’d now be able to pay for things in Ferraris.
