Meet Andy Wardle, rock musician and isin’s in-house Creative Artworker responsible for creating flawless artwork and pixel-perfect digital assets. With his in-depth knowledge of print processes, finishes and materials, he translates the graphic elements from our design studio’s visuals into production-ready artwork. Discover more about this specialist process below.
Hi Andy, can you tell us a little bit about what you do?
As a Creative Artworker at isin, my role is to take the visuals that our experiential design team has created for any given project and make them work in the real world. In a nutshell this involves creating high resolution artwork for print elements and digital applications, ensuring that the brand guidelines and colour ways are always adhered to. I also apply specialist knowledge around print finishes and materials to make sure that the end result delivers the same impact as the visuals and will work in situ.
What’s your background and how did you get started?
Now you’re asking me to go back a long way… My first job was working as a print finisher at a small print shop. I cut my teeth working through various departments doing diverse work such as bookbinding, collating, guillotining, padding, packing, assembly, operating folding machines and so on. This gave me a great overall view of the whole production process before I moved into the more creative side of the industry. I’ve done all kinds of work including reprographics, artwork, graphic design, card engineering – I’ve even dabbled in airbrush illustration.
That must have given you a lot of specialist knowledge?
Yes absolutely, it gave me a really solid understanding of the processes, finishes and materials involved in production. It’s really helpful when working on live projects when fast decisions need to be made. For example – determining how a colour will look once printed, or which paper will have the best finish for the desired outcome.
Is there a difference when creating artwork for print assets versus digital?
Yes, print generally works with CMYK imagery, although not always, and has to accommodate for material movement (stretch and shrinkage) by bleeding beyond the print area. Digital artwork is realised in pixels and has to be supplied to a finite dimension.
Can you give us an insight into the artworking process?
Each project typically progresses through three steps, though of course there are some anomalies. We start with a briefing session where I align with the design team to fully understand the concept, the items that need producing and the time and resources required. This is super helpful in streamlining the entire process.
Armed with that understanding, I get started on producing the artwork for any print or digital elements. I’m usually doing this alongside the production team as they pull the production deck together. It ensures that everything is aligned and optimised right from the start.
Once the artwork is signed off by the clients I work with the project management team to ensure smooth production. This often involves site visits to check the quality and finish of items. On the digital side – I’m liaising with our technology team.
It sounds like there’s a lot of collaboration involved – how do you make sure that everyone stays aligned?
Communication between all departments is key. We are fortunate at isin to have a very broad range of skills and experience across the board, and an eagerness to collectively follow the process from inception to completion. It can be quite challenging as we’re often working against very tight deadlines but we have a great team who all pull together to make awesome things happen.
What’s been your favourite project to work on at isin?
To date, my absolute favourite project has been the Crocs Echo Launch Campaign. So many technical elements that all had to come together. The execution was superb and it was a pleasure to work closely with the whole team. I was particularly proud of the swirling mirror window graphics which I drew from scratch in Adobe Illustrator, making sure to replicate the exact positioning from the low resolution render. It looked fantastic in situ. I also created a lot of lenticular graphics. Here you have two images with logos which have to line up completely for the flip to be effective. It requires a giant amount of attention to detail.
I hear you’re also in a band, what do we need to know?
I am indeed! I’ve been in a variety of bands for many years and currently have 2 musical projects on the go. The rock band ‘The Innocents’ where we write and perform our own material. www.theinnocents.net for anyone brave enough to want to check us out. And an acoustic covers duo called The Philanthropists. I’m very creative in all areas of my life. I have also acted on the amateur and professional stage, and enjoy all aspects of performance based art. Some might say I’m a bit of a show off! Obviously, I couldn’t possibly comment…