We had the good fortune of connecting with George Gillies and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi George, what do you think makes you most happy? Why?
Finishing a project where both parties are excited about the final design. It feels great to work with artists to give their musical work a visual aspect. I tend to fall into the trap of thinking too laterally. When I’m able to think outside the box, where that be moving a shape to something else, changing the colour scheme, I can ‘unlock’ something special.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I specialise doing graphic design within the music industry. I love my job – creating art for artists’ tours, albums, singles, merch, etc. It’s a really tough gig but I do love it. The main challenges are fairly common – comparing myself to others work and the self confidence that comes with that. I try to get on top of this by looking for inspiration other than on Instagram/Pinterest.
Lately I’ve been incorporating my photography into designs by digitising parts of them and recolouring them to be put within a different shape to create something original.
Probably the biggest challenge however was getting diagnosed with epilepsy after a string of bad seizures at the end of 2022. There’s been a few changes in medicine to see what works best, and unfortunately it can take a toll on creativity. It’s been much better recently.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I’ve had a lot of support from lots of my long term clients that I really love working with. Some of them gave me my first jobs and I’ve still got a strong relationship with them. Both promoters Mistletone and Jet Black Cat Music have been fantastic to work with because they have the same drive and similar tastes in music. I adore what they do, touring artists in one of the hardest time it is to do so.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/georgejgillies/

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