Meet Megan Clancy | Creative

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

Hi Megan, what led you to pursuing a creative path professionally?
I pursued a creative career because I knew it was how I wanted to spend the majority of my time, and that it was bound to be that way whether I made a living from it or not. I don’t think there is anything more fulfilling than bringing something from ideation to fruition. In the end, I think, I just found a way to build a career around my core passions, and I feel very lucky for that.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I always wanted to do something artistic and creative, at least through hobbies, if not as a career. I was accepted into art college but chose to take a year to do an art, craft and design course exploring multi-disciplinary artistic mediums including a module on graphic design. I always loved to create and found that through design, I could be creative with a purpose, fulfil a desired outcome, and create in a way that would benefit others, too.

The core of my work to date has been in the realm of graphic design and even before I graduated from the Visual Communications course in CIT, Cork, I would get small branding and print projects for local people and businesses. My home town, Bantry, and the people here, in that sense, have been fundamental in the growth of my creative career. I started off working part-time as a freelance designer, steadily growing a client base through word of mouth thanks to the community who gave me their trust and were happy to recommend me. There’s a bit of a joke between my friends here who came up with the tagline ‘Megan Clancy, Branding Bantry’ because over the years I have amassed a pretty extensive collection of local businesses who commissioned logo work from me. I like to joke that I could do a walking tour of my portfolio in the town.

I attribute a lot of the success in my career to growing up in West Cork, Ireland especially the support, trust and encouragement of the community in those early days. One stand-out moment was some advice from my talented musician and woodworker friend, Bean Dolan, who told me I should present my work as ‘Creative’ instead of ‘Graphic Design’ because of the diversity in what I do. That was one of the most important decisions, even though I didn’t realise it at the time, because since then I’ve been lucky enough to complete all kinds of work under my name from graphic design, to illustrations and murals, to community projects and art installations. Some of my favourites were the KIN concert, where I designed an installation for the stage backdrop for musician Caoi De Barra’s gig, and the Bantry Halloween Festival, where I was given free rein to design and build an interactive installation on the town square for the night. For the Halloween Festival project, I put a call out to my friends for help and over the duration of the build I think I had roughly twenty sets of helping hands involved. The success of the installation was definitely due to that awesome collaboration. I feel very grateful to have these types of avenues for creative expression, and enthusiastic people willing to get on board with cool ideas.

I work a lot with people in the music industry, too, probably due to the vast amount of talented musicians in the area. The relationship between visual art and music has always been inspiring and I love the interpretative freedom I get when designing for music-related projects.

Looking forward, after spending years in Berlin, and one in Dakar, Senegal, my sights are set on West Cork again and seeing how I can give back to the community and environment that fostered so many great things for me. I have a project brewing that I’m really excited about because I imagine it as something that will support local creatives and help fund creative community projects. Corecreative (lovingly and internally pronounced as Cork Creative) is the name for the creative collective that’s in its conceptual phase in my mind at the minute. I would love for it to become a digital directory of local creatives, highlighting the talent of the people here and a physical space for creatives to work on their artistic disciplines, collaborate, and offer support for creative community projects, too.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
In my biased opinion, there are few places as beautiful and magical as West Cork. From mountains, valleys and lakes, to old woodlands and a coastline of inlets and islands there are too many outstanding natural spots to visit in one trip. Glengarriff is particularly special when the sun shines, and Ballydehob, another small town, has a vibrant art and culture scene that’s second to none. As a nice contrast to the outdoors and nature, I’d have to bring visitors on a tour of the local pubs and music venues to experience the music culture here and what we call ‘the craic’. It’s common for the entire pub to be up, dancing and singing along to live music, strangers to be stuck in conversations and music sessions where you’re not allowed to leave until you give us a tune.

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’d dedicate my shoutout to the West Cork community. The creative vein that runs through the towns, villages and people here, in visual arts and music, is always an inspiration. The supportive and encouraging attitude of the people around me over the years. The people who gave me their trust as a young designer and who continue to recommend my work to others. And to my mom, Eve, who has always been doing one crafty thing or the other about the house, inspiring me and instilling a ‘you can do anything’ attitude.

Instagram: @meganclancycreative

Image Credits
Joe Chapman Photography