The Spark: Rob Draper on Old-School Electro, Portrait-a-Day and Nike Dreams

0:03Katy Cowan:We are back with the wonderful Rob Draper, who joined us on Monday to talk about creating something from nothing. And it's wonderful to have you back, Rob. Thank you very much. We didn't have a four day break at all, did we? We just... We sipped some water and took a selfie. It feels so disingenuous. I'm wondering whether to carry on doing The Spark next season, but we'll see. We'll see. What do you think, listeners? Let me know on a postcard. God, I'm showing my age. Can you remember that? Let us know on a postcard. I can, I can. Or was it a self-addressed envelope? Wasn't that a thing? Maybe self-addressed envelope, yes.

0:42Katy Cowan:What was it, like going live? Was that your kind of... Yeah, or was it going live before live and kicking? I can't remember. Number 73 I remember, though. I remember number 73 really well, yeah. Really, really well. Saturday Superstore? Yes. Yes. Yeah, just about. Just about. Yeah. And all the kind of amazing little cartoons on a Saturday morning, which I would watch with my little brother. Mallets Mallets. Do you remember Mallets Mallets? Mallets Mallets. Yes. Oh, I love that. Like, can you imagine explaining that program to anybody who was born without 19 at the start of their birth year? No, no, no, no, no.

1:24I don't think you'd be allowed to hit people over the head anymore either, would you, on TV?

1:27Katy Cowan:it was he was great he was he he made a whole when that sort of got cancelled i think he carried on and did like kids parties and did pretty well from it i think so yeah i hope so oh gosh now this is where i'm like panicking and thinking did he did did he get was was he okay was he i would love to do a google let's just yeah let's just quickly have a look just have a quick quick Google on this one, please. I'm going to get done for defamation. Timmy, we love you. And I want, he might, is he still alive? He's 70. Oh, he was born in Marple. And he went to the University of Warwick, did he? Oh, gosh.

2:11Katy Cowan:Doing what? Hang on. Or is he a sort of honorary member? Just bear with us a second, listeners. We're looking up a very important cultural figure from our youth. Yeah. Oh, he was lovely. He was so good. And I always tried to ring in. Do you remember on the phone where you had to do the actual turn dial? Do the actual turn dial? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I do. I remember that very well. Very, very well. Do you remember getting smash hits? No, but my sister used to because she was older than me. She was kind of, I was more kind of into, I was into that real first wave of like rap and hip hop and all that.

2:49So I wasn't buying smash hits.

2:50Katy Cowan:What, the golden age of hip hop? it depends what you're calling the golden age uh tribe called quest no that's kind of that's mid-school isn't it so i'm way before that come on okay so like epmd yeah okay yeah fine yeah yeah yeah yeah um yeah so kind of that era that real kind of like the electro albums um yeah remember The electro albums, yeah. No. Do you not? Okay. So you're talking electro, electro? I don't know. I don't know what you mean. No, if you look at those kind of early things, do you remember Dougie Fresh? Yes. There you go. Yes, I do. There you go. Mantronics. Yes. All that kind of era, that real kind of, when it was kind of like that real electro sound.

3:42Yeah. much like kind of early like break dance I suppose.

3:47Katy Cowan:Electro disco. Do you remember Beach Street the film? I've never seen it. Oh so was this for a little boy in Worcester was this like the most amazing like. Oh 100 % yeah 100 % yeah for a couple of reasons I think firstly we were we were mass obsessed with American culture anyway so anything from the films if you imagine like um star wars tron et these kind of you know these really really there was nothing else like it at all um and then for worcester not only was breakdancing was like amazing and and blah and but the graffiti art as well was for me i was completely completely taken because art at school then wasn't particularly motivating or inspiring or anything and that and so you had this kind of outlet for doing art that was kind of that was great it gave you adventures it gave you confidence it gave you a social life so I was completely completely taken in those days and the clothes my god the clothes well I was yeah again it's something I talk about I was desperate so age age 11 I was like one of my dreams was I desperate to work for Nike I really wanted to work for Nike I was like all I wanted to do was work for Nike because getting Nike clothes was so difficult because there were there wasn't that much of it in Worcester for a start but there certainly wasn't any in like children's sizes you know and so it was it was like a massive deal and explaining that to people now because you can obviously get it everywhere it's like it was just it was bizarre it's like absolutely like obsessed by nike yeah i love that yeah because it and do you still love them now or i do yeah and yeah it's not but i love kind of how it was then more so you know and in the 90s i loved all the kind of um as a graphic designer all their creative they did in the 90s when i was kind of growing up and a student and everything and the stuff they did with like widening kennedy and you know i just was obsessed with all that kind of era yeah amazing amazing right now we're going to ask you some questions cool um and we're going to start strong okay and then we'll go from there this is going to be interesting what's your most controversial creative opinion rob my most controversial is that talking about it isn't doing it and i think i you know it's um sometimes it's it's really really safe i think to think and talk about this thing you're going to actually do but not actually getting around to doing it and i think there's a kind of that safety of thinking something could work really really work rather than the reality of trying it and it may be not working and it's that comfort of having a dream um and yeah spending your life talking about something rather than actually getting on and trying it yeah yeah cracking on and seeing where that takes you and i think um yeah i think that's quite uncomfortable for a lot of us at times you know myself included you know um just that thing of trying to kind of get on with it yeah talking about it isn't doing it the flip side of that though is that um when you've got people characters like me if i make my mind up about something i've got to do it right there and then it's got to be put put into place if it's a bigger sort of decision it's you know I won't sleep very well I'll be like right I need a plan I need to do it I need to crack on one of my best friends go flipping it Cowan you do not hang about I'm like well when I make my mind up about something I crack on with it sometimes that's not necessarily good might just want to reel myself in sometimes not that I'm disagreeing with you by the way and completely no no no well there's the thing as creatives we're all completely different anyway so so as you say your even your friends don't agree with that's necessarily the way forward however i would imagine that some of those are slightly kind of um stuck in the actually not ever kind of pushing themselves to do anything and then and in doing so kind of getting nowhere as well so there's there is a kind of somewhere in the middle that you can be yeah yes my my dear husband Tom is very patient let's just put it like that right what is the smallest thing that instantly improves your work day uh the smallest thing is sometimes uh pausing my judgment um and I think sometimes when you can when you sort of sit down in the morning and there's something you've been working on the day before it doesn't feel like it's going quite right or it doesn't feel like it's quite there and you and and sort of stopping that mindset stopping that mindset just thinking just hold on hold on and then trusting back the process and then just going with it and pushing forward with it I think I think I've learned over time now to find that you can create all these different outcomes by just cracking on and pushing on with the work and say some mornings when you don't necessarily feel like that or it doesn't feel like something has gone as well as it should have and i think working nearly solely non-digital means that you haven't got that command zed you've got like if paint goes wrong then paint goes wrong or if something doesn't drive something doesn't whatever um and so sometimes when you sort of get back to it that next day and it's like it still looks like it did as you left it the night before and it's not quite working it's about just okay just without like just you know it going in the bin just pause your judgment just carry on see where it takes you see where it takes you yeah love that yeah that's that's something that i struggle with the previous chat should hint at the kind of person i am but i am trying to be more like that just let it breathe come back to it later you don't have to do everything right now oh if your creative style had a theme tune what would it be it would absolutely be like an old radio that you just went through and went into different songs all the way along it would absolutely be that because I try and I try and work in I think one of the themes of my work that I keep coming back to that I've sort of been fairly fortunate to kind of become known for is contrast and that can mean kind of doing like really quick expressive like messy lettering to kind of doing really slow meticulous kind of detailed lettering and and I quite I love working within that doing the one makes me appreciate the other even more and if I've spent three weeks on a client job that's really really slow detailed stuff then I there's nothing more I love than just kind of just absolutely like going to town with like painting ink and and going completely completely the other way and I think as a result of that it would be exactly like scanning through an old radio where you get a bit of this a bit of that bit of this and something's fast something's slow and something's classic and something's modern and it would absolutely be that.

10:34Katy Cowan:The way my brain works I need to know is at a digital radio is an old one where you go through it and it goes that one that one exactly like that love it love it if there's any kind of gamers out there it reminds me of fallout do you what do you play games or you're not childish i did back in the day but i'm kind of like i'm um i'm like um shinobi in the arcade do you know right okay yeah yeah so no i'm not i kind it now I'm not a gamer no well Fallout fans that's one of the reasons why I love Fallout because you get that old radio that you can tune into whilst you're roaming the nuclear wastelands it's wonderful um if you could steal one skill from another creative discipline overnight what would it be I think there's a couple I think firstly I'm fascinated by projection mapping I'm fascinated by lights and projection mapping and i really again it's a it's this weird thing of i love the contrast of you doing something that's so technical and so digital with my work which is so kind of analog and riddled with imperfection and i'd love to find a way of combining the two and working out yeah if a projection mapping absolutely fascinates me and so whether that means i'll connect with somebody who's uh good at that or whether i'll teach myself it along the way i'm not sure but um i'd love a way of yeah trying these like crazy like super technical digital stuff with with like really analog um work and well the other thing was portraiture as well i'm fascinated with trying to learn to draw portraits so i'm at the moment um i've set myself a challenge at the moment i tend i try and draw a portrait a day um in the mornings um is this is this is this going to be videoed well there will be little clips that we'll play so so that's like that's my my like my my portrait book at the moment and i do i do one a day and they've all got lettering in there oh i love them i love the colors you're choosing yeah yeah so i just again it's because it's completely different to what I do.

12:48I'm like, well, I'll try and teach myself. And again, it's that thing I said before about trying to kind of put something else in the toolbox of like something else I can perhaps, you know. To get excited about. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

13:02Katy Cowan:Do you get the cute fuzzy nose feeling? I don't know what that is. Nobody knows what I mean. No, no. So I'm going to, it's like when your stomach, you get like butterflies because you're excited about something. I also get a little fuzzy nose. I've not had a fuzzy nose. Is there anybody out there who gets fuzzy? So I also get a fuzzy nose when I hear a plane going over. And it does that kind of drone. Are you excited by that? I feel grounded. I feel at home. It's like really reassuring knowing the world's going on around me still, which is why I hated the pandemic. One of the main reasons why I hated the pandemic so much was that the plane stopped, which is like ironic because obviously you know the environment and everything but I just I was just like hang on a minute and I grew up in this area um where I now live um so for me the distant sound of a plane droning over you know that drone and eventual decline to nothing is like you know you're sort of lying on some grass on a hazy sunny day and you're falling sort of asleep and the cat's meowing around you and you're happy and you feel warm and you feel safe.

14:12Katy Cowan:It's that kind of fuzzy nose feeling that nobody knows about.

14:18Okay, I think we can conclude. I'm completely bonkers.

14:22Katy Cowan:No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's, yeah, fascinating, but it's not something, I've not had the fuzzy nose. Listen, if I do, I will let you know, I promise. I bet you do get like the occasional, like there'll be a noise that you hear and it gives you that kind of nostalgic warmth, that safety. Like a train in the background, you know. Is that really just me? I'll have to give it some thought because I don't think, I suppose if you lived on, if I lived on a flight path or if I lived in a train, then maybe that would become something that was nostalgic. Yeah, maybe. It's a weird one. It is a weird one.

15:00Katy Cowan:It is a weird one. I love it. I'm going to keep asking. in i'm sure i've asked other people in other episodes i'm going to just keep do you get the fuzzy nose thing or is that just me okay no one day maybe one day i will maybe one day we can only hope well when you do please do message me because then i'll feel not so like a freak um oh who's your creative hero past or present and what have they taught you about uh what have they taught you without even knowing it there's a few there's a there's a few and i think what when i started going to uh when i was at our college uh back many many moons ago and we would get taken to art galleries and originally i was kind of like oh this is a bit like dull and then i found that i loved and again it's a contrast thing i absolutely love roy lichtenstein and i absolutely love jackson pollock and you've got this like this this this artist who's doing these really really clean graphic lines and then you've got this absolute chaos of the other one and i was completely completely fascinated by that and i would get like really close to like roy licks and something stuff so i could see the brush strokes in it and everything and the slight imperfections in the line and it fascinated me so they were my heroes um and then from their mid-90s uh david carson um scott plumb tomato kind of all those people who were really playing with what they would call like i suppose it would be called like grunge typography now there's one name for it but that kind of um david carson with like beach culture and reagan i was just i'm completely fascinated by that because i was a student and i think it it it was the first time i'd sort of seen type being used as image almost if that makes sense so it was kind of um it wasn't necessarily about the legibility it was about the kind of style and aesthetic so yeah during that period of of seeing like the tomato the stuff they were doing and david carter and scott club in like bikini magazines that were just incredible for me yeah it was a very creative time a lot of kind of rules being broken do you feel like we're maybe on the cusp of that happening again um i think so yeah i think i i absolutely think so and i think you know um david carter for instance you know he's still still going still doing work you know he's um he's a lovely guy we've met a few times um and and and still doing work and still pushing that kind of boundary and i think because a lot of that work tended to be quite analog and quite non-digital i think there is a wave of that coming back so so yeah absolutely i think i think it i think it very much is at the moment you know it's again it's stuff that's kind of riddled with like um meaning which digital work it finds it very very difficult to replicate in the same way what was it that um nikki said from us too is there's there's uh creativity and restraint yes yeah i think so and i and i think you know looking at it was it was one of those periods where anything goes do you know i mean and i think and i think people are yeah going back to that in the same way as kind of fashion is a cyclical thing and it comes back again and again and again with like clothing and everything I think it's the same with um with graphic design and art yeah and art yeah but speaking of which me and Tom went out for a walk after lockdown um I just remember it for that reason and uh we suddenly looked around at all the other kids who were in their sort of like late teens early 20s are you seeing what I'm seeing I said to him He said, yeah, they're all dressed like we did.

18:40Katy Cowan:I said, isn't this weird? Is that it now? Are we officially old because the kids are wearing the 90s stuff? I know. I know. It's crazy, isn't it? It's absolutely crazy. I mean, yeah. I mean, my son steals all my clothes now. Does he? Oh, well, that means you're cool. That's great. Yeah. Does he keep you in check? He wouldn't dare. Does he tell you off? Does he tell you off? He said, Dad, you can't say that anymore. you know the most innocent things like dad god you're so uncool no but he rolls his eyes so yeah i think it's that yeah this is i think this is where i've gone wrong in life i haven't got any kids on purpose and i've got no teenage daughter to roll her eyes at me and tell me where i'm going wrong thank god i do have a younger brother though and a sister-in-law who because i got really drunk once at christmas and i was playing loads of old classics, I declared to the room that I was the world's best hip hop dancer and they've never been able to let me forget it since.

19:43Katy Cowan:I don't know where that came from, Rob. I'm a terrible dancer. I mean, it's quite a claim. It's white wine. I've said this many, many times. I am an absolute hat. So it's completely without foundation. Oh, the ego comes out. I just think I'm the best thing ever i'm like oh yes but you were doing the beastie boys thing on instagram so i'm kind of thinking i'm almost wondering if it's like if it is in there somewhere and it's like hmm it's not at all but you say that no they send me memes all the time of other people online who claim that they are also good dancers and they are not and i'm like thank you for the reminder i love you all dearly they they they're a great family my parents are the same i went round wearing one of my new outfits the other day my dad looked me up and down and started laughing and said claire do remember mc hammer can't touch this dad they're balloon pants they're cool okay i go i resort to being 17 again dad do either of them do either of them will your brother get the itchy nose thing oh no my brother would say i was weird it's like i don't get that i don't know i'll ask him though I haven't actually asked him.

21:00Could you?

21:01Katy Cowan:Yeah, I will. I really want to know, does anyone else get a fuzzy nose when they think of something nostalgic? It could be like when you're on a beach and you hear children laughing and playing in the water and it makes you feel warm and it reminds you of, anyway, I'm just going to be digging this hole for the rest of my life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you get the nose thing when you dance? No, it's just when a plane goes. honestly I wish I'd never told I honestly I get myself into these uh little back myself into these quarters um I don't know it's a weird thing I'd love to speak to a psychologist about it I bet they have a you know it oh it I know so do you remember when you used to go and get your shoes measured your feet measured at Clark's Clark's yeah yeah yeah and you had to put it into that machine or sometimes they do it manually the strap thing that went over and they push the toe thing down to you yeah but you went you put it in a machine as well and like the little sides would come in slowly and then the either side the front and the back you can't remember that i'm analog so i'm kind of there was this sounds too digital for my you know well it was it was like a really cool thing and i used to love going to clarks to get my feet measured because that's when i would get the fuzzy nose thing as well.

22:21Katy Cowan:It was just so delightful. Somebody playing with your feet. Again, you're giving an awful lot to this podcast. Oh, you know, what's new? God, there's people out there. I feel very sorry for them if they've listened to all nearly 200. In fact, I wonder, is this our 200th episode? Is it? I don't know. Or have we surpassed that? No. Oh, my God, this is 217. Oh, really? Oh, wow. You're seeing a glimpse at how I've managed to survive running something like Creative Beam for 17 years, Rob, because I just don't overthink it. No, no, no, no. I feel sorry for the 17 other people that you've forgotten about.

23:10Katy Cowan:Sorry, Katie, Malika, Jimmy, James, Natty, David, Liz, Jesse, Adam as well, just on the cusp. We've had a great season. This has just been so fantastic. But before we go, we have one more question. And I think this is going to be the last time I do a chain reaction. So I'm not going to ask you for a question. I'm actually going to change things next season. Is that all right with you? That's absolutely fine. You're the end of the road, Rob.

23:44What a privilege.

23:45Katy Cowan:Oh, I love making people laugh. Right. Katie was our guest last week. Katie Ennis Hargreaves. She's phenomenal. She's absolutely lovely. She's the person that got me to do the talk that you helped me with. And I'm just going to tell the listeners quickly now, I did a talk in Huddersfield. Rob very kindly volunteered for no reason, came out of nowhere, just said, I'll listen to you talk and give you some feedback because you've obviously done a ton of talks. And you did. And you gave me some amazing feedback. and I ended up with a far more interesting, yeah, script, I suppose. So thank you. But anyway, Katie asks, what's the biggest life hack that you think is the biggest bullshit?

24:30Katy Cowan:Oh, the biggest life hack. Yeah, I was trying to think of this myself. I'm just like, oh, I don't know. The biggest life hack that is bullshit. Yeah. I mean, it'd be ironic that I'm the last person who's not going to be able to provide an answer because I can't think of it like the last person on this question thing. It's really tough, isn't it? It's really, really tough. I wish you'd have asked something more straightforward, favourite colour, wasn't it? Well, what is a life hack that you swear by then? Let's switch it up. A life hack that I swear by is, as I've said before, is keeping on. I think keeping on and keeping trying things and keeping kind of pushing those things and keep just continually experimenting and continually trying to again kicking balls our goal um yeah and and and hoping that those go in and and that could mean that goal could mean anything from commercial like a commercial opportunity or it could mean selling an original or it could mean just my mindset for that day or it could mean absolutely anything, but just kind of, just continually kind of signing into that.

25:39But a life hack that I think is absolute bullshit is, you know, I'm going to have like a brilliant answer by Monday, you know? I know.

25:49Katy Cowan:I know. Well, we could open up the next season. I can say, you know, if you listened to Rob last season, then you'll be probably curious to know if he came up with a bullshit life hack. Like, I mean, it's tough, isn't it? Like, because we're always, I think, I don't know if you share this in common, but I'm always trying to optimize my life. I'm always trying to make it easier. You know, I love, we've got a 3D printer and that's amazing for like finding different things to enhance your life, like little hooks for towels or, you know, little kind of things that you can arrange your cables on your desk better with.

26:24Katy Cowan:I love that kind of stuff. I'm making really good homemade granola at the moment. with a 3d printer no not with a 3d printer no but i do have an air fryer and since i had an air fryer then my homemade granola has gone up a level that you know no nobody could argue is far superior to the conventional oven granola wow that's quite a claim yeah and i and i avoided the air fryer craze for a very long time because i hate anything that's like you know when people oh you've got to get you've got to get an air fryer god you know you're old when you go to parties and people are talking about air fryers and pensions and where are you going on holiday next jesus that's why i don't tend to go to parties no i don't and i have no air fryer if i do go to parties it's usually um the baseline is making the building shake and people are sort of giving it that bit of drum and bass thank you there's that dancing thing coming back out.

27:23Katy Cowan:I'm a disgrace. I'm going to be that very old and crinkly fabulous woman on the dance floor hopefully at festivals that people all think is amazing because she's still going out partying. Ultimate drum and bass track. Sorry, just quickly. Ooh. God. Is it Fotec or is it Ed Rush and Optical? Or is it something a bit newer and cheesier? like high contrast or dj fresh i don't know like if i was gonna show off i would probably say something from the old school you know like really kind of technical drum and bass maybe i'd say ltj buckham's logical progression album was pretty special but but i like that if i'm gonna dance it has to be like

28:18Katy Cowan:so like it's a tune that I wouldn't be able to decipher

28:25Katy Cowan:that sounded a bit like that sounded like Cubic by 808 State do you remember that? yes that's so what you need to know about me is I'm great with faces I'm shit with names if you put me in a music quiz in a pub I will get the track within the first second, but I will not know for the life of me who actually made it and who it's by. Well, they're close. They're Manchester, aren't they? They're close to you as well. You'd know it anyway. I mean, it's not drum and bass, but it's kind of, it's that same tone. Yeah. Yeah. I think if I'm not showing off, I would say one of my favourite tracks to dance to is DJ Fresh, Gold Dust.

29:11Katy Cowan:Okay. Cheesy peasy. But, you know, I'm talking to Rob Draper and I'm trying to impress him, you know, because he's the cool kid from the graphic design, you know, elite world. So I'll probably say I'd rush an optical. I thought you were going to go super sharp shooter. Super sharp, sharp shooter. No, not really. That's kind of, it is good. Like, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. There'll be people out there going, what the hell? Did the nose go? A little bit. Cool. I'm going to say wormhole. Okay. Shame we can't play it. It is a shame we can't play it, yeah. It is a shame.

29:47That pisses me off.

29:49Katy Cowan:That annoys me about the whole thing. Like, creativity shouldn't be put in a fence. We should be able to express ourselves. Good luck with that. I know. I know. Oh, well. We can always sort of rely on the old kind of the voice box. Well, we did well there, didn't we, with you? Do you know what we did? We did great. and what a brilliant way to end another season. Thank you so much for listening, everyone. We will see you again, probably in late September. And thank you so much, Rob, for closing what has been such an amazing three months. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it.

30:30Katy Cowan:Thanks to Adobe Firefly for sponsoring this episode. If you're curious about the new agentic capabilities and what they could do for your creative workflow, So head to the link in the show notes to explore.