Steve Doogan is a Scottish-born illustrator, drawer and printmaker hailing from Glasgow, who has been based in Dublin for the last 14 years and has previously worked as an art director in the advertising industry. He’s hosting the PRINT AbsolutDIY Workshop in Drury Buildings next Monday 2nd March, where he will give a presentation of his illustration followed by a demonstration of his style of portraiture using the mono-print format. He’s also going to be a main-stage speaker at OFFSET 2015 the following weekend as the festival kicks of that Friday at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre. We spoke to Steve about his finding out what it is you actually want to do, and not being afraid to try things outside your style.

Give me a bit of your background and how you started doing what you’re doing.

I came to Dublin at the age of 32, and I had just finished college at the Glasgow School of Art, I was a mature student. When I was a 17 year old kid at college, I was completely wasting the opportunity. I was really glad because they threw me out at the end of that first year, which was brilliant. And I got ten years to do all sorts of other things. I got involved in Buddhism, got into theatre, acting, teaching, and stuff like that. Then finally I thought, I’ve got to go back to art school. I went back to art school and just completely exploded, it was amazing. It was so good being a mature student, because you know why you’re there, you know what you want to do. But when I was at college people directed me into design, I got detoured from illustration. I became this art director, which is a horrible job. I was a shit art director, I was really terrible, no talent for it at all. But I discovered when I was there that I could be a story board guy. And even better than that, they paid you money to do story boards. So I just slunk out of art direction and started working for myself, and it was ‘Hallelujah!’ from that point on.

I was looking at your portfolio and your website before I came over here, and it struck me that you’ve got quite a diverse style.

I’ve always been completely promiscuous as far as style is concerned, because I just enjoy it. To me it’s about the ability to draw or the ability to create images. I just think I’m too curious not to try a bit of sewing, or a bit of sculpting, or a bit of etching. I love materials, I love media, and I tend to get bored very quickly, so I just go, ‘Oh, I want to try that.’ And then that phase is over and I’ll want to go into this. The only thing that redeems you is if you do well on each burst. If you do a lousy job it’s like jack of all trades, master of none. And that’s the nightmare, that that could be true, so you’ve really got to try and make what you do good.

I don’t think there’s any such thing as originality, all you do is you borrow someone else’s voice and then you assimilate to it and you make it your own. And you make it different enough from the original source. Even Picasso said, ‘All art is theft’. It doesn’t mean that you’re going around being a thieving bastard, people are helpless to absorb influences. That’s how things are made. And a lot of people get hung up on originality when they should just be working. The secret to art is not trying to be original, it’s doing a tonne of work, honing your craft, and just making stuff. Then your natural voice may come out of that. But people get too worried about ‘Don’t steal my style.’

Doogan added the ‘(Not actual size)’ addition to the banner ad on Pearse Street.

In terms of OFFSET, what significance do you think they have in the industry?

OFFSET is massively important for Ireland, for the Irish design/illustration scene. It’s bringing the spotlight onto Ireland. And it’s allowing people in Ireland to experience, for the first time, the individuals who create this stuff. It thereby brings it closer to home. The famous thing about OFFSET, people leave it inspired and they do stuff. It’s not just, ‘Oh I was so inspired then I did nothing.’ In that case you weren’t really inspired. Inspired means you do something about it. That’s the great thing, OFFSET really inspires people in that sense; they do stuff.

You’ve been here for 15 years, and OFFSET has been going since 2009. Have you noticed, having worked here a good bit before that, any change in the Irish illustration scene?

People were doing their thing, but it wasn’t very outward looking and it wasn’t very international, in the look of the work being created. But it’s now actually breaking down. And that’s because of the internet. The scene is getting bigger and bigger, and people are getting more and more confident, and more importantly, better work is getting made. I always tend to feel that the best stimulus to good illustration is seeing good illustration being made around you, because that just spurs you on. People are really good at what they do, it just takes a couple of geniuses to start things up. All you need is a few individuals to make people up their game, and raise the bar. Some of my favourite OFFSET talks are ones where people aren’t just talking about images they’ve made, but little things they did on the side, like experiments.

Little Green Cars’ Absolute Zero artwork.

Tell me a little bit about the workshop, what you’re doing with it and what people can expect.

Well I was asked to host this workshop, it’s going to be about mono-print. The technique is whereby you have a sheet of glass and you roll out a thin line of ink, and you put the paper on top. So it then receives the ink on the back. It’s just more interesting because you get texture and smudges. The good thing there is that not only do you get free texture, but you get the reverse image of what you drew, so it’s always going to be a surprise. And they’ll be drinking. So it’s going to be doubly confusing. And then it’s going to have the portrait element. I don’t know if it’s going to happen, but I’ve asked that they provide a few props so that the model isn’t just a straight forward head, it’s someone wearing a silly hat or something. It just kind of breaks down the stiffness that some people can experience. And I’ll be showing a few of my own portraits and a little presentation talking about my own connection with portraiture. I used to do portraits in the streets, it was the tackiest job ever. But it’s great because it just gives you a license to stare at people. And everyone kind of wants to stare at people, but social mores dictate you shouldn’t really be doing that. But it’s such a joy. You get to study a face and just look as long as you like. Were all a bit voyeuristic I think.

It must be refreshing for you to be put in positions like this. It’s an educational environment, but it’s by no means didactic. You’re encouraging creativity from the individual themselves.

More than anything I want people to enjoy the experience, because only by enjoying it will they do it themselves.

Don’t forget you can win tickets to each of the #Absolut DIY workshops curated by OFFSET in collaboration with Absolut Ireland right here. They’re all sold out so this is your chance!

You can also win one of two pairs of tickets to OFFSET festival itself over here.

Words: Danny Wilson

You’re head of the London branch of Pentagram, which has five offices worldwide. Are there any instances where a project might be shared between two offices, e.g. both London and New York working together for an international client? and how often would the different offices get together to share work and ideas?

Yes we do collabroate over the pond when needs be – currently there are at least two major projects involving US/UK partners.  Transatlantic collaboration happens when the scale of the project requires a multicultural dimension but, more often than not, because the skills or experience needed falls over two offices.

You had your own studio in London for ten years before joining Pentagram. Are there any aspects of working in a smaller environment that you miss?

Low rent for one thing.  And I was much more disciplined about tidiness than I am now. We work in such a large space here in Notting Hill – formally a Victorian depot for a large department store  – it really is a luxury due, principally, to the fact we’ve been here since it was a poor neighbourhood in the seventies. Monocle magazine once referred to here as one of the worlds’ most ‘charming’ offices. When I first arrived 17 years ago I felt positively agoraphobic.

That was in the ’90s, and we see a lot of ’90s influences coming back into fashion now. Do you think that this is also happening with graphic design and illustration?

Well I was just getting used to the ’80s revival. But I must say, I’m happy with the idea of a ’90s revival only because it suits my, basically, minimalist approach – although I do believe that in it’s current form it’s more human, less doctrinaire and allowing for some muted decoration which was strictly out when it was all John Pawson white interiors back in the day.

As well as designing books, and working as creative director of Laurence King, you have edited a number of books on design and illustration, the most recent being the Purple Book, published in 2013. Have you got any books in the pipeline?

Yes, I have – one of which I’ll be showing at Offset titled The Book of the Dog. It’s part of the talk I’ve loosely themed around ‘Le Style Anglais’.  I started to notice a distinctive Englishness in my recent design work – partly due to the type of projects I’ve been commissioned to work on and partly because in this world of increasingly homogenised global culture where ideas quickly cross boarders it’s nice to channel something more locally specific; even if its only in nuance.

You’re married to the illustrator Marion Deuchars – do you ever collaborate?

Marion’s books are all currently published by Laurence King so it’s natural that we collaborate on those – not that she needs much, if any, art direction; more or less I just act as a sounding board in the development process. I usually run by her my own stuff for second opinion – especially when I’ve hit a impasse or lost perspective on a project – she has an objective eye, and is good and honest critic; too honest sometimes.

And finally, what designers inspire you? Perhaps an example of one that had a particular influence at the beginning of your career, and also a contemporary?

All the old guys – they stole all our ideas before we even had them.

Don’t forget you can win tickets to each of the #Absolut DIY workshops curated by OFFSET in collaboration with Absolut Ireland right here. They’re all sold out so this is your chance!

You can also win one of two pairs of tickets to OFFSET festival itself over here.

Words: Lauren Kavanagh