Yo-Hello is name of the website James Nelson uses as, in his own words ‘an entity for dumping output from my brain into the world.’ The output of James’ brain involves experiments with typography, shape, composition, screenprinting and colour. The forms and images he creates are complex, multi-layered pieces which often form the basis of the work at his ‘day job’ – part of the design team at Research Studios, headed up by Neville Brody.
James was kind enough to take some time out to answer our Ten Questions.
1. How do you describe what you do?
I’m a designer: a creative thinker. I try to apply that to anything I do.
2. What made you want to do what you do?
When I was a kid my parents encouraged me to draw on printer paper my Dad brought home from work (the pale green sort with tear-off holes down the side). I made my own newspaper, designed trainers, tanks, computer games and what I imagined to be the houses and neighbourhoods of the future. I suppose I had it in me from and early age.
3. How would you describe your workplace?
Somewhere I spend way too much time.
4. What is your favourite colour?
Slightly pale red. Especially when coupled with black.
5. Who is your favourite artist or writer?
Currently Adam Neate. His recent show at Elms Lesters was pretty amazing. Chris Ofili and Dali are a couple of my all-time favourites. My favourite writer is probably Philip K. Dick closely followed by George Orwell. The book covers for Dick’s works are almost always offensively inappropriate though – I wish someone would have the good sense to publish editions of his work without hopelessly stereotypical sci-fi artwork. He doesn’t deserve that.
6. What was your previous job?
I used to DJ, work as a barman and as a sales assistant at TopShop to make ends meet at uni. Although the record-buying part of DJing probably undid most of that work.
7. Do you work within a team? If so, how many people do you work with?
Currently I work with four other designers at Research Studios although that number has varied a fair bit over the last five years. I would say 80% of the time I work in a team of two, on bigger projects its been around five people, sometimes its just me.
8. Do you listen to music whilst working? If so, what do you listen to?
All the time: which I love but it also means I end up spending loads of money on music. I mostly listen to instrumental hip-hop and electronic stuff: Flying Lotus, Madlib, Dilla are some of my favourites; Baths, Matthewdavid and Gold Panda are relatively recent additions to that list; but occasionally some guitary stuff slips in, like White Denim.
9. Who inspires you to do what you’re doing?
With commercial work its the clients who inspire me and in some cases the audience they’re trying to reach. When they’re passionate about what they do its easy to get inspired about working for them. Conversely, when a client is disinterested or clueless its pretty much impossible to feel inspired. With recent personal work I’ve been inspired by people in general: why we act in such bizarre ways that seem to make no sense. Further to that, I would say frustration is also inspiring.
10. Which advice has helped you the most?
I’m not sure if this is really advice, but my tutor once told me something to the effect of my work being shit and to do something better. So I did.
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Big thanks to James for his time and involvement.You can check out his work here and follow him on Twitter here.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on James’ work so feel free to leave a comment or get in touch.
As always, thankyou for taking the time to read our little blog.
Mat
