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The Importance of Graphic Wit
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Al Murphy Al Murphy was recently voted the Best Illustrator In The World at the first annual Al Murphy Illustration Awards. His work has been exhibited in toilets the world over and his reputation for a rudimentary grasp of the mediocre has won him next to no fans. Originally from the UK, in 2006 he moved to Berlin because he wanted to be like David Bowie. In 2008 he moved to New York because he wanted to be like Joan Rivers. He is influenced by the work of the great masters Neil Young, Charles Schulz and Bender Bending Rodriguez and likes a nice cup of tea and a walnut whip at exactly 3pm every day.
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Al Murphy
Do you intentionally try to create humorous ideas? Very much so, yes. Sometimes to the detriment of the finished artwork. I’ve been drawing humour based illustrations since I was very young because humour based artwork was the first stuff to influence me. Gary Larson’s Far Side, Paul Sample’s ‘Ogri’ in Bike Magazine, Viz - all stuff my older brothers had lying around were what I would look at and try to emulate. I assumed I’d grow out of it but that’s yet to happen.
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Al Murphy
Bog
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Drugs not hugs
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Stay safe
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Urban Graphic
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Urban Graphic
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Al Murphy
I’m not a great illustrator but I do think I have a knack for understanding the humour a client is trying to convey and drawing it as they imagine it. Sometimes clients will have really good ideas but it just happens they can’t draw so I just
decorate their ideas. Sometimes they come up with awful ideas and I have to work a bit harder to get the best result. Either way, I enjoy the problem solving aspect of it and perhaps clients get that.
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Cat found
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What’s your most successful work?
Watership Downer, hands down. I think so many people of my generation were scarred by seeing that film when they were kids it seemed to resonate. The Importance of Graphic Wit
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BBH and Guardian
My client is usually an intermediary (most often an ad agency) who have to balance what I give them and what their client will allow. I’m forever being told ‘we love this, but the client will never go for it’ with me then having to strip it back. So I usually go in really hard, crass and tasteless and see how much I can get away with, knowing it’ll be very much diluted.
Al Murphy
Some graphic humour is strained. I don’t sense this in your work. What’s the secret to natural graphic wit? Thanks for the compliment! Believe me - I do strain, I strain often. But I self edit and censor quite harshly and I think I’ve developed a good sense for knowing when I’m pushing too hard. A bit like now with these crude toilet analogies. I used to put a knob gag, or an actual knob or an F-bomb all over the place and suddenly realised that that’s just naff. Graphic design humour doesn’t differ at all from day to day humour - if someone makes you laugh you tend to like them more, remember them more. As with any aspect of using humour, design humour is a process of getting away with something. If you say something with a cheeky smile you stand less chance of getting a slap.
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Perrier / Oglivy
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Blue Q chewing gum
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Your work for Blue Q gum is incredibly witty and original, but very absurd. How did this idea come to fruition? This is a rare example of the client actually pushing me, rather than me pushing them. I wish I could take all the credit, but it’s more of a collaboration. They commission me directly, with no-one else to interfere, and because those guys are mental there’s no-one saying ‘Hmm... I’m not sure about this one..’ It’s more a case of me saying ‘Guys? Really?’ And them saying, ‘Fuck, yeah! Let’s print it on socks and see what happens’.
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I’d like to think I can produce work that doesn’t ‘need’ to rely on humour, but whether it’s masking a lack or confidence or something, it seems I’m unable to produce work which doesn’t fall back on it. Call my therapist.
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Le Sasquatch
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La Unicorn
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Brothel
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Al Murphy
Your work can sometimes be very rude, at what point does it become too much? Frequently it does and I think once it goes too far, you’ve lost there’s nothing clever about it once it resorts to getting crass. It’s ironic that I say this with clarity but continue to make pieces that make me wince with regret - so clearly I don’t know the point at which it becomes too much.
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The Queen of England
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Paramount Comedy
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Man and beast
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Santa
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I hate New York
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Lightbulb moment
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It’s far more satisfying to attain a laugh from the subtlety of, say, a facial expression, than just painting a big, spurting cock.
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(Although... occasionally... that can still be really funny) 40
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Your work for MTV perfectly encapsulates an engaging and entertaining piece of design humour. How did the project come about? And how did you base the design scheme? Interestingly, you’ve again picked up on a job where there was no intermediary getting in the way and spoiling everyone’s fun, so that you picked up on this is proof that too many cooks spoil fun-broth. My good friend and design whizz Richard Turley commissioned these directly and left me to it. They were supposed to be bumpers for a two hour show, which was unfortunately cancelled after just a few episodes. On what did I base the design scheme? Some cans of weak lager and a late night
MTV
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Bloomberg Weekly
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Dear God
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Do you have a philosophical reason for using humour in your work? Yes: it pays the rent
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