Vortex caught up with recent BA DGD graduate and E4 Sting winner Phill Swaine for a chat:

Phill, when did you first realise that you wanted to be a designer?

From as early as I can remember I was always into art and design and constantly received good marks/feedback at school but i fell into a Physical Geography & Earth Sciences degree at UniversitY. I realised how much I actually enjoyed the photography and illustrating side of it a lot more than studying the movement of tectonic plates...hahaha!

Did you always want to specialise in motion graphics?

Motion graphics is something I only touched upon slightly within the E4 project, purely for the reason that the low budget, hand-animated film needed a bit of a modern spin on it to capture the audiences attention with the purple E4 splat at the end.  It isn't an area I want to 'specialise' in but it was a good experience that I had fun with and I'm still at that stage were I want to play with as many different mediums as possible.

How was your St Helens College experience?

Starting the Art Foundation degree as an access to degree level was the turning point for me. That year introduced lots of new skills and techniques that prepared me for the BA Digital Graphic Design degree.  The degree level at St Helens has been amazing, and I've worked hard over the past 4 years to build up a good portfolio and met a lot of talented people. 

Where did the idea / inspiration for you E4 sting come from?

I wanted to take a different approach when entering the competition and whilst brainstorming, a group of us were discussing 80's comedy horror movies such as Gremlins.  Instead of creating a computer animated monster, I thought it would be funny to make the puppet myself out of various materials (with great difficulty) and to animate him the old fashioned way using bare hands and fishing wire.

Where do you draw your inspiration from? Do you have any tips for idea generation?

Get out and about! personally, I live for travel and enjoy to get away and do a bit of backpacking.  Although reading books and art/culture magazines is a good idea, It's great to keep up to date with any local events such as lectures/talks, exhibitions, competitions as its not only a good way to get your work seen but it's a great place to meet new people, and these could be the people you end up working with.

What does the future hold for EGOR? Will we see more of him?

Definitely and maybe the rest of the family…

What are you working on right now?

Currently I'm having some fun producing 3 new idents for E4, all to be aired in December.  I've also just finished a placement at top design studio Dinosaur, based in Manchester, which has been great experience!