Debris from More Soon on Vimeo.
We posted More Soon, the personal site of Hi-Res art director Carl Burgess, as a Quickie back in February. But when I saw his stuff again over at Delicious Ghost, I thought it might be fun to follow up with a short interview.
Who are you?
My name is Carl Burgess I currently work as Art Director at Hi-Res.
I grew up in the Peak District in the North of England. I moved to London in 2000 where I studied for my Masters degree at Central Saint Martins. Shortly after I got an internship at Hi-Res and I have been there ever since.
I started More Soon about three years ago, it started as more of a place to show my experiments and developments. The focus has changed over the last couple of years to creating more finished pieces.
How long have you been with Hi-Res?
I have been at Hi-Res for about three and a half years now.. where did all that time go?
Is there overlap between More Soon and your Hi-Res work?
The work at Hi-Res and my work on More Soon are essentially quite separate but the two inevitably overlap; things I am working on at home end up creeping into a variety of projects for clients and vice versa.
How would you describe the body of work at More Soon?
A collection of individual projects and ideas that all share the same creative vision, this being to create something with feeling and emotion in whatever form it takes.
I think because design is such a service industry, there is always an element of compromise to any commercial project. This is something that I wanted to escape from when creating my personal work; the chance to be able to make something from start to finish with no restraints. It includes not being tied down to a particular style and not being worried about ‘keeping up’. This gives you the freedom in process to go anywhere you like.
As well as all of that, I’m simply interested in things that I don’t know about.
Are projects like “Debris” and “Disappointed” commissioned pieces? Or are they self-initiated projects? Put another way: Why did you create them?
My projects are a mixed bag of commissioned pieces and self initiated work.
Why create them—I think it’s important that I continue to do my independent work. It’s an outlet; an opportunity to create something not there before or to do something completely free of limitation; to be able to turn something on its head and see what happens.
Quite a lot of my work comes together as a series of experiments. There is no grand plan so to speak. I am constantly working, figuring things out, filming, taking photos etc. but not necessarily for a definite goal. I surround myself in all of this half finished matter that I have created and things just naturally pull together. It is quite an organic process, experiments feed other experiments and I just intuitively follow my instincts until I get to the point where it all falls into place.
I’ve noticed that you pay great attention to the audio aspect of your work. Any reason for that? Are you a musician or a sound designer as well, perhaps?
Audio is a really important part of the finished piece it’s like the icing on the cake but I find the process of making music quite challenging so it is always something that I avoid until the rest of the project is done.
I really enjoyed the process of working on Advanced Beauty, I spent a few months making the animation, I handed it over to Simon ‘Freeform’ and it came back with really amazing sound design, perfectly finished. Maybe I need to make a friend who happens to be a good sound designer.
You also seem to traverse the fields of motion graphics, interactive design, graphic design and sculpture with ease. (That’s true of Hi-Res, too.) I find that inspiring. It’s as though the lines between those fields don’t exist. (And I suppose in actuality, they don’t.)
I don’t consciously think about whether something is Art, Design, Sculpture etc. When I am working, I just make what feels right to me, it really doesn’t matter what form it takes.