Anthony Burrill - Make It Now!: Creative Inspiration and the Art of Getting Things Done

My grandfather, Harry Wardle, influenced me hugely in the way I live my life. He was a natural storyteller and fired my imagination and thirst for knowledge. He taught me to be continually positive, always inquisitive and eager to seek out new experiences. These are the qualities that I believe are the key to creativity.

As a boy, I was my grandfathers travelling companion and partner in crime. We went to Italy, North Africa, Greece, Turkey, Russia, Hong Kong and China. Every day on these trips was spent visiting historic sites, museums, art galleries and eating exotic food. In the evenings my grandfather would read and I would fill scrapbooks with leaflets, tickets and bits of ephemera Id picked up during the day. That early introduction to collecting ephemera, making sketchbooks and sharing my ideas and experiences with others sparked a creative urge that has never left me.

As a teenager I was obsessed with everything to do with music; the sleeves, logos and promo videos all fascinated me. I grew up in the 1980s, a decade when the visual image in pop had become as important as the music. My favourite bands of the time The Human League, Kraftwerk, Japan, Adam and the Ants each had an incredibly distinct image. I would spend hours in my bedroom studying the record sleeves and listening to the music.

My absolute favourite of these was The Human League. They were different from everything else going on in music; weird, quirky, artistic and they wrote catchy pop songs. The first record I bought by them was Being Boiled, a truly weird-sounding song concerned with silk-production methods not an obvious subject for a three-minute pop song! It was the peculiar oddness of their image and music that drew me to the band. The haircuts, clothes, analogue synthesisers and drum machines made them seem impossibly cool. I listened intently to the music and studied the extraordinary sleeve design.

This was my first memorable experience of design and music coming together to make something that really excited me and fired my imagination. It showed me what design is and what its capable of being. Design was a doorway to something new for me; I realised that design is everywhere as a tool of communication. For me, design is art with purpose.

I had a summer job at a printers owned by a friend of my father. It was a small place, producing all kinds of print for local businesses. They also printed letterpress beer mats, and that was what really fascinated me. It was the first time Id seen the letterpress process and at the time I thought it was only ever used for making beer mats.

The beer mats were printed in three colours using separate plates. The material being used for the mats was a soft absorbent card, so the print impression had to be quite heavy, giving a slight indent to the finished design. I thought this was great and was intrigued by the process. I can trace my love of letterpress back to those beer mats.

It was while I was working in the printers that I first saw a graphic designer at work, preparing artwork for the beer mats. Watching the artwork being prepared and then going to press to be printed gave me my first insight into the design and print process; I was intrigued by the methods involved in taking the design from the drawing board, making the plates and then printing the design. By watching these stages I could see how it had been done, step by step. It was something I wanted to learn how to do.

I spent three years studying Graphic Design at Leeds Poly. Going to art school is a calling for a particular type of person, for someone who is looking for something different. That was my reason for going to art school, I wanted to explore and find out things. I wasnt a scientist or a mathematician, I knew where my strengths lay and I hoped that art school would be a nurturing environment for me.

My contemporaries at art school werent too concerned with becoming commercial designers they were the oddballs of their generation. To me, it felt like a hugely experimental environment where people were finding out about themselves as much as anything else. It was a non-judgemental place that encouraged personal growth and self-discovery. It was a place that encouraged creative play; we were given room to experiment and develop our creative strategies. Without these years of creative development I wouldnt have had the chance to define my approach to design.

Its hard to quantify creative development; its an organic process and sometimes difficult to explain. Its about developing sensitivity and understanding. Learning a new vocabulary of describing the world and how you see it.

After Leeds I found myself at the Royal College of Art, in London. It was a huge cultural shift for me; it was the first time Id lived away from home and I found myself mixing with people from very different backgrounds. The course was more structured and traditional than what I was used to. I kicked against the teaching, rebelling in my own way.

After two years I graduated with an MA and some really good friends. My view of design had been broadened enormously but I still didnt know how I fitted into the real world. I dont think any of us did, so we started making our own way and pursuing our own agendas.