Q&A with Luke Tonge

Hi! I'm Luke Tonge, a Northern lad gone Midlands man. I'm a graphic designer and I split my time between a full-time gig at LIFE Agency in Birmingham and other bits including FormFiftyFive, TEAiM.tumblr, Gallery Church, CRTD.net, Freelance projects & until very recently Boat Magazine (which I art-directed for 6 issues / 3 years) I'm hoping to fill that magazine-shaped hole in my heart with some more exciting editorial work soon...

© Luke Tonge

Software / hardware

Hardware = My brain, a nice pen & layout pad, a MacBook pro and Wacom tablet.
Software = I'm a CS sorta guy – Photoshop, Illustrator and Indesign mainly.

Ideal work environment

Somewhere with good light, and good people to work alongside, and preferably with some good music on.

Work inspiration

One of my favourite quotes of late is:

Don't wait for inspiration; create a framework for it

– I take it to mean that if inspiration isn't easily forthcoming, it can always be found when you know how and where to look. It generally comes from a combination of places and people, books and magazines, and occasionally the internet.

Artists admire you most

The list is long and full of talent. The short list has names like Matt Willey, Bobby Evans, Amanda Jane Jones, Richard Turley and Keenan Cummings on it. All time design heroes are Lubalin & Dorfsman.