Alumni Spotlight on BA (Hons) Graphic Design alumni (2022) Jem Solley, age 25, who has built an impressive freelance career creating work for West End and Broadway productions recently finishing up work for Jamie Lloyd’s Evita and completing projects for Shakespeare’s Tempest, and Much Ado About Nothing. We spoke to them to get an understanding of how they built their practice, how they use social media and their advice for students starting out.

You create a lot of film inspired work. Can you tell us a bit about why you are inspired by films and productions and how it started?

I’ve always been a big fan of films and the culture around them, but I started to delve deeper into that world when I started college where I was studying graphic design and photography, I really liked editorial promotional shoots that actors and actresses would do to promote their films and the interesting ways they would market the films appealed to my graphic design side too. But it wasn’t until I was in my final year at university where I started to design film posters in my spare time to unwind. 

In 2022 I participated in the 365 poster challenge on Instagram which kickstarted my online following and as part of that I started to create some film posters as part of this daily challenge for films like, Alien (1979), Stand By Me (1986) and 10 Things I Hate About You (1999). These posters are still some of my most recognised work to this day.

You recently worked for the production Evita, tell us about it!

Creating artwork for Jamie Lloyd’s production of Evita was so much fun, I have worked with the Jamie Lloyd Company for a couple years on several productions across the West End and more recently Broadway so when it was announced that Jamie was doing a rendition of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita starring the formidable Rachel Zegler I was very excited. 

In terms of artwork I created everything from the production logo, posters you saw on the tube and around London’s theatre district to limited edition merchandise, and even vinyl records and CDs. It’s incredible to work alongside such creative and innovative people on a huge production like Evita, and it really helps to be surrounded by these minds when pitching ideas and creating artwork. It’s incredible to see where that work ends up, my vinyl design was shown on ITV’s This Morning and on the Graham Norton Show where even Kim Kardashian saw it! 

You also made work for Much Ado and Tempest tell us about those projects:

Yes, again as part of my ongoing collaboration with the Jamie Lloyd Company I got to create the artwork for the Jamie Lloyd Company at Drury Lane season where we did Shakespeare’s The Tempest & Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing in the historical Theatre Royal Drury Lane. I had just finished working with Jamie on my first production which was Romeo & Juliet with Tom Holland at the Duke of York’s Theatre which sold out as soon as it was announced on Instagram. So there wasn’t any need for extensive marketing and promotion as all of the dates were sold out. But for The Tempest starring Sigourney Weaver the jump in scale was insane. This is where I had to create posters for the tube stations, on the sides of buses, and a lot of online marketing assets. Much Ado About Nothing starring Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell was at the same scale so there were a lot of assets to create. Overall this season really prepared me for working on other projects at this scale as it was something I had never done before, and I got to work with the amazing marketing team AKA who taught me a lot on powerful and effective advertising assets. 

You created record artwork for Sunset Blvd. Can you tell us about this project and how did it differ from your other pieces?

Sunset Blvd. was my very first vinyl record design and it was a huge 3 discs with a triple folding gatefold and three variations/editions, so it was a daunting to tackle at first, even more so because I hadn’t seen the production starring Nicole Scherzinger as Norma Desmond so I was trying to convey the story and Jamie Lloyd’s style of production using only production images. I’ve spoken to people who have seen the show and they are always surprised when I tell them I designed the album without seeing the show and still managing to capture the essence of the production really well. 

The style of design was not too different to other work I had done in the past, it was more getting used to the templates and how to prepare complex files for print. But again I was very fortunate to work with a great team at The Other Songs Records and we have worked on several projects together since then including a limited edition vinyl record design of Sunset Blvd. focusing on Nicole Scherzinger’s character of Norma Desmond. And more recently the Evita highlights album and a second full cast recording of Evita which will be released later this year. 

Can you give us insight into your day to day?

As I am a freelance graphic designer I get to work on a variety of projects with a variety of different people and fellow artists. I’ve also been lucky enough to work on projects for Netflix creating posters for the documentary Undisputed, BBC Film on a short film Karavidhe, anniversary artwork for the musician HALSEY, tour posters for Abby Roberts, vinyl record and CD artwork for the official Live Aid Musical where I asked my fellow graphic design Alumni Mia Angioy to create some amazing collages to be featured in the vinyl packaging. A wide selection of posters for the film company MUBI as well as artwork for lots of indie films and small musicians which I love doing. Aside from client work I have also done collaboration film posters with fellow artists, my favourite being a poster with Christos.jpeg for Scarface (1983).

Everyday is different and it just depends on what projects I have on at that time when I’m not working on client projects I spend a lot of time sketching designs, researching and reading books on design and reading articles from websites like It’s Nice That to keep furthering my own skills. And of course watching lots of films and creating posters for them. I also take regular trips to London to go to premiers for productions I work on and to find inspiration from the everyday. It’s very easy to be stuck in the digital world when sitting at a computer working digitally so I try to do something analogue everyday to lower my screen time and to also stay inspired as I find social media sucks the creativity right out of me. 

How did you get started after university?

At university I did a lot of editorial work such as zines and publications but I was always incorporating posters into my work where I could, my third year FMP was a 500 page risographed publication which featured 365 posters for the year of 2021, and like I mentioned before I then went onto create 365 posters for the 365 poster challenge. After university I took on a junior graphic designer position at a clothing company creating email marketing assets, clothing designs and social media assets. It wasn’t very creatively fulfilling so that’s when I started to create film posters more frequently in my spare time and post them online and continued to grow my online community through graphic design and film. From doing that I got into contact with Jamie Lloyd where I get to work on really incredible productions with really incredible people. 

You have used social media really successfully to market yourself. Can you tell us a little about this? How you started out and the work that goes into maintaining and building a community online?

In the beginning I wasn’t intentionally trying to grow my online following, it just grew exponentially when I was taking part in the 365 poster challenge, from there it gave me a platform to start interacting with other designers and posting work which had trending topics and learning how to navigate the ever-changing social media algorithms. I like to create posters for films I like whether they’re well known or not, however by creating posters for popular new releases which are already being discussed online this does help to reach new audiences so I try to use this to my advantage where I can. For example I have recently created a poster for A24’s The Drama which has had some heated discussions online so I posted my poster design while it was trending to reach those interested in the film.

Social media algorithms are forever changing and I would lose sleep trying to keep up with them, constantly changing the way I display my work, creating process videos/reels, what hashtags to use, what the best time of day to post. It took the fun out of creating so now I try to post once or twice a week, using Instagram for more of a portfolio of work but interacting with fellow designers whenever I can as this I find is more valuable than having 1000’s of followers.

A lot of our students are looking to promote themselves on social media. What would be your advice to them, do you have any tips?

I would try not to get too hung up on the numbers, as having a smaller number of active followers is more valuable than a larger number of inactive followers. Lots of influencers tell you need to post multiple times a day across all the different platforms to grow but for artists that isn’t really viable. Focusing on the art is more important and the right people will find you in time as I had a graphic design specific account for maybe 3-4 years with barely 100 followers before I started to get noticed so it definitely didn’t just happen overnight so don’t be disheartened. 

Do you feel like your degree has helped you in your career?

Definitely, it gave me room to grow as a designer and try out lots of different paths until I found the niche I wanted to go into. I always knew I wanted to do editorial and poster design but I honed my skills in typography and layout design whilst there which I use every single day in every project that I do. Although what my work looked like in university compare to now looks different, the elements are all the same. 

Keep up to date with Jem’s work on Instagram: @_jempg and Tik Tok: @_jempg. You can check out their website: www.jempg.co.uk

If you are interested in studying graphics at degree level make sure you check out our BA (Hons) Graphic Design course today!