Since graduating from Middlesex’s Illustration BA in 2014, Luke Spicer has been working as a full time illustrator. He’s currently the in-house artist for the UK music festival ‘We Are FSTVL’; if you’re in London you’ve probably already seen his work on posters and billboards promoting the event. — 
“I’m currently working for UK dance music festival We Are FSTVL, as a full time in-house illustrator.
I was first approached by the festival back in 2012 just after I’d finished my first year at Uni, they’d liked the stuff I’d done for Lower East Records and asked me to design and illustrate some branding for their upcoming festival. I had no idea at the time that it would go on to be such a big successful festival.
I continued to freelance for them throughout Uni then when they moved to new a new office in Shoreditch in October last year they asked me to come on board full time, I agreed as long as I could have one day off a week to work on other projects.
My role there mainly involves creating illustrations for the website, social media, posters, flyers etc, as well as helping to design the stages and decor and drawing the site maps.”
“When I started out all of my illustrations were in ink and watercolour but I’m working almost entirely in digital now as much of my work is blown up so large that it needs to be very high res. Everything I draw for the festival has to be in the same style so that it’s recognisable as our branding, so when I work on other jobs I like to experiment with different styles to keep things fresh. A mechanical pencil, Pilot G-Tec C4 pen and a Wacom tablet tend to be my tools of choice. I found the transition from university to working professionally quite smooth, as I had started working on the occasional professional job from the first year onwards. I was fortunate to have friends and acquaintances in need of illustrations who gave me a chance early on, making good contacts is important in this industry, as is getting yourself out there as much as possible. As for upcoming jobs, I’m just at this very moment finishing up an album cover for Kate Simko and Tevo Howard, two respected house producers from Chicago whose work I love, so that’s been fantastic to work on.
I’m also doing the cover art for Lower East Records’ 5th year anniversary compilation, working on a T-shirt collaboration with my friend Pav aka Orifice Vulgatron from the group Foreign Beggars, creating a large mural for a friend’s wedding, and have a couple of private commissions on the go.”
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