Photo: Ollie White-Smith

With Boardmasters less than a month away, we talk to surfer and illustrator Clara Jonas about her collaborative design with the event and her creative journey.

Clara what drew you to surfing?
My family moved to North Cornwall when I was 11 years old, and to be by the coast, suddenly a new kind of lifestyle was possible which I had never envisioned. There was an after school surf club on a Wednesday that would pile us into a mini bus and take is to the nearest beach which was Polzeath. I decided to join on a total whim at 14, I’d barely even understood surfing as a sport before, and suddenly I was hooked on something that ended up shaping a lot of my life decisions following… It felt like freedom, it felt incredible being outside and in the water, and more than a ‘sport’.

“I think being a surfer definitely influenced my drive to be freelance and have ownership of my time”

How would you describe your artistic style and how long did it take for you to feel that you’ve mastered design or is it ever evolving?
When I was starting out, brush lettering and tattoo style illustration were my main inspirations, and I loved weaving folklore and mythology into my work. This is something that still massively inspires me today, and you will probably see a lot of my illustrative work and brand logos I create share the same themes, symbols, creatures and characters. It’s super hard for me to pin down my style, as being from a graphic design background, there is a sense of constantly adapting style to brief etc, but I’ve been told it’s easy to recognise my work, and the themes that run through it and the symbolism I use. I’d like to say it’s got an ancient, mythological, cosmic slant to it with a contemporary twist, as these are definitely what I’m trying to express. I feel quite confident now in executing my illustration work in a certain way and knowing how relaxed, rustic, crisp or hand rendered it needs to feel, but I want to make sure I don’t fall into it being prescriptive to create. I think that’s why I love mixing up mediums and contexts; creating very design led ‘icons’ and logos, and then more woodcut feeling illustrations, and finally getting back into exploring painting and working by hand a lot more. My style is evolving always for sure, and I want to make sure I don’t get lazy, and do constantly fine-tune my craft as well as exploring new techniques!

How does your experience as a surfer influence your design process?
I think being a surfer definitely influenced my drive to be freelance and have ownership of my time, as it does with many people. In terms of how it influences my process, I’d say being flexible and adaptive to how something is developing definitely feels like a transferrable skill haha! You have to let go of an outcome slightly in both surfing and designing / creating sometimes, and just let what happens happen, and being present for that process. Stylistically, when I first started out I used to design very surf influenced illustrations a lot, with a dash of cosmic and strange, which I really enjoyed and people responded well too, and I love these days finding more subtle ways to weave it through my work or find unexpected ways of expressing it and the experience.

Can you walk us through your typical creative process when developing for example new surfwear or a poster design?
It always starts with the research. The gathering of inspirations and exploration of curiosities. Going wide to go deep is always really helpful. I try and cast a wide net when I’m first exploring a project to make sure I can find some original and interesting inspirations and cues to lead from. When I find something intriguing or exciting that feels right and captures my attention, that’s when I go all in and explore it thoroughly. I start creating loads of rough sketches exploring composition and content, to find what feels the most original but still on brief and appealing to my style and feel. It can be pages and pages of almost indecipherable sketches and images before I land on something that feels good. I then put the sketch into the computer to start digitising it and cleaning it up and working out what the finish is going to feel like, how the text and illustration are going to interact, what colours I need to experiment with. The beauty of digital is that you can explore so many possibilities super quickly – it can be overwhelming. I often mock things up for myself to see how they will look in real life. When things are feeling just so I present some options to the client and cross my fingers. (Eight years later I still get nervous – especially it it’s a design I’m quite attached to…)

How did you get involved with the Boardmasters Surf Open design?
I’m not sure how but they found me! I’ve done quite a lot of work in the Cornwall and surf sphere with some great brands and people, so it was lovely to get on Boardmasters’ wavelength! It all happened fairly quickly after that initial email, and it was a joy to bring some work together for them.

How does it feel seeing your design on the biggest surf competition in the UK?
I’ve had many an August day down on Fistral watching the surfing (come howling stormy waves, or blazing sunny day and clean lines), so to be apart of that in a creative way has been such a lovely full circle moment. I’ve had surf event poster on the dream project list for a long while so for that to come together with Boardmasters has been so brilliant; being able to lean into some retro design cues and surfing heritage was so much fun when bringing it together.

Any words of advice for up and coming designers who would love to follow in your steps?
Let go of perfectionism. Or what you think is perfect. It isn’t as important as you think it is. When you are creative, self criticism and fear of critique from others is real, and it can be paralysing. When you feel like that, nothing happens, no movement, no momentum. You stop. Just keep creating work, even if it doesn’t feel just right, get it out there, share it, approach people even if you aren’t sure if you are quite ready. Keeping creative momentum and making connections even when you aren’t sure the work is ‘perfect’ or your ‘perfectly’ professional is so important. You never actually get to the spot where you feel 100% confident, (I’m still working on it!) and all you can do is keep creating movement. You learn in the doing, the creating and the journey!

Check out Clara’s collab collection with Boardmasters here

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