BEHIND THE LINES With Uralla Cartoonist, Guy Downes

Exploring the art of cartooning with renowned Visual Communications Consultant Guy Downes. 

When did you start drawing?

I started drawing at a young age, when I was about three or four years old, and most likely at our kitchen table. Drawing has always brought me joy and I’ve never lost interest in the practice. It’s the one activity I do where I can lose myself in what I’m doing; time feels like it’s standing still, and the act of drawing makes me feel calm and clear. Now that I’m an adult, I know this is called being in a ‘state of flow’, but when I was a kid and a teenager, drawing was just something that made me feel happy. Even though most days in my studio, I get swept away by the many aspects of running a creative business, when I do get to my drawing board I always think, ‘This feels so good – why didn’t I sit down and start drawing earlier today?’ Even after decades of drawing, this feeling has never faded.

How did you begin using cartoons to help businesses thrive? 

Cartooning was an evolution from drawing thousands of hours of business conversations in ideation, strategy, planning and cultural change workshops for all types of businesses across Australia. When I started working as a graphic recorder (also known as a visual note taker or live scriber), people immediately loved the cartoons, visual metaphors, and insights I captured within my hand drawn posters at these gatherings. My drawings helped people to quicken their understanding, spark conversations and generate fresh thinking (or they simply made them smile) about the stuff that they were talking about. Overtime, this feedback gave me the courage to start drawing out my own business ideas in simple, but engaging black and white cartoons. In 2016, I officially launched officeguycartoons.com as a side hustle and it has gone from strength to strength.

What’s been your most memorable moment so far?

There have been so many, but I hope it’s okay to stretch it to two key moments which are linked,  with about five years in time between them. I think the first was giving myself permission and space to start my creative idea. This is a vital and memorable personal moment when you think to yourself, ‘I’m going to do this!’ and then you can’t un-think it or un-start it. So, you get moving and (wonderfully) action brings further clarity. As with any personal creative endeavour, there are moments of doubt and uncertainty in yourself, your ideas, and your work. And in those searching moments, sometimes something happens which is so unexpected but so amazing that it fills you with belief, enthusiasm and rocket fuel to keep doing what you are doing. For me, this was when Adam Grant picked up on my work and used one of my cartoons in his bestselling book, titled: Think Again. Adam is an organisational psychologist at Wharton and a #1 New York Times bestselling author. These two memorable moments are linked: if I hadn’t started with my first cartoon in 2016, I would never have drawn the cartoon years later that caught Adam’s attention.

What do you have planned for the future?

To keep drawing cartoons. Consistently. The business writer, Stephen R. Covey, said: “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing”. Despite the many distractions and priorities (most very valid, magical and necessary) that work and life can throw at us, I know it can be easy to lose sight of doing the actual creative work. I know that drawing cartoons makes me happy and brings value to others, so I need to whack on some trusty ‘bum glue’ and stay seated at my drawing board! Plus, I’m certain that creating my cartoons will open more exciting conversations and opportunities in future.

If you could give someone one piece of advice about turning their dreams into a reality, what would it be?

I’ve learned through my own successes and failures that there is a big difference between being an artist and running an art business. There’s so much that you don’t know that you don’t know. One area that really helped me make it a reality was partnering with a great business accountant who guided me through the key financial aspects of running a business. If it’s okay to give a local business a plug, I’d like to thank and recommend Matt McCulloch and his team at Roberts & Morrow (Tamworth). I like to think of them as my financial compass – they’re always helping me to stay on course so I can keep doing what I love.

To see some of Guys work, watch the video below:

To learn more about Guy, click here.