For over a year, creative collective Look & Yes has been working on a feature length documentary about the UK’s graphic arts scene, which features interviews with a range of talented illustrators, designers and print makers. The film is almost finished, but the team is now looking for support via Kickstarter to help it reach cinemas…

Made You Look is described as a film about creativity in the digital age – in particular, how the graphic arts industry has changed over the past 15 years and how creatives feel about it. It explores the rising popularity of traditional, analogue techniques and interviewees include Fred Deakin, Adrian Johnson, Andrew Rae, Anthony Burrill, Helen Musselwhite, Hattie Stewart and Print Club founders Kate and Fred Higginson.

Director Anthony Peters came up with the idea after being interviewed by Print Club about his contribution to a poster exhibition promoting Film 4’s Summer Screen (also the subject of our August 2013 Monograph).

As he explains on the Made You Look website: “I answered questions about my artwork, my process and opinions on the modern creative landscape. When I left [Print Club’s] Dalston studios it dawned on me that there was very little representation of the UK graphic arts scene committed to film, especially in long form documentary format.

“There was a definite story to be told, and one that would allow for pure visual indulgence in recording the processes of artists from many disciplines. But this film … is also a story that sympathises with the way many people feel in the modern age: overwhelmed and bombarded with information 24 hours a day.

“So many creative people are turning to mediums that take them away from their computers. Methods of making work that involve making real, tactile items to be cherished and kept, instead of being consumed and forgotten. However, very few creatives could have an audience or career without the trappings of the internet and social media, and this tension between the analogue and digital world is the story we are pursuing in Made You Look,” he writes.

Filming is now complete and Look & Yes has begun a rough edit but with no budget remaining, the team is asking for donations to help complete it. Peters and crew (producer David Waterson, editor and technical director Paul O’Connor and D.O.P. Stuart Smith) are hoping to raise £30,000, which will be used to pay for post production, colour grading, music, marketing and submission fees for film festivals and ensure the film remains independent.

Backers can pledge anything from £10 to £3000 or more before the campaign closes on November 3. Those who give £10 will receive a copy of the film, while donations of £50 or more will also earn you a poster (top and below) designed by Burrill and Stewart. Other gifts include t-shirts, screen printing workshops and original artwork by creatives featured in the film, and if the fundraising target is exceeded, Look & Yes say they may also produce a Made You Look book.

Find out more about the film at madeyoulookdoc.co.uk, or see the Kickstarter campaign here.