by Olimpia Bellan

Collage alchemist and lettering virtuoso Rob Draper transforms everyday objects, letters, and found materials into bold, expressive artworks. Playful, spontaneous, and visually captivating, his art combines hand-lettering, collage, and illustration with unconventional materials, creating works that feel alive with energy and experimentation. From personal projects to high-profile commissions, Rob celebrates imperfection, storytelling, and the thrill of turning the ordinary into the extraordinary.

You often turn everyday objects into bold, expressive artworks. What draws you to this mix of storytelling and visual experimentation?

For me, it’s about the “something from nothing” mindset. I started drawing on coffee cups and scraps when I had nothing else- no studio, no fancy materials and the charm of that contrast has stuck with me. I love the dissonance of slow, meticulous gold-leaf contrasted with fast expressive lettering. I’m drawn to the friction. There’s a specific charm in pulling together images/packaging/trash and hitting it with an over-saturation of styles – Op Art patterns, detailed typography or fast immediate painted letterforms. Using analogue processes feels like a retro way of looking at the future and this fascinates me.

Collage, hand-lettering, and illustration all carry very different energies. How do you decide which medium best suits a particular idea or project?

I don’t really decide. I just buy into the experimentation and trusting the process. Embracing imperfection along the way, accepting that some of the curve balls this method throws up through the process might end up being the strongest most distinctive aspect at the end or at the very least, has unlocked something to take forward onto the next project.

3. Your projects frequently combine bold graphics with playful, unconventional materials. How does embracing imperfection and spontaneity shape your creative process?

It continually shapes my process and it’s a challenge to keep experimenting, exploring and adding/tweaking/amending that process. When you work with unconventional materials, with no ‘undo’ buttons you’re forced to react in the moment. It doesn’t always go right though, but there’s always a lesson or a new direction that emerges.

Hand-lettering is such a personal and tactile medium, what drew you to it, and what keeps you coming back to letters as a way to express your ideas?

As an arty child who wasn’t especially motivated by art in school, I caught the excitement of the first wave of graffiti art in the UK mid 80s and was fascinated by all you can do with letterforms. After art college and university in the 90s, obsessed with what became known as grunge typography, and a career path in commercial design from graphic designer to art director, creative director and everywhere in between, I have always loved how much emotion and meaning you can evoke through a simple letterform. Unexpected redundancy from my dream job and a lack of immediate opportunities moving forward found me returning to the sketch book back on the letterforms pushing and pulling them in new directions still fascinated by how much you can do with them, which in turn led to the role I have now.

From NASA/JPL commissions to personal exhibitions, your portfolio spans commercial and personal work. How do you maintain your creative voice while adapting to such diverse contexts?

I try to maintain my voice by leaning into analogue storytelling, regardless of the scale. Whether it’s client work or personal projects, the charm lies in the imperfection – human glitches that a computer would fix and whatever the scale, the process remains the same. I try to think of it as using old-school techniques and processes to solve modern problems. Hopefully the commercial work that comes my way wants that raw, tactile energy because it feels earned, honest, and unmistakably human.

Read Rob Draper interview on BMI:MAG limited edition, find your copy at @bluemarlinibiza and throughout Ibiza’s hotspots