There’s a question that’s quietly plagued every artist that’s been around for a while: Am I actually saying something, or am I just making things look better?
Anthony Burrill, the graphic artist behind the famous “Work Hard, Treat People Well” poster, has spent three decades grappling with this tension. The answer was recently found with a 3×3 meter plywood structure on the grounds of the Somerset Music Festival.
Speaking to members of our own private network, The Studio, Anthony takes us behind the scenes of the War Child pavilion at Glastonbury Festival 2025. He collaborated with furniture and product designer Michael Marriott to create the bold installation for Children of War, a charity dedicated to protecting children whose lives have been torn apart by armed conflict.
From any reasonable perspective, this is a logistical headache. With next to no budget, a kit of parts was assembled in a workshop in Bristol and then shipped to site where it was installed by a small team in two days. Anthony slept in a tent. He loved every second of it.
landmarks made of letters
The pavilion is located in Silver Hayes, Glastonbury’s exclusive area for electronic music and DJs. This is a bass-heavy corner of the festival, far removed from quiet contemplation. Above it rose four giant letters reading “HOPE”, clearly visible above the heads of the people passing by, and soon became a gathering point. Below them, a small building is wrapped in Anthony’s signature woodblock prints and bold diagonal stripes with the messages “Hold on to hope” and “No child should fight in war.” once’.
Inside, War Child volunteers invite festival-goers to write messages on postcards embedded with wildflower seeds. The cards are then composted into a meadow, turning thousands of scrawled wishes into something that actually grows.
What makes the program really popular, Anthony said, is the freedom. “When War Children collaborate with artists, they allow us to be fully creative,” he explains. “I didn’t have any brand guidelines to follow; the creative side was completely open. So I could really put my stamp on it.”
The lack of guidance can make some creatives nervous. For Anthony, that’s the point.
The long road to doing what you want to do
Anthony’s career to date is a useful case study in creative patience. He studied graphic design at Leeds Polytechnic and gained an MA at the Royal College of Art in the early 1990s; he fondly recalls an era before computers at all. “Everything was handmade back then,” he smiles. “Everything is analog and rough. You can use found objects, things we find on the street, and create pieces with them.”
After graduating, he worked in commercial jobs for several years before becoming frustrated with the compromises the job required. “I was at the mercy of the artistic director,” he recalls. “I would send something and then get feedback and have to change it. Slowly, my vision would become watered down.” The solution that gradually arrived was to step away from that world altogether. “I found it hard to compromise after a while and get feedback from people I didn’t value,” he said.
Moving to East Sussex he moved to Adams of Rye, a letterpress studio where he began producing the bold analogue poster prints that would come to define his practice. Working within the physical constraints of a small wooden letter type became a creative discipline in itself. “For me, it’s about working within constraints and being original and creative about what I’m working on,” he reflects.
This “constraint is liberation” philosophy also underpins the Glastonbury 2025 project. Limited budget? Build flat packages. Small footprint? Make the letters very large. No brand guidelines? Even better.
The right project beats the right expense
When a studio member asked him what it was like to create this work for Glastonbury and War Child, Anthony’s honesty was reassuring. “It’s kind of like a dream come true,” he said. “It’s been a real pleasure to be a part of this festival that I feel so connected to and actually watch it a week later with so many people around me, interact with it.”
He had been going to Glastonbury for years (“around the stone circle at 5am, talking about the meaning of life”), and the experience he gained fed directly into the design. The pavilion’s interior even subtly pays homage to legendary Manchester nightclub Haçienda, with its dangerous stripes and color references that would feel right at home in Silver Hayes’ dance music realm. “We knew it was going to be in the dance section of Glastonbury Festival,” explains Anthony. “So we thought it would be great for a lot of people, myself included, to be able to bring that historic reference back to where it all started.”
When asked about his favorite Glastonbury year, Anthony didn’t hesitate. “Last year, when I was with War Children,” he replied. “Because I feel like I was a part of it and contributed to it.”
Reasons to make work important
Anthony’s broader message is characteristically direct. “I think it’s important as creatives that we not only create work for commercial clients, but also create it for the common good,” he said. “I love visual communication, typography and graphics, but I think it’s so much more powerful when it actually says something.”
Of course, he was realistic about what could be achieved. “One poster isn’t going to change the world. But I think if it’s part of a consistent message across a lot of people, I think we have a chance to make the world a better place.”
It’s easy to be cynical about this statement, but Anthony has proof. His work is in the permanent collections of the V&A, the Design Museum and the Cooper-Hewitt Museum. He printed protest posters using oil collected from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and charcoal collected from Australian wildfires. He created works for the Extinction Rebellion movement in the streets. Now he has built buildings in Glastonbury that double as fundraising centers for children in conflict zones.
The lesson for creatives is not to work for free (although Anthony clearly believes the right project is worth more than an invoice). It’s not just the work you choose to do and the people you choose to do it with that determines the practical implications of your practice. Or as the man himself said in large wooden letters: Hold on to hope.
