James Jarvis

Profile: James Jarvis
James Jarvis started his toy empire nearly a decade ago with his Martin character, spawning a universe which collectors fell in love with. On the verge of releasing his latest comic-book project – Vortigern’s Machine – he tells us his toy story…
The toy collecting world has been captivated by James Jarvis ever since the 1998 release of Martin – the first potato-headed ambassador to spring fully formed from his cartoon universe. Since then the cast of characters has expanded steadily, adding the likes of Lars, The Bearded Prophet and now the mysterious Mr Vortigern, all the while gaining a huge following.



Despite the obvious charm of his PVC pals, Jarvis is reluctant to wear the badge of character designer. Instead, citing a firm commitment to the principles of modernism, he roots the appeal of his creations in the consistency of the world they come from. “I’m a cartoonist,” he says, “I like drawing little worlds, and the toys are just one manifestation of that.”
After studying illustration, first at Brighton University and then at the Royal College of Arts, Jarvis started to look for illustration work. “The first thing I got was drawing adverts for Slam City Skates,” he recalls. The London skateboard shop was just starting a clothing label called Holmes and, beginning a long-running relationship with fashion, James ended up creating graphics for them.
Commissioned work
The next work that came along kept up the fashion theme: “Through Holmes I started being commissioned by The Face,” he says. While this may sound like a great break, Jarvis had some reservations. “I found it weird doing commissioned illustration,” he says. It wasn’t so much artistic differences as a clash of world views: “I often had to draw my characters in situations I felt they wouldn’t naturally be in.” It does sound a bit compromising.
“I always felt the characters I drew in illustrations had an identity outside the commissioned work,” says Jarvis. “So,” quite naturally, “I started to think about what their cartoon reality should consist of.” Eventually, these musings developed into the World of Pain comic book, but something momentous happened first.
The birth of plastic
In 1997, Jarvis began his collaboration with the fashion label Silas. At the same time, a Japanese friend suggested that he should turn his characters into toys, allowing them to step out of their coalescing cartoon universe into the real world. Silas and Jarvis pooled their resources and Martin was born – part potato, part Silas, all Jarvis.
“I was very excited,” says Jarvis. “It was a new thing.” Every inch the proud parent, Jarvis had no idea he was on the brink of something so big – how could he? “At the time, in 1997, nobody had really done that kind of thing on such a small scale,” he says. It didn’t stop him from dreaming though: “We got into toys with a vision: we wanted to become like Playmobil, to make toys which were cool but for a mass market.”
Once Martin had established a bridgehead in the public psyche, Evil Martin and Bubba were unleashed. Next came the World of Pain comic book and the policeman toy. Asked how much of himself he puts into these characters, Jarvis replies: “I identify with my policeman’s contempt for littering.” Jarvis being a keen cyclist, he probably sees a lot of that.
“One of the things I like about making toys,” says Jarvis, “is the industrial process of it.” Although he’s keen to point out that what he really does is draw, the toys add another dimension in more than one sense: “I like the distance it gives you from the human inconsistencies of drawing.”
Despite being made of vinyl, Martin and his growing crowd of buddies have real character and that’s what sets them apart. “We came from the world of fashion,” explains Jarvis, “and a lot of people have clung to the exclusive side of that.” Far from wanting the club to be sniffily exclusive, he points out, “Our stuff isn’t that limited; it’s quite accessible.” But after all is said and done, this is the world of designer toys, a term Jarvis freely admits he “hates”.
Jarvis is a man of the people. “I’m not interested in it being James Jarvis’s Martin or whatever,” he says. The ideal situation is one where the characters speak for themselves. “Like Tintin or Asterix,” the childhood role models from which Martin and Co inherit their independence, “they have their own identity outside of their creators.”
Drawing inspiration
So comic books formed an important part of Jarvis’s story, but in the European comic-book tradition: “I always found American comics a bit one-dimensional I suppose,” he says. The likes of Asterix and Tintin had genuine stories, not the same story repeated ad nauseam. James takes his lead from this and draws inspiration from the world around him: “What I do comes from general culture.”
Sucking up ambient details from pop culture, he says, “I just draw what I’m interested in at any particular moment. Sometimes I want to draw skateboarders, or policemen, or cavaliers.” What makes the difference is the fact that these are wellconsidered, rounded characters, rounded to the point of minimalism. This is no accident: “I like to think my characters were designed with the ideals of modernism,” states Jarvis.

The amount of personality Jarvis can squeeze out of such a limited palette is incredible. “I didn’t want to draw people, but I wanted them to be able to reflect humanity,” he says, and that they do. “I think they’re more appealing than humans.” And they are that too. The ‘potato-headed multiverse’ is a reality and Jarvis, along with his collaborators, is busy expanding it.
Amos Toys
Jarvis has had collaborators along his way, notably Russell Waterman and Sofia Prantera from clothing label Silas. “They’ve been very inspirational,” he confirms. “They showed how much you can achieve independently.” So, having created the first four of his potato-headed pals for Silas, the trio set up Amos Toys.
This gave Jarvis a taste of freedom: “Starting Amos meant that I was no longer reliant on other people to generate work. I could commission myself.” And commission he did, once he’d taken care of ‘Juvenile Delinquents’ for Sony’s Time Capsule toy project. Things stepped up a gear in 2003 with the release of the first series of In-Crowd toys. Then came the Where is Silas? book.
In fact, it was starting to become a bit of a headache maintaining the purity of the various worlds his characters inhabited: “Are there cowboys in Lars’ world?” asks Jarvis. “There must be because he wears cowboy boots. That means they have horses and stirrups. Do the horses have noses?” Only time will tell because right now, Jarvis and Russell Waterman (“He’s like an editor”) are finishing up work on the latest annex on the multi-verse Vortigern’s Machine.
Character building
“I never set out to be a ‘character designer’,” Jarvis insists. “I’ve never ascribed any special value to something being a ‘limited edition’ or hard to find.” In all probability, an attempt to be exclusive or cliquey wouldn’t have been so wholeheartedly endorsed by the buying public. And Jarvis regularly expresses a love of accessible art, “like The Simpsons or Asterix. I think they’re all the more vital for being popular, without being populist.”
So what’s the secret? Jarvis has no hesitation in answering that: “I love drawing, and everything springs from that font.” The characters are a by-product of a kind: “I see myself as someone who draws. All the projects I work on come from drawing, be they illustration, comic strips or toys.” The most simple piece of advice to anyone with a toy-shaped twinkle in their eye? “My tip would be: learn to draw everything.”
What makes these toys so immediately engaging is the fact that they have a context. Even when they didn’t have a proper world, they at least had some coded version of one, dredged up from Jarvis’s subconscious. “I think the things which have longevity will be the things that have a bit of depth to them, that are part of a bigger picture.”
And like any parent, this will have bitter-sweet consequences when the young ones finally fly the nest as Martin now has: “I don’t feel like I designed him any more,” says his concerned-sounding creator. He’s grown up, moved on. “He’s such a graphic figure, he comes from his own world now.” Ah, they grow up so fast.

Pete Fowler

You've probably unknowingly spied Pete Fowler's artwork before you were even aware of his music. The skillful freelance illustrator and self-proclaimed "monster creator" has showcased his postmodern, cartoon-inspired works through everything from traditional art exhibitions to Kia commercials, and of course his familiar illustrative album artwork for Welsh rockers Super Furry Animals.
 Speaking of those monsters; in Fowler's world, they reside on a place that Fowler's dubbed "Monsterism Island" - each of his characters have backstories and individual traits, a set of comic books have been created by Fowler to tell their tales, and plasticized versions of the monsters themselves can be purchased via Fowler's own manufacturing company. A soundtrack album for Monsterism Island was even released several years ago.
 And now he's adding to his roster of activity with a second brand new Monsterism Island CD called A Psychedelic Guide to Monsterism Island.
 Yes, it's pretty obvious that Pete Fowler has a lot going on - but how did it all start? "My monsterism artwork originated with characters that I had been developing over the years in my sketchbook; they found an outlet in my first series of toys back in 2001," Fowler explains. "The idea of creating a world for them to reside in seemed like the logical step, so Monsterism Island appeared on the map. I see the Island as a place where reality is warped through an often psychedelic, surreal filter, reflecting our own world and experiences through the lens." Super Furry Animals obviously agreed with Fowler's artistic sensibilities.
 "I started working with Super Furry Animals on their Radiator LP, and continued to create their covers from then on, plus merchandise, stage sets, videos and giant inflatable bears; working with SFA has been constantly interesting and challenging for me, and their music continues to blow me away," Fowler says.

 As far as Fowler's own soundtrack for his Monsterism Island world, it was a collaborative effort from the start ("The concept was thought up by JT (musician Jon Tye) and myself after Jon ran an idea past me over the phone for a compilation CD while I was traveling down a dusty track on the way to DJ at Bestival.")
 The initial idea was to create a selection of original music to be used as a universal film/TV library disc; a soundtrack of sorts for Fowler's island that would be recorded by using the invented locale's moods and sights as inspiration for a variety of bands. 
 Fowler sat down with Tye and the pals drew up a 'wish list' of musicians that they hoped they'd be able to snag for the disc - which resulted in, among others, SFA's Gruff Rhys, Richard Norris, Gary Cobain (The Future Sound of London), and Wolf People - and the recordings began. "We were lucky to get almost all of the artists that we approached on to the ferry to Monsterism Island," Fowler grins. Fowler, of course, contributed the artwork to the soundtrack's cover, and found that his art and the sounds complement each other perfectly. "I'm extremely happy with the music on the CD in terms of it reflecting my artwork," Fowler says, "I think it has a sense of the magical, surreal nature of my art, and it's fascinating to hear aural responses to it. My work has, for a while now, had a heavy musical theme to it that reflects my interests, so it's probably focused me in that particular area of sound and sonics." 
 And back to that whole 'Fowler has a lot going on' bit - he also contributed two music tracks of his own to the CD; the Monsters at Work track "Fisherman's Jam," and a tune under the name Squonjax called "Chocolate Skull," on which Fowler played a Kantele (a Finnish plucked string instrument) and various electronics, and added in field recordings of owls. "I'm working on some more music with JT for release on an esoteric micro-label we're going to start this year as an outlet for some of the music we want to do," Fowler says, "I also team up with Cherrystones, and have a track with him on the library release CD. We jam quite regularly on the more experimental side of sound and have just returned from the All Tomorrow's Parties festival; we jammed in the gallery where I had an exhibition. My ears are still ringing!"

Story by Kristi Kates

Profile: Pete Fowler
“Jumping back to the world of humans gives me distance to think about the other things I do.” Pete Fowler talks about life on and off Monsterism Island…
As far as job titles go, ‘monster creator’ has to be one of the best. Designer Pete Fowler has given himself just that tag. He is the master of Monsterism Island, which he describes as: “A psychedelic parallel universe which is on planet earth but undiscovered because of a complex weather system.”



It is the inhabitants of this island that draw interest: tribes of cute-yet-dark characters and animals who interact with each other and seem to live lives of their own. Now that the kids who hankered after a Millennium Falcon or an AT-AT are grown up and earning, they can buy cool toys – and for many that will mean one of the inhabitants of Monsterism Island.
We might not know exactly where it is, but real-world people are allowed a glimpse into Monsterism at www.monsterism.net. You can even own your own slice of island life by purchasing one of the vinyl toy characters. So how did Pete Fowler end up on the island?
Corporate beginnings
Fowler moved to London from his native Wales in 1995 and spent years plugging away at corporate work and designing nightclub flyers while he developed the monsters in his own time. “For a while I really enjoyed it and there were lots of varied briefs and I did monthly illustrations for GQ,” explains Fowler. “I always did the monsters on the side and when that was a bit more developed – and as I got tired of some of the briefs – I let my imagination grow in my spare time. When I felt more confident, I started to bring the monsters into my work and, not long after that, I met the Super Furry Animals.”
Fowler was approached by the Welsh band’s record label to do the artwork for the 1997 album Radiator and since then he’s designed not only LP covers but merchandise, stage sets, animations, promo videos and giant inflatable bears. “I was working on mostly commercial projects when the Super Furry Animals asked me to create artwork for their covers. Both the band and myself are Welsh, but I didn’t know them previously. They really responded to the monsters I was making and that gave me the opportunity to develop them further.
“That was definitely a turning point for me, seeing my work on posters, adverts, magazines and kind of creating an identity for the band. It was a perfect project for me as I was a fan of their music, and their attitudes seemed to gel with mine in terms of visual aesthetic and musical ideas. That gave me a taste of what could be done with the monsters and was one of my first paid monster projects.”
The monsters were something Fowler had been developing for years – they grew from a boyhood interest in monsters, ghosts and UFOs into drawings on his sketch pad, where they were developed over the years. Now the monsters are more than just pixels on the screen – they have characters, stories, a past and even relationships.
Vinyl monsters
Fowler produces the Monsterism toys, which are sold at www.playbeast.com, with his business partner Rob Manley. Manley comes from a record label background and is the A&R man who signed the Chemical Brothers. Now he spots talent of a different kind and works with Fowler marketing the website and toys and organising the manufacturing side of the business. Manley says: “I left the music business nine years ago to do something different and have ended up working with artists and developing products. When I first came across Pete I realised he is as much into music as I am. Music plays a big part in Monsterism as there is a lot of music on the island, but now collectors buy the monsters based on the art. They appeal to the modern-day pop art collectors.”
Fowler is not sure if he is part of a specific movement, but, if he is, he says, “It’s the modern equivalent of the ornament on the fireplace. I guess it’s the generation that grew up on comics and Star Wars who have the disposable income now they’re adults and spend it on toys. I think the toys attract people that are interested in design and illustration, as well as fan-boy collectors. It’s no longer a male-only scene and has opened up to all types of people. I’m aware of what goes on in the scene and know a few of the creators and company owners. It’s a small world, so I try to keep up with what’s going on.
“My problem with the scene is that it can be a bit derivative. I don’t think enough people are pushing the genre and some seem happy to create a toy that looks similar to something that’s been made before. There are very varied talents, though, despite what I’ve just said. I think if there is a movement, it’s about illustrators taking their work to the next level by telling stories and creating new worlds.”
The monsters often come adorned with horns or antlers. They may live a virtual life on the internet, but their origins are very much in the real world. Fowler takes inspiration for his creations from nature’s strangeness, and most of his creatures start their life on the sketch pad. “Ideas can come from anywhere really,” he says. “I’m always inspired by the incredible natural world we live in. I think a lot of the animals on earth are very monstrous and one can understand where some of the myths and legendary beasts came from.
“The stories are often the difficult bit,” Fowler continues. “Sometimes an idea for a character can come from a story or it develops in my head as I’m creating. But, usually, I’ll look at the character in the final stages and piece it together from there. A story has often come about some time after the initial sketch was done, or having drawn the character over and over without giving it much thought. It varies from character to character.”
Just because the monsters are a success does not mean Fowler has turned his back on his commercial work. His creations have recently been seen on TV in a series of adverts for Kia cars. He worked on the ads with Passion Pictures, an independent production company which has worked on animations for Gorillaz. “The company wanted something different from a ‘normal’ car advert and I was lucky enough to be involved. I guess I’m an illustrator chiefly, but I work in different media including painting, toy design, sculpture and illustration. Mostly my work involves character design, be it for Monsterism or commercial projects,” says Fowler.
This year he has also been working on a project for an alternative energy supplier based in France, creating a human family which has been animated for TV commercials and print adverts for press. “I like to work on these kinds of project because I feel it helps to have a balance alongside what I do with Monsterism. I’m trying to link everything I do outside of my commercial work to Monsterism and the island, so jumping back to the world of humans gives me distance to think about the other things I do.”
Getting things moving
The latest of these ventures is animation, which Fowler hopes will be aired on BBC3. Monsterism has teamed up with the animation wing of comedian Steve Coogan’s production company Baby Cow, which recently brought I Am Not Am Animal to screens. A pilot episode has been made featuring the voice of Coogan and Julia Davis of Nighty Night, and hopes are that these stars’ voices will also be heard in a six-part series, along with some well-known musical names.
“We’ve been working on it now for about five years with different writers,” explains Fowler. “The idea is to tell the stories of the island. I know it is much-repeated, but we want to appeal to The Simpsons market so that children enjoy it but there are some references that go over their heads.”
Putting the monsters onto screen could be seen as a bit like setting them free. “I’ve been at it for a while now,” says Fowler, “trying to make Monsterism more than just the characters and toys by adding back stories and stitching connections between them. I think it’s given the characters a breath of life. I’m more interested in the stories and possibilities rather than just the toys for toys’ sake. I like to think people pick up on that and come up with their own impressions of the island and its inhabitants.”
CONTACT DETAILS
www.monsterism.net

eBoy

eBoy
From a mere online gallery showing their favourite pieces, to a huge portfolio of work for some of the world’s biggest companies, eBoy have stayed true to their style. Garrick Webster discovers the secret of their success
Pixels. Indivisible, perfect and the basic raw material used to create any screen image. To the German illustration trio eBoy, however, they’re treated – or even celebrated – as an artistic medium.



Pixel by pixel the team painstakingly paint some of the most detailed computer artwork ever seen, and they’ve done it for global clients as varied as MTV, Honda and Christian Aid, from Los Angeles to Tokyo and back.
Just like the pixels they work with, eBoy themselves are pretty much indivisible. The group was founded in Berlin by Steffen Sauerteig, Kai Vermehr and Svend Smital in 1997, and has been a close-knit team ever since. This is unlikely to change now, despite eBoy’s recent big news that Sauerteig and Vermehr have moved to Vancouver, in Western Canada. They were already working from different locations in Berlin, conversing via web chats on Flickr when necessary. The only change now, they say, will be the nine-hour time difference.
“Moving to Vancouver was a private decision. I like things to change and was worried about getting bored. I grew up in Venezuela, Germany and Guatemala, so I was kind of used to moving,” reveals Vermehr. “The move is forcing us to rethink many details of our daily life, and I hope it will lead to some fresh ideas for eBoy. Steffen and his family liked the idea and decided to come with us, and Svend is being worked on. He’s a sailor and he has yet to see the local marinas!”
Although eBoy established themselves in Germany – Smital and Sauerteig grew up in East Berlin – they’ve always been an international force. For a number of years they had a member based in New York. One of their first big works was for MTV in 1999: the broadcaster asked them to create some online visuals, after an eBoy illustration featured in the Image Source 100 book the previous year, and work had been published in various magazines.
“At this point a friend of ours, Peter Stemmler, was part of eBoy and he was in New York at the time. I think they called him first because it was easier for them to call somebody in America. After that everything was via email. I think they knew us from our website,” says Smital.
MTV wanted eBoy to design some animated GIFs, as well as a Flash game based on Pac-Man but with eBoy-style graphics. According to Smital, the broadcaster liked their past work and gave them a lot of freedom to interpret the job as they wished. They took the opportunity of working with a big client in their stride, and continued to grow incrementally.
“With every job we do we get new experiences, and we develop ourselves, our technique and our style. I can’t say the MTV project changed how we work. It was just one of many steps we took. It was our first game, we had to work with a programmer, and it was nice to do animations. We also did sound for the first time, which was something special that we weren’t used to,” explains Smital.
The illustration printed in Image Source 100, published in Japan in 1998, was also one of the trio’s first cityscape-style pictures, using their modular system of image creation. Each building, vehicle, plant, animal or person they create for a cityscape is painted pixel-by-pixel in Photoshop, and stored afterwards in a database. Today there are over 2,000 graphics that can be pulled out, used, or modified for a new cityscape commission. The buildings and landforms that define a place are created bespoke for each city, but elements like cars, trees, clouds and dogs can be easily reused.
The first time that they ever created a pixel city for a big league client was working for Adidas in 2002. This time the job came through the agency Leagas Delaney. “Adidas is a very popular brand. A lot of designers like it and wear it themselves – it was a very good client,” reveals Smital.
For this image there wasn’t only the self-imposed limitation of working pixel-by-pixel to deal with: the agency wanted a greyscale city that worked alongside the theme of the ad copy. “It’s great that it’s black and white!” says Sauerteig. “But it looks rather empty compared with our latest works.”
The piece brought eBoy to greater prominence in the industry, and while working for big brands isn’t the most important goal for Sauerteig, Vermehr and Smital, it does help on a number of levels. One is artistic freedom. Clients come to eBoy for their style, and tend to trust them to do their thing. Secondly, the money is good. And finally, the big brands spread their work to broader audiences.
“If you do advertising for a bigger company, then a lot of magazines and other people see it and you get commissions based on this. It advertises us, and at the end of the day we get more money working for bigger clients,” explains Smital. “Of course, if you work for clients like this you have to avoid certain elements. You can’t have any violence or naked people in the picture, but you know that and you don’t do it, so it’s OK. We can do it in our own pictures.”
While Adidas introduced eBoy to sports shoe fanatics (and thereby designer studios around the world), it was the clothing designer Paul Smith who took them into the world of fashion. He discovered their posters in Magma Books in London and purchased some, which were used as decorations at one of his shows. Initial contact was made in 2003, and Smith travelled to Berlin to meet them. They began work in 2004, and the clothing came out in spring and summer 2005.
“It was just a very, very nice collaboration to work on,” Smital discloses. “He was very enthusiastic and nice – really interested in all the designs, and yeah, it was great. It was the first project where we did something for fashion, so it was a new experience. It gave us the chance to do something on real, three-dimensional objects, not just in print.”
“It wasn’t much different, really,” adds Sauerteig. “We only made the designs and not the fashion itself. Paul Smith gave us a lot of freedom. We did many different patterns – with flowers, birds, masks – for the designers to choose from, and we did a London cityscape. The small parts of the city like the people, cars and coats of arms were used all over the collection.”
Much of the work was used in Smith’s Japanese collections too. eBoy have long been popular in the Far East, and today work for one of the biggest agencies in Tokyo, Dentsu. Through Dentsu, eBoy have worked for Honda, creating images of a variety of its vehicles, past and present. More recently, they’ve worked for the Japanese telecommunications company Docomo, creating imagery for the mobile operator’s website.
Some of eBoy’s most popular recent work has been for Coca-Cola Ireland. Coke’s agency, McCann Erickson, asked for an illustrated cityscape of Dublin in 2008. The image works with the new Coke identity, and it proved so popular that the agency came back for three more cities in 2009: Cork, Belfast and Galway. “We get a sketch from them, and then a briefing, and then just start to do our image,” says Smital. “There’s always collaboration. We send our work-in-progress from time to time and we get their feedback, and then we have to modify or change something.”
Usually, changes are minor. One of the secrets to eBoy’s success, and one of the reasons they’re usually offered the kind of work they love, is that from the beginning Sauerteig, Vermehr and Smital only showed their favourite work on their site. eBoy.com was started in 1997, and at the time they were all freelancing, doing the usual kind of design work – brochures, posters, typography and so forth. However, eBoy was the preserve of their favourite work, and even if they did something for a big client, it wasn’t shown unless it was in the eBoy pixelart style. They even distributed a diskette containing artwork for the computer screen.
“We used it more like a gallery where we showcased the work that we did for fun. Nothing was shown just because it was an important client, or whatever. We just displayed the work that we really liked, and it helped a lot because we got commissioned for jobs where we could do what we wanted to, more or less. Not always, of course. But it was very helpful to go public only with the things that we really liked, and not to show something just because it was for a big client,” explains Smital.
That independence of spirit meant that eBoy had a slow start, and grew organically rather than according to any business plan. However, by creating illustrations for mags and newspapers, backed up by the website, their work gradually crept out there and eventually led to eBoy’s advertising work.
Another key to their success has been in their choice of domain name, according to Sauerteig. “From the beginning we got clients from all over the world. This might be because we did our website in English only, and chose a dotcom domain instead of dot-de. In most cases, clients don’t really know where we come from. This makes it easier for them to get in contact with us.”
Strictly including only work they like under the eBoy banner has led to a consistent identity, which they’ve carried through to a whole range of their own products. Cityscapes have been collected together in their book, Pixorama, which took six years to compile. You can now buy eBoy posters, t-shirts, puzzles, stickers, necklaces and toys. The latter are the result of one of their favourite collaborations – with KidRobot. In 2005, KidRobot founder Paul Bunditz approached them to create a range of figurines. They’d always wanted to do a toy set, and readily agreed. Today there are 29 figures across three series of Peecol toys.
Their own merchandise remains a smaller part of the eBoy business than the illustration work, and while the team love having their own lines, there are still several big-name brands they’d like to work with in the future. Apple, Nintendo and Knoll are a few on Sauerteig’s list.
“There are too many to name,” adds Vermehr. “It depends on the project. I’d really love to create a huge, automatic, self-evolving 3D module inspired by sci-fi. Something like World of Warcraft, only not that dwarfy and elvy. More of a weird, hardcore Philip K. Dick kind of setting. And then before I die, I’d like to get fully uploaded to that place.”

Computer Arts Mag Jon Burgerman Interview

Jon Burgerman
Leading the way for a decade of British creatives, he has helped fuse commerciality and artistic passion within illustration. Jon Burgerman tells Garrick Webster how he’s shaped his career so far
From Pepsi cans to gallery walls, colouring books to laptop sleeves, clothing to club flyers, iPhone apps and more, Jon Burgerman’s doodled characters pop up just where you’d expect to see them, and very often in places that you wouldn’t. There’s a reason for this: although Burgerman is an easy-going guy with a quirky sense of humour, he’s always busy working on something, collaborating with other artists and spotting new opportunities. Behind it all is a naturally expressive drawing talent that has enabled him to develop a style that is recognised and adored by creatives around the world. So, how does this star of contemporary illustration get so much done?



Computer Arts: Burgerman projects come through thick and fast. How do you fit it all in?
Jon Burgerman: Some of it feels like working, some of it doesn’t. I think that’s the trick: to do projects – whether commercial or your own project – which don’t seem like work. I think that’s my goal. I don’t know where I find the time – this is what I do with my life. I don’t have a massive other side of my life where I’m rock climbing or go-karting or hang-gliding or deep sea diving. The kind of activities I get up to are all interlinked in what I’m interested in.
CA: How easy is it to divide your time between your own projects and shows or client work?
JB: It’s always been a juggling act. You might be involved in a big commercial project that takes up all your time and have to sort of delay working on your own projects. I’ve always got my own projects; sometimes they overlap, like I’m doing an iPhone app with this company in London called ustwo, and it’s called Inkstrumental – that’s one of those hybrid projects.
CA: If you could have your way, would you only work on your own projects?
JB: I probably would. Having said that, it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t produce any commercial stuff. It would just be all mine, completely led by me. That’s why I set up my brand, Burger, so I can still make commercial products and objects. But, you know, it would be me that decides how things are, what things we make and how they look and stuff. Just ‘cause it’s fun, I guess. It’s fun to be in charge, to have that control and be able to do your own thing.
CA: You spent the summer in the US, went to Munich, now you’re off to China for a show and then you’re in Newcastle. How important is it to be internationally known?
JB: Well, I haven’t gone out of my way to try and become well known, I just get invited to do stuff in different places. I just think that, wherever my work takes me, I will always entertain going. From a purely selfish point of view it allows me to see more of the world and meet new people and that kind of thing, which is great. The more I do it, the more I realise that it’s a good thing; it’s one of the few ‘what do you want to do with your life’ kind of things.
CA: Over in Munich you got on a Wacom Cintiq. What was that like?
JB: It was a collaboration between re:Store, my brand Burger, Wacom and Hewlett-Packard. We put this event together where I was doing live drawings but in a digital way, which I’ve never done before. Wacom lent me one of their super-fancy screens that you can draw on, and then I went over there and just sort of doodled for the day. It descended into doing portraits of people. I had to apologise a lot because I’m not really a portrait painter or anything. Everyone had a twisted, mangled, doodled form. But everyone seemed very pleased with the drawings.
CA: Are you a convert to the Cintiq tablet?
JB: I’m being converted. I have my little process of working, which I’ve probably kept to for the last 10 years, so I’ve never really looked for a different way of doing stuff. It makes a lot more sense to have the drawing on the screen – something clicked. I said to them, ‘I don’t think I would try and recreate what I do with a pen and piece of paper using the screen, but what I would do is kind of come up with a new way of creating new kinds of work using it.’
CA: Your style is so well known now. How do you feel about that?
JB: It’s really nice when people say they recognise my work. It’s just the way I draw. It’s weird because now I get students and graduates emailing me saying they also work in the doodle style. I find that really strange. Maybe there is some sort of doodle style but the way that I draw is just the way that I draw. I didn’t realise it’s becoming a category of drawing in its own right. I always assumed that I drew in a very bad way.
CA: What about when your work is copied by other illustrators?
JB: If a big company does it and they’re selling your work, then it’s an easy thing to go after them. But [then there’s] that case of the recent graduate who hadn’t copied the work, but they’d made new work that was very, very similar. They’d taken some of my pieces and used the same colours and the same composition but the lines were all their own. I was more disappointed with the university than the student. I just thought, ‘How could a student graduate with work that was heavily copying any artist, let alone me?’
CA: How do you keep your work evolving between projects?
JB: Just in a natural development; kind of like my work that’s got text in it, where the typography’s integrated into the drawing. That was a little decision I made a year or two ago, to do that and see how it comes out. A lot of people had said to me that they’d read stuff in my work, and I was like, ‘Ahhh, there’s no words in there. There’s no letter shapes.’ I think a few teenagers with homemade cigarettes had been staring at my work for too long.
CA: You recently turned your talents to making music with Jim Avignon. What’s that been like?
JB: I can make my work in different ways, I think. I’ll always be a drawer, I’ll always paint and create images in some respect, but it doesn’t need to be anchored into just working in that way. I can express the way that I work in other ways, so it could be through performances, it could be through clothes, it could be through music, or it could be through a mixture of all these things.

TADO

TADO,

They might be regarded as the King and Queen of cute character design, but as Garrick Webster discovers, Mike and Katie have a dark side too
Chatting with Katie Tang and Mike Doney of TADO, one can quickly understand why they’ve proven to be such an effective creative force. They are on the same wavelength. Totally. It’s more than just a case of finishing each other’s sentences: they seem to jointly construct everything they do. If it were any other way, things probably wouldn’t have worked because they are – all at once – a couple, a design business and an incredibly dynamic art duo.



Being together all the time must be tough. “It’s not actually,” begins Katie. Mike continues: “Everybody always says, ‘I can’t believe you can be around each other every single day.’ We sort of squabble about work stuff, but no, it never really bothers us.”
TADO’s character design, illustration, online and animation work has made them famous around the world. The Sheffield-based studio have contributed to numerous magazine titles, including the one you’re reading now. They’ve rubbed shoulders with art directors at some of the world’s biggest ad agencies too, working for clients as big as MTV, McDonald’s, Sainsbury’s, Vodafone and the World Wildlife Fund. They’re currently working on a secret project for a top British sports brand, and next month will release a new series with the global toy giant Kid Robot.
“They’re bringing out the second series of the Fortune Pork Mini Plush, which were the first toys that we did in 2004. Kid Robot have picked it up, and it’s a collection of 14 characters,” says Katie. “It’s different to some of our other stuff. This is aimed purely at kids and a fun audience,” interjects Mike. “Yeah, this is a little more on the cute side,” adds Katie, resuming their quick-fire banter. “I don’t know though,” points out Mike, “there are still bones and a bit of blood in there.”
Some casual observers have dismissed TADO’s work as being little more than simple, charming characters. There is, however, a dark undercurrent – particularly in their personal work. Lily the Littlest Cannibal, an exhibition staged last summer at the Magic Pony gallery in Toronto, is a case in point. While there’s undeniably something delightful about Lily, the monster Tulip and their other friends, cannibalism is clearly no laughing matter. The story, conveyed via various paintings, giclee prints and wooden figures, takes place in a dark, gothic, Scandinavian forest. It’s hardly a setting you would call ‘cute’.
The exhibition was held to support the launch of their Cannibal Funfair figures by Kid Robot, but the pair wanted to do something a bit different. Taking a two- month hiatus from commercial work, Lily saw them collaborate with sculptor Mike Hunter, as well as an old lady called Gran Gran. The former carved Cannibal characters expertly from wooden blocks, while the latter crocheted unique (and slightly wonky) plush versions of them. For TADO, the exhibition was a creative reaction to constantly designing toys on a computer – work that Mike describes as “super, mega accurate” – with all the paintings done by hand too.
“The hand-painted nature suited the project more than anything really,” begins Katie. Mike adds: “The whole thing was a fairly nostalgic look at childhood and the computerised stuff was just too perfect; too clinical. It simply didn’t suit it. When we were kids, children’s books were hand-drawn and hand-painted, and that’s the effect we wanted to replicate, really.”
A little bit of bite and a little bit of sauce are themes recurrent in TADO’s non-commercial work. As Katie points out, they once had a phase of putting fangs on everything they drew. Similarly, for a while they gave everything big breasts. It’s no surprise to learn that from early on in their careers they’ve been influenced by off-beat comic books, metal music and punk. They’d spend afternoons lazing around in Forbidden Planet, soaking up characters like Squee from Johnny the Homicidal Maniac by Jhonen Vasquez. Roman Dirge’s Lenore is also an influence.
Whenever they’re invited to do an exhibition, TADO see it as an opportunity to extend the range of their work, try out different styles and explore different media. When Pictoplasma asked them to do a talk for the event last March, they declined – but they did offer to do an exhibition. The organisers said they could use an underground bar room, and the wheels in Mike and Katie’s heads started turning, in unison, naturally. Private Pandas was born. “We came up with the idea of a panda gentlemen’s club, given that we’d been offered this space that was a basement bar, underground. It had red velour wallpaper with goldleaf on it and...” starts Mike, “...it had big gentleman’s leather seats!” Katie chips in. Mike concludes: “Yeah! Big porno couches everywhere. We thought, ‘This is perfect.’ And the whole idea came from Japan.”
The installation was very much like a maid cafe or cosplay bar in Japan, where some after-hours behaviour considered seedy in the West isn’t so taboo. The aesthetics of venues in Soho, London, influenced them too. TADO erected a dancing pole in the bar, made up a recipe for special panda cocktails, and put panda floor vinyls around the place. They also created giant panda heads for people to wear in the bar, to become a panda alter ego. To cap it off, they hired lingerie models to wear the panda heads, and did a photoshoot to produce cute and sexy images to hang on the walls. Some of these have become part of the permanent collection of an art gallery in New York.
“As soon as the girls put the heads on, it became something completely different,” explains Mike. “You’d sort of find yourself looking into the eyes of a panda and thinking of it as a character, rather than a girl in a hat.”
“And the way that the models were interacting with the head, with the posing as well – you kind of saw it as a panda,” adds Katie. Mike sums it up: “Yeah, we got them to sort of use their hands as much as they could to interact with the facial expressions of the panda. It was something very different, and quite unusual for us. It was a really, really interesting learning curve.”
Bizarre to some, events like Lily the Littlest Cannibal and Private Pandas help TADO gain exposure with different audiences. Fans of their cute work might be a bit confused by cannibalistic toddlers or sexy pandas, but it has won them attention from new crowds. Within those crowds are art directors and creative directors who are looking for versatility and style. And for TADO, that spells work.
Right now, the pair are working on a top secret project. A big, American client has hired them to design the characters and backgrounds for an online game, with numerous levels. The project is so big, says Mike, it’s going to take nine months to complete. And when it’s ready, it’s going to land in the educational sector – so don’t expect more sexy pandas.
“It’s nice because it’s a different audience to some of our other stuff,” explains Mike. “It has to be quite PC because of the nature of the client, and being American they view our work slightly differently than perhaps a British audience would. I think some of our work is quite British in its humour, so we possibly have to be a little more literal with them.”
Despite their deeply artistic streak, Mike and Katie are anything but precious when it comes to commercial projects. They had no qualms about working for McDonald’s last summer. In collaboration with their friends at the animation company Red Star, they produced a 30-second ad for Irish TV, promoting the multi-coloured Coke glass giveaway that the fast food chain had running. The colours come together to form a rainbow in front of a TADO landscape.
Another job that has put their work in front of millions of people was their Sainsbury’s cereal packaging. They created six different boxes, each with a print run of five million, for children’s cereal flavours. “Originally they wanted it so that you could stack all six boxes next to each other and it would make a whole landscape picture, but that kind of went out the window towards the middle, didn’t it?” says Katie.
“It was simply because Sainsbury’s boxes have to be displayed next to the competitor’s box really, so they couldn’t be in a line together,” Mike replies. “They had to go next to the Corn Flakes or whatever. We kind of lost that idea halfway through.”
“It’s nice to go to Sainsbury’s and see your cereal boxes on the shelves, or your poster on a billboard or something,” adds Katie. “It’s exciting. It’s something you can tell your mum about, and then your mum will go, ‘Oooo that’s really good’.”
As for the future, neither Mike nor Katie rave about any grand ambitions. TADO are happy just continuing to do their thing. They took a break in Japan last year, which clearly sparked their creativity, and they’d like to make a return visit. Another aim is to do more animation, and to become more independent in terms of how they produce some of their output. This means learning some 3D software, because at the moment they turn to friends when they want to create characters in 3D. “We’ve actually been trying to teach ourselves Cinema 4D, which is like trying to teach yourself Chinese. That’s something we’d really like to do,” says Mike. Katie continues: “We’ve got so many ideas and we’re picky, and we always want to do a little bit more.” Mike finishes the thought: “Yeah, the pair of us are control freaks when it comes to our own work.”

(interveiw from Computer Arts Magazine)

Jeremy Fish aka Superfishal

Staf Magazine: Jeremy Fish Interview (Feb/Mar 2005)
Jeremy Fish is a man who doesn’t need much of an introduction. I’m willing to bet that most of you reading this are already familiar with Mr. Fish, or at least his artwork anyway. And I’m sure you will agree with me when I say that the guy is one exceptionally talented motherfu*&er.
Mr. Fish has built quite a name for himself in the skateboarding and art world over the last decade. His work has appeared just about everywhere: galleries, legal walls, illegal walls, newspapers and magazines, books, skateboard decks, skateboard wheels, etc. The list goes on and on. In fact, he even did some of the illustrations for my book, “Left-Handed Stories,” and I’m very thankful for that.
Not only is Jeremy a successful artist, but he is also the founder and unofficial leader of a cold-blooded, ruthless street gang known as “The Silly Pink Bunnies,” or “SPBs” for short. Jeremy and the rest of his bunny militia are a force to be reckoned with. Here’s a nickel’s worth of free advice: if you ever see them on the street, I suggest you get the f*ck out of their way and run. Seriously, they will slice your goddamn neck just for the hell of it and laugh while they tag their names and gang signs on the wall with your blood. It’s sickening.
OK, now that you know the real scoop on Jeremy Fish, make sure to check out his website: sillypinkbunnies.com. There you can view a handful of Jeremy’s illustrations, paintings, sculptures, skateboard graphics, and press. On this website, you can also learn more about Jeremy and Scott Bourne’s skateboard company, “The Unbelievers.”
Additionally, be on the lookout for Jeremy’s new book of art that is scheduled to be released in April ’05.
Enjoy this interview and please don’t let Jeremy’s charm fool you, because he’s really a cold-blooded killer at heart, believe that. Also, let me ask you “Have you ever danced with a Silly Pink Bunny in the pale moonlight?”
So Jeremy, how did you get into art?
I guess the same way you get into anything. When I was a kid I spent most of my time creating art and as I got older it was the only thing I was good at. I sucked at everything else and art was the one class I actually felt good about what I was doing. My mom is a teacher and really into education, so she pushed me to pursue it and go to school for it. I have her to thank for most it, because she was really supportive. The rest of my family was like ‘What the hell are you doing?’
And how did you get into skateboarding?
Same sort of deal, it’s like one of those things you do as a kid and you either grow out of it or you don’t. I stuck with it. I found a way to through skateboarding to tie what I wound up doing for a living with what I grew up enjoying. Doing skateboard graphics isn’t anything I thought was going to happen, it just sort of happened. It is probably one of the things that I am most proud of, because it is a cool way for me to give back to a community and lifestyle that helped formulate who I am as an adult.
What do you feel are the similarities between skateboarding and art?
I guess it’s the difference between becoming a lawyer and becoming an artist. Skateboarding and art is more creative, self-directed and individual. It’s not like a coach deal or a regular nine-to-five gig.
Name some artists that influenced you growing up?
I didn’t have a formal art family background, so it was mostly pop culture shit. When I was really young it was artists like Dr. Suess and Hanna Barbara. Then as I got older it was artists like Jim Phillips, Puss Head, and all the dudes from the 80s that did skateboard graphics.
What were some of your skateboarding influences?
I don’t know it’s a mix. Since I grew up in Upstate New York, all those guys that you’d see in magazines and videos didn’t really seem real to me. Well they did, but it wasn’t until I moved to San Francisco that I realized that they were all real people. I grew up in a really random part of the country, but skateboarding was huge there. I was more influenced by the guys back where I grew up rather than the guys I would see in the magazines. There is, however, the obvious pros though like Gonz, Neil Blender, and Tommy Guerrero. All those guys were like heroes to me, but they weren’t really influences, you know? Like I said, I was more influenced by the dude’s that I skated with.
What prompted you to move to San Francisco and how long have you been living in this rat pack city for?
I came here when I finished school and have been living here about eleven years now. It was either here or New York. I grew up near New York City and I didn’t really want to live there. San Francisco seemed way more approachable. New York seemed way more menacing and intimidating. San Francisco was 3,000 miles from everything I knew and it just seemed like the right place to go.
I don’t know if this is a super top-secret thing for you to speak on or not, but what is the Silly Pink Bunnies gang all about and how many members does it consist of?
I have answered this question so many ways, but basically it’s an inside joke that just got carried and carried and carried. For me, it’s just the fascination of taking nothing and making it into something, and also watching peoples desire to be involved in something. It’s fascinating for me to watch grown adults gravitate towards something that’s kind of stupid. I kind of geared it to not be not so attractive-kind of goofy and kind of dumb-and somehow it’s gotten so big to a number of people I can’t even really account for. Man, I don’t even know how many people there are in the gang. There has got to be a least a hundred or so, but then again everybody has got a friend of a friend or something that has some t-shirt or some sort of an affiliation. That’s the other fascinating thing, aside from peoples desire to be a part of something, I’m also fascinated by watching something I created grow into something that I’m not even farming anymore. To see stickers in places that you have never even been when you go there, or to talk to a friend that just got back from South Africa and said he saw a Silly Pink Bunnies sticker in the subway. You know, I’m like, ‘how the fuck did something go from being so dumb to something so big?’ It’s a cool way for me to reconnect with all my friends though too. We all get together once a year, sit down and discuss important issues like world domination and those sorts of things (laughs).
Have you ever killed anyone before?
No, definitely not. I have people do those types of things for me.
When did you start up Unbelievers Skateboards?
It will be three years this spring. Yeah, I’m stoked, man. It could be a lot bigger than it is. It’s definitely not going to be the next World Industries or anything like that. We have a really small manufacturer and distributor and they do the best they can with it. We are working on a shoestring budget right now, but for me, it’s probably the ideal situation with doing skateboards, because I had a full-time job doing that out of college and it was fucking hectic. Unbelievers is a lot more free and I can do whatever the fuck I want with the graphics.
And do you do all or most of the graphics?
All of them, anything digital. Again though, it’s not nine-to-five work. It’s so small. We run advertisements really sporadically when we can afford them; put out twenty different decks a year, as well as a couple of catalogs. It’s nice that I can pencil it in with the rest of the stuff I’m doing.
I understand that you also have your own signature series shoe out now. What’s that all about and where can the readers pick a pair of them up at?
I did it through Upper Playground. They made a really limited number of them and I think they might even be sold out at them moment. However, I have another shoe coming out down the line, but I can’t really talk about it right now. It should be out by fall of 2006. I’m really proud of it.
What other projects do you have up your sleeve?
First and foremost, I have to finish this book. I’m excited about it because it’s a nice way for people to flip through my stuff and see a whole period of my life. It’s also a nice way for me to reflect over my work, see where I want to go with it and what I want to do with it. The book comes out in April ’05 and I think in the summer I’m going to do a little trip around the United States and maybe even abroad…have some small art shows, sell the book and promote it.
That sounds pretty cool. I know a lot of people reading this will be looking forward to seeing that when it is released.
OK, let’s try something a little bit random now…
Fresh or hesh?
Fresh.
Plaid or corduroy?
Corduroy.
Blondes or brunettes?
Brunettes.
Favorite website?
Fecalface.com
Best Album of 2004?
(Thinks about it for a moment) Mad Villain.
Most emerging artist of 2004, locally or all-over?
Jeff Soto. I think he’s the guy that I looked at the most this year and was like, ‘That guy is fucking amazing!’
Skateboard video classic?
Foundation-“Glam Boys On Wheels.”
Alcohol or weed?
Both, you’ve got to keep it even.
And lastly, automobile or public transportation?
Automobile, for sure! Fuck the bus!
OK, that’s a wrap. Thanks again for taking the time to answer these questions, Jeremy.

"How To Draw a Monster" with ALEX PARDEE

Mr. Alex Pardee
Age: 33
Location: San Rafael, CA. Just north of San Francisco. The only place you can realistically say “George Lucas, Robin Williams, and Metallica walk into a bar” and it might be true.

Years Doing Posters: I guess it depends. I made pretend posters for years but my first real gig was in 2004 for “The Used/My Chemical Romance” tour. So i guess about 5 years.
Favorite Poster / Art Print You’ve Done: My “Escaped Conviction” giclee that was put out by my art/clothing company, Zerofriends. It was just insane that the colors were able to pop that much on a print.

All-time Favorite Poster / Art Print that Someone Else Did: James Jean’s “TOY MAKER” Print. And as a bonus, every Converge poster that Horkey has done.


Music Currently In Rotation: The new CAGE album, “Depart From Me” which no one else has yet but they will be blown away when it comes out. I can’t stop listening to it. I’m working on all of the art for it right now.
Last Print, Poster, or Toy Bought: A vintage “Dragon’s Lair” arcade poster.

Art Hanging On Your Walls: They don’t allow me to hang art here in the mental hospital.
Upcoming Stuff: Still working on my CHADAM animated series with WB, should be out soon. And I have a new vinyl toy called the “Walrus Rider” Coming out through Upper Playground soon too. And as always, new shirts and prints through zerofriends. And look for some dope zerofriends collabs with me and some other artists soon too!

Words of Wisdom: Don’t shit in public bathrooms that don’t lock. Especially at crowded truck stops.

Mad Toy Design

I've been professionally illustrating and designing toys for over 13 years. Over my career I've worked with clients such as Kidrobot, Mattel, YUM Brands, Pepsi, Scion, Wild Planet, NFL, Upper Deck, Playmates Toys, Makita and IDT Entertainment on a variety of todays hottest and largest brands. Collaborating on many projects ranging from promotions to packaging, character design to retail and premium toys. Aside from my commercial projects, I've worked non-stop on my own licensed toy lines and brands under the MAD Toy Design label for the past 7 years. My first production figure line called the MAD*L™ has been one of the hottest brands on the market since it first released in 2004 and continues to fly off the shelves globally with each new release. I try to keep a full arsenal of new products in development at all times... ranging from toys, tee's, prints, and more.

About SOLID Industries:
Created in 2006 as a manufacturing resource for artists and small companies, SOLID Industries, Inc. is a one stop shop for getting high quality limited edition products manufactured and delivered. I founded the company to serve as a means to produce a variety of my own products, but also as a service to my friends and commercial clients. SOLID allows me to not only offer the design and development end of a project, but the project management and manufacturing side as well. Going from a concept sketch all the way to a final product on a shelf, is now possible. SOLID is also a work for hire resource, if a design is already done and is looking to be taken to the next level, SOLID can help. Already working with several different clients on a variety of projects, we work one on one with each client to assure their input is injected throughout the process. The end result being a solid product that reflects the passion and hard work of all who helped bring it to market.

Kid Acne, Hip Hop low brow art cross over

Jon Burgerman, Noise lab Talk Manchester.

Jon Burgerman Talk at Noise Lab Manchester 31st January. Transcript


Key
Barny, the Noise Lab interviewer = NL
Jon Burgerman = JB
Nick Birch = NJB


NL: Were going to do some flexing thing err visually but lets start with your journey?

JB: What on the way in?

NL: No how you started, lets go back to the turn of the century.

JB: Cool this is like therapy or some thing, close my eyes regress, i am wearing shorts, I've just dropped my ice cream, I'm crying and I'm in a sand pit. Err sorry what was your question?

NL: Lets start by talking about the turn of the century.

JB: Oh yeah in 2000, I was studying in Nottingham Trent university and I studied Fine Art err that was but I didn’t know what I was going to do when I graduated, but I knew what I didn’t want to, which was have a job, or do to much work, and starve those where my three main goals, and I yeah used to have a part time job I used to travel and go to things, and I went to Doodle Bug day which started in 2001.

NL: I actually started Doodle Bug day in 98, but you came up in 2001.

JB: So I came up to Manchester from Nottingham, and went to this thing called doodle bug which id not really heard of before, I don’t even know how I found out about it to be honest, but it was great because you could come and there were loads of Posca pens, you could draw on stuff and then maybe borrow a few Posca pen to take home with you.

NL: We did give them away.

JB: Oh really, I was just shoveling them in my pocket.

NL: We had a massive concession.

JB: Oh really I feel less guilty about that now, I've been carrying that guilt quite some time.

NL: That’s good, that’s good.

JB, Erm so I started drawing and drawing on the wall, I didn’t know anyone there, every one else were these artist and they all knew each other…..err I did that which was good maybe id like to keep doing stuff like that, but it wasn’t as busy then as I’ve been to Doodle Bug things more recently, there really busy but back then they weren’t as hectic, they were a bit more under the radar.
So I did that and that stop me ill just continue to waffle……. I don’t know when I wasn’t at work I would just make my own work, I mean when I wasn’t being employed, I would be at home in Nottingham be at home drawing emailing people my drawings, and making web sites, contributing to zines and magazines, just any thing any thing I could find, that I could do or be part of, I don’t know just to keep me busy I’m very easily distracted. And err yeah so I just did stuff like that and eventually stuff started to happen, and significantly I got invited, to do some work that I got paid for which was quite good, which made me realize there was a root out of being employed, I was lucky that people like my work so I started to do some stuff for album covers and things, do some record sleeves for some small house labels, in Nottingham, so they started to ask me to do posters for them and all the cd work, err I didn’t know what I was doing, which is a bit bad because they allowed me to do everything, stuff like the layouts, I mean I can draw characters but I didn’t know anything really about laying stuff out, things came back from print with fonts to small, things like that which was kind of embarrassing, I blamed the printer but it was my fault.

But you kind of just learn by just doing, I mean I don’t know are some of you students, art students or design students?
So one of the things I did when I was learning how to make a website, was still a new fangled thing we still only had dial up, back in those day kids yeah and if someone used the phone in the house, a land line, it would kill your internet.You’d be sending a one meg image, and it would be like 99% and some one would phone and it would be like Nooooo, and you would have to start again.

Er yeah so anyway it was a slow process and anytime I got commissioned to do something I really believed that that would be it, like the calls would start, I could quit my job and sit by the phone, which would be ringing off the hook, and I would always go to bed that night thinking this is it, and obviously it never happened but it slowly happened, that’s the thing it’s a slow build, the more work I had out there, I guess the more people saw it and, I had this web site that I built and it was really basic, but I just stared adding all the new work to it.


NL: You then created, was it doodle world, doodle town?

JB: It was a little world.

NL: What was it called doodle land?, Doodleville what was it you called it?

JB: Biro web! Is that what you mean, I can show you that is you like this was a little project that I started, I wanted to make a website, without having to use a computer, er didn’t have a laptop or any thing like that, so I would just draw on anything and I just scanned it in and made a website which is all hand drawn, really low tech and it took no skills to make, you just click on an image and it takes you to the next on, this was a little side project, that I’ve neglected over the years, but if you click through it, you get to the menu, and you’ll get to see some really old pieces of work.

This is really early work, this is the type of stuff I was contributing to zines and stuff. I had no money to get nice pens and things so I just used biro pens and any sort of paper, I guess I kind of continued in that vein just using cheap materials whatever was laying around, recycling is good, that was before the world was heating up and they invented global warming. So yeah there you go that’s biro web.
Those were the early days before the empire.

NL: It just functions in a really simple effective way.

JB: It is good to keep things simple, i'm a simple kind of guy, I like simple things.

JB: Like a cup of tea.

(talks about airport water for 5 min)

NL: So moving on to the designer toys you produced with Kidrobot, how did that come about and how far down the line were you with your practice.

JB: Err well I started doing all this stuff making characters and in the mid 2000’s this whole trend of vinyl toys came out, there these little things that you put on your desk, then put another one next to it, maybe pose it in a rude .. I don't know so any way. It was kind good but a bit unusual because a lot of these things where made in the far east back then, and I think the companies involved, were keen to work with new people, so I used to get emails, but it was always a bit dodge because you didn’t know who people were or what they were doing, they would want to use you characters and pay you in toys.

NL: How did you make that connection. You eventfully build you a relationship after some emails going back and forth, but I worked with a couple of companies, and some time you just knew some times it was just doomed to failure, I worked for a company over a year making these prototypes, and sample of the things and then they never came out. The company disappeared and then the same happened again, and then the company in Hong Kong had I worked with for two years, and I’ve still got the prototype in my house, but they never came out and the company went bust or something, what happened was as the toy world became popular, as I understand it anyway, there started to be an influx of western, American companies, people like kid robot had started up, strange co they started importing toys from china and Japan, but then thought wait a minute, let stop buying toy and importing them to sell them in America, if we make the tots ourselves, we wont have to buy them of the far eastern companies so the went and pinched all the big artists of the far eastern guys. There’s nothing wrong with that I guess, so it went from one side of the world to another.

So then having failed with two companies Kidrobot, came round and said hey we’d like to make toys of your stuff, two years later they eventually came out.
So it was kind of frustrating I had given up hope of it happening to be honest.

NL: Had you had any contact with Pete (Fowler) at all?

JB: Yeah Pete was really good, and quite an inspiration because he was doing it himself, he had already built a fan base with the monsterism stuff. I was really keen, I really had strong ambitions to make toys, by the time they came out I was so fed up with it all I wasn’t that excited, but the anticipation of some thing is often better than the realization of it.

NL: Your work is everywhere in terms of objects, in toy on loads of different products.

JB: We kind of realized that I drew on a lot of things, and I know its always existed but there was a real rebirth of customization, one of the first commercial jobs I ever got was Levi’s they wanted me to customize, a leather pack the kind of thing that you put your belt through at the back of the jeans. They asked quite a lot of different artist to do that for there range. But them other companies thought that hey we don’t have to manufacture new stuff we can just draw on the stuff we already do, like the blank Munny toys and trainer companies started doing it. So I started drawing on a lot of things because I didn’t know any better.
So I guess the next step on is that people saw these things and said that’s kind of nice lets make more of then and then sell them.

Erm so I er I so there were lots of brands lots of companies started doing these little exhibitions when they would ask you to just come and customize some stuff for them. So that was a leg up to do more things and make contacts, because that was still in the early days. But it was just good to work wither its paid or not its just good to have that practice, clients and sending stuff round, that’s was in America so, before id even left Nottingham id had my work all over the world in exhibitions, and stuff.

So yeah I’ve done lots of product thing but generally their always low run, limited edition, low gamble, kind of stuff.

NL: Is it a mixture of them approaching you or you go to them?

JB: Oh yes sometimes but generally they always come to me.

NL: So you never really know what your going to get?

JB: I get a lot of invitations from like sportswear people saying hey we’ve got a new thing, and then its up to you if you want to do it or not. I don’t think you can force people into collaborating, if you have a friend that owns a company that is quite small then yes, but the big companies you have to wait until they come to you.

NL: So where have you just come back from?

JB: I’ve just come from my New York odyssey, which was really great because I had a exhibition in Brooklyn but I had time to see the sights I got to see some Basquiat pieces which I’ve always found really inspiring so er yeah I did a show about being anxious because I’ve done a lot of live drawing but its always makes me feel like a bit of a wally. But it turned out so I guess it was kind of fun. But the work were about all the anxieties I get or used to get I’m less anxious now I’ve chilled out a little bit. Some of the work was like, planes crashes, having no internet, being smelly and not been able to find a toilet when you need a toilet.

NL: Can we talk about the fact that everyone describes you as an illustrator but its not the case?

JB: I have done some illustration its true but I’m not really a illustrator, if I am I’m a really shitty illustrator, I’m really bad, I’m not very, I’ve been commissioned to do some illustrations which is good because you get paid, and some times its interesting but I’ve had many occasions were a client has asked me to draw something very specific, but I’m rubbish at, ill give it a go, but I’ve had many projects cancelled, I’m best left to do my own thing.

NL: Its like with Andy Mr. Scruff, You’ve created your own world and you do what you do and if people want that then…

JB: Yeah Yeah

NL: Basically what I’m trying to say is you’ve come out of your bedroom and took on the world.

JB. Well that’s a very grand way of saying it id think its more like I came out of my bedroom and I went downstairs to make some toast. But I was luck to graduate at the time when the inter net was really taking off so you could get your work seen all over the world and you could send emails to people and try and drum up some work.

NL: Can we open up the floor a bit and see if anyone has any questions? Any body?

NJB: Do you think that the process you use to create you art has any link to automatic drawing that the Surrealists use?

JB: Er yeah maybe, a little bit you asked whether, I don’t know if you all heard that but you asked whether I used an automatic drawing process that the Surrealist’s used, definitely a bit I always start with the vague idea of what I want to draw, but I don’t like see the image or anything, maybe little bits of it, but it changes, as you make it often what you have in your imagination is very different to how it starts to look on a wall, piece of paper I don’t know in my head its just a white weird milky white space, maybe a bit like heaven but made of cardboard, when I start drawing I like to be loose enough to improvise and adapt, to the media your using some times the pen will splert out ink in a different slight subtly different way so there is a million different variables of stuff, does that answer your question at all.

NJB. Yeah that’s great, I just want see if there was a direct link to your work and the subconscious,

JB: What like my mind?

NJB: Just that your not consciously designing each piece as such.

JB: Yeah yeah some times I might do a little rough sketch, but very rarely what I like to think is that each drawing is a design of its self, and if it doesn’t work then ill just do another drawing, so even when I have exhibitions and I have a lot of painting to do, I had an exhibition in Newcastle, and I made like over a hundred pieces of work, but each piece was just like a little practice for the next piece, I didn’t design each one, they just get made and I take things I liked from the last one and tried to integrate that into the next one, so I just kept making them, they all fail, on a certain level, none of then are good or correct or perfect or anything, but there might be a little nugget, a little nugget of goodness in each one, a little nugget of gold. That I might retain and use in the next one, I know a lot of artist that do rough sketches they even practice paintings, but I’m not really like that, to me each one is a little jiggle or skit or melody of its own, and if it doesn’t work I don’t deconstruct it, ill try and capture something else I bit different.

NJB Thank you
Posted by Nick Birch at 14:04 0 comments