Two years ago, Christopher Gray was the first designer we featured in our Artist Collection. Since then, many things have happened around him: he went through several stages of progress with his work which reminds us a lot of how we as a brand have evolved in the past. That‘s why he was the perfect pick for this season yet again! This time we also did an extensive interview with him and present even more of his great artwork.

For anyone of you who don‘t know him yet, Christopher is a designer, illustrator and picture taker. Originally from Manchester, England but currently living in Sweden, he is writing for Tourist Magazine and Sticks & Stones. Apart from that, he is director of Toy, an award winning collective of European designers, artists & illustrators which is working for brands such as Sony, Nike and Hilton.

Christopher, you’re a designer, an illustrator, a picture taker and writer. Does one of those occupations stand out as being your main focus?
Design is predominately the thing I loose the most amount of sleep over. I spend a great deal of time thinking the last idea wasn‘t good enough or that my projects could have been smarter, more poignant, better looking and so on, all very counter productive but I haven‘t yet found a way to stop it. Taking pictures – I wouldn‘t call myself a photographer – has certainly become more than just a hobby. I bought an old Praktica with 3 lenses, a metal box and 50 rolls of film from eBay for £50 which got me hooked pretty quickly, especially after seeing the results of using outdated film. From there I started colletcting anything that I liked the look of without googleing to see if it was good or not. I am a terrible writer, I‘m pretty certain I have a certain type of dyslexia that twists what I want to write into nonsense. I better not re-read this or there is a good chance I‘ll scrap it and want to start over. I do like it though. I started writing a story a few days ago after having some thoughts on the positive aspects of people living with Hypochondria in relation to making life changing decision.

Lately your work has evolved a lot. From your first Ucon artist feature we know you as a very funny illustrator. Your new artworks show a really abstract and minimalistic style. What has happened? How did you get there?
I started thinking about death a lot. It was my brothers fault, we were talking about being on our deathbed and wether you would be proud of what you had done. I figured I wouldn‘t want to be known as ‚the guy who made funny drawings about nipples‘. I think from that point I completely stopped anything related to that kind of humour. I‘m not anti-funny. Not one bit. There are people who do it very well. I just don‘t want to be one of them. I wanted to work on projects that really meant something to me, which documented a time of my life but also didn‘t rely on things I had learnt before.

Are there any modern day designers or past masters you really like? How did you get inspired or influenced for your new series of posters?
There are so many artists and designers that fascinate me. If you pick up any Graphis annual from 1960 until 1975 there is so much great graphic design from that era. Every time I get bored of looking at overly polished work I just have a browse through the few I own and it‘s my own little zen retreat. It‘s so easy to get wrapped up in how refined design looks now, it‘s so refreshing to remind yourself that a few bits of ripped paper can have so much soul. A year ago I had a student come and work in the Toy studio for a few weeks, his work inspired me a lot. His name is Mike Redmond (www.mikeredmond.co.uk) he draws stories, every mistake he makes he just re-drew it in pen over the top, leaving a kind of ghost of the rejected drawing. I really like it. As for the inspiration, I‘m pretty sure I can credit a great deal of it to my girlfriend. I spent a lot of the winter in Sweden starring out of the window at the snow moaning about how I didn‘t have anything to do. She reminded me to make the most of it and produce something for myself. I‘m not entirely sure why I wanted to do the classic painting series. I had been looking at Flaming June as a desktop wallpaper and thought the shapes were amazing.

You want to do 100 poster designs within a half year. That is an amazing output! How long on average would you spend on an illustration?
I think the 6 months will become 12 months, but that is ok. I have to put commercial products first for this time in the year. Summers are always busy before everyone closes down and hibernates during the winter. There is no average time per print. Sometimes I have to fiddle with one for hours or days to get it to feel right. Every now and again (very rarely) something magic happens and everything goes together perfectly.

Looking back, what have been some of your favorite projects?
In my eyes, it‘s all about collaborating with other people. The Toy exhibition in Berlin was one of the best times of my life, it was a ridiculously cold February day, and the room was packed wall to wall with good vibes. I‘m heading back to England tomorrow for another group show with tons of other amazing artists, so I‘m equally as excited about that. The one project which doesn‘t really look like any of my work but I still really like is the 18 wheeler design I did for Freitag.

In what place do you feel most home?
For the moment, definitely Sweden. It suites me perfectly. I‘m so lucky to be here for the summer. I‘ve never been in a position where if I get bored of work I can stroll down to the harbour and swim out to the pontoon and soak up some sun for an hour before heading home. Absolute bliss.

How does the countryside and Sweden influence your work? How is it different from working in a city such as Manchester?
It is certainly different to Manchester. I used to sit opposite an inner city multi storey car park. During the winter I watched kids who had gone to the very top, roll giant snowballs, dropping them off the side without really understanding that if they were to hit someone there was a good chance they would kill them. It went on for about ten minutes with me completely helpless to do anything about it. That depressed me a bit. Someone also told me that after a while you start to realise that you hear ambulance sirens at least once a day. I don‘t hate Manchester, in fact it‘s nice to go back to every now and again, but I‘m not sure I can say it feels like home. Out here I can concentrate much better and my work has certainly become a lot more refined.

Describe your typical day
I‘m always up before 9. Most of the people are in the UK so I have a 1 hour head start on them because of the time difference. I drink the liquid tar disguised as coffee with plenty of sugar and milk. Then I need to get the first ‚Get Mail‘ out of the way to make sure there isn‘t some ridiculously urgent file that needs to be sent over. If there isn‘t I can usually sit in my own little quite spot of the garden and do some reading. I‘ve just finished Kiss Kiss by Roald Dahl which was amazing and a bit disgusting. I‘ve also just finished reading about the meat industry which had an enormous impact on me. Then it‘s full steam on work. I usually don‘t take on anymore than three commercial projects at a time so I allow myself some breathing space. Plenty of breaks throughout the day is essential, no good design comes from locking yourself into a computer. My evenings are all about making too much food, sitting in the evening sun, reading and making my way through an overblown list of movies I should have seen by now.

We heard that you were really into computer games when you were a kid and you wanted to develop games. What would you like to do that you are not doing at the moment?
Yeh for sure. I was a massive geek. I still kinda am. I was paid by a company in the UK to play Counter Strike, which included a few trips to LAN competitions and fulfilling my lifetime quota of being pale and skinny. I don‘t regret it one bit, some memories from back then will always stay with me. Somewhere on the internet there is a photograph of me as a 16 year old posing with some horrific bikini models holding computer hardware I never used after winning a competition. It was like King of Kong for pubescent boys. I stopped playing years and years ago but I recently installed it again just for fun, but I‘ve certainly lost the magic. I‘ve said a few times I want to do some proper manual labour, big life experience stuff. Perhaps felling somewhere in the woods for a season eating cheese sandwiches with over brewed tea. I watched a documentary about Richard Proenneke who moved to Alaska to live a simple life after his retirement which has super inspired me to not just rely on the internet. I think a few months of no computer time would do me a world of good.

Aside from your own creative work, you’ve set up „Toy“ to represent other designers. What drew you into management?
There seemed to be so many agencies setup to „represent“ illustrators but really it was more like using younger talent who knew nothing about business to line their pockets. Still now, the majority of agencies select the work that will probably sell well to boring advertising agencies. Iheard so many stories about artists being treated terribly and companies doing all they could to weasel out of paying for work. I set up Toy to work with artists who deserved to be paid properly and have their work exhibited.

Which are the three most important links you check everyday?
I only follow three, so that is handy.
http://reform.lt/
http://haw-lin.com/
http://www.weoccupy.co.uk/blog/

What kind of people do you find interesting?
Anyone with good stories or who really cares about a subject they can talk passionately about.

What was the last song you listened to?
Everyone always lies when asked this. Not me. It just finished. Circles by Sandro Perri.

Thanks for the interview!

As we received great feedback on the illustrations for our current artist collabo with Pablo Abad, we are happy to announce that a new addition will be made to our ,Artist Feature‘. From now on your favourite designs are available on high-quality posters. Therefore our first releases will contain the works of Mario Hugo, Falko Ohlmer and Pablo Abad with more prints coming in the future. Click here to view all featured designs.

Pablo x Ucon Acrobatics – A mythical collaboration

For the coming fall & winter 2011/2012 collection we hooked up with Madrid based graphic designer Pablo Abad for the next collaboration on the ‘Artist Feature’. Streetwear Today is featuring three of our upcoming artist tees in their latest issue #37 and also an interview with Pablo Abad where he talks about his past, present and future projects. Get your copy of the current Stw2d and find out what led one of the most exciting illustrators to study graphic design.

Pablo Abad will also be featured at the live issue of stw2d no.37 on the 29th – 31st of July 2011 @ Rotunde – Bochum

Featured products: Minotauro Tee, Ciclope Tee and Medusa Tee

It is no secret that we dedicate each collection to an artist we like. In addition to the artist feature garments, which can be found in the ‘Artists‘ section in our shop, we also provide a free DIN A1 poster with every order. For our current spring/summer 2011 collection we chose the design ‘Poetic’ of our latest collaboration with Théo Gennitsakis.

One of our favourite artists recently released his new website. Besides the designs he made for our ‘Artist Feature‘ he shows some other great work including artworks for Beatsteaks and Neon magazine.

Falko Ohlmer is a Hamburg based graphic designer and illustrator, who is also known for his clothing brand ‘LeSucre’. He was born in 1977 in a small town near Göttingen (GER).

He used to play in a band were he was also responsible to create the covers for the demo tapes and posters. That’s how design caught his interest and why he then studied graphic design at the University of Applied Science in Mainz (GER) and the Swinburne National School of Design Melbourne (AUS).

After his studies he worked for several design agencies in the field of sports, music, culture and fashion. Now he has his own studio and does work for clients in the magazine business like ‘Neon’, ‘Die Zeit Campus’ and ‘Computer Arts’.