Despite my unexpected success designing tee shirts, I often become envious of friends because I’ve never had a “style”. Maybe it’s part of being a graphic designer, working for lots of clients in different industries, every client’s work should look different. My personal art is different. At times I’ve tried to consciously come up with a style, but it’s always felt a bit contrived. In 2014 Threadless came up with a challenge themed around Lowbrow art. I’ve never been good at keeping up with art movements and styles, there’s things I like and things I don’t.

However, I always research these themes because it is nice to find out about new artists. It turns out that I already liked a fair few artists in this field, from Jeremy Fish to Gary Baseman.

I started with the idea of a playing card with a king and a queen on it, and then just made it up as I went along. Really enjoyed working in this way, plus it seems to sit well with me. The bright process colours and halftones reflect my influences of Gilbert and George, Lichtenstein and other pop artists. I really enjoy working in vector, though it can be quite time consuming.

Fast forward a few months and I have a couple of strong pieces which really hang together well in some sort of style. I’ve approached the Mona Lisa and most recently He-Man in a silly hair cut mashup idea for a Threadless Challenge.

There’s no moral to this story, Threadless have printed one of these designs here and Society 6 are using Mona Lisa to promote their new Wall Tapestries. Check them out below.