It’s October at the time of writing, and we’re a little later than we planned, but we wanted to do an update for the end of summer 2019, so here it is pretty much three-quarters of the way through the year. That seemed like a good point to update everyone with a look at how our year has shaped up. So far.
We added an artist with a very individual take on the world to our book – Klas Ernflo, whose work shows the influence of both his native Sweden and his adopted home of Barcelona.
He has a solo show opening in LA this November at a new space called Marta in Echo Park, which we’ll let you know more about soon.
We also added a new member to our team – Tine Toftdahl Nielsen is our new Marketing Executive, who is already proving to be a great asset to Breed.
We continued our strong relationship with the Design Museum this year, with a number of our artists and photographers being asked to participate in their celebration of International Women’s Day by answering questions in short videos posted to the museum’s Instagram. We also took part in their 30th birthday campaign, and Danny Sangra added his animation to clips from Kubrick films as part of the pre-publicity for the museum’s Stanley Kubrick: The Exhibition.
There were conversations with a variety of creative voices, including Kohei Mizumura, director of BEAMS T, the t-shirt division of Japanese fashion brand and retailer BEAMS, Senior Designer Louise Richardson of the Graphic Design Studio at the National Theatre, and Darren Pih on his curating of the Keith Haring exhibition at Tate Liverpool.
Meanwhile, we talked to Lecture in Progress about our thoughts on maintaining an artistic voice in a commercial environment – you’ll be able to see this on their site soon.
Early in the summer, we went to Amsterdam, where we had many useful meetings, including those with Studio Lidderdale, Elle, Vogue Nederland and Vogue Man, The Brave New Now, 180 Kingsday, We are Pi, adidas, Green Room, iris, branding and creative agency …,staat and film production company Post Panic.
Next month we’re off on a trip to New York. We’ll update you on that later in the year…
A few highlights from some or our favourite projects:
Besides turning up in Vogue, being cited as an inspiration by Louis Vuitton’s new artistic director for jewellery and watches, Francesca Amfitheatrof, Andy Gilmore has been producing vibrant personal pieces like ’Mental Models’ and ‘Frequencies’.
Anna Bu Kliewer has had a busy year, starting out by documenting a trek around Table Mountain in South Africa. She’s also had shows – ‘Floral Faults’ at The Curve in Berlin and ‘Growing Up’, which opens soon at the Forma Laboratory in Munich, worked with photographers The Bardos on a fashion spread for Vogue Portugal and appeared in the pages of the Financial Times, and as the artist for the cover of ‘Swallowing Geography’, a book by Deborah Levy, published by Penguin. She’s also the latest of our artists to be asked to create a ping pong bat for The Art of Ping Pong and continues to work regularly with the Financial Times.
Craig & Karl have produced a number of sculptural pieces so far this year, including a large installation called ‘Chromagic’ at the Siam Center in Bangkok, and a sculpture which helped launch premium water brand Arto LIFEWTR at the Truman Brewery in August. They created a new entrance for The London EDITION Hotel in Fitzrovia to celebrate Pride, though they didn’t stop there, also designing a capsule collection for fashion brand ESPRIT also celebrating Pride. Finally, the duo produced portraits of tennis stars John Isner and Tímea Babos for FILA as part of a new P.L. Rolando Tennis Collection campaign, also decorating the FILA store in Indian Wells, California in time for the 2019 BNP Paribas Open.
Danny Sangra has made a few short films so far this year, including his French New Wave-esque ‘Brigitte Moreau’ and the Paris set ‘La Chambre Champagne’. Elsewhere, he collaborated with Uniqlo and the Walt Disney Company on his own versions of Mickey, Minnie and Donald for their Magic for All Collection clothing range, was interviewed for the Creative Lives Podcast with Lecture in Progress, and on the Know Ideas podcast. More recently, his latest short film ‘Parlour Games’ has been teased and he’s been producing work with Channel 4.
James Joyce has been busy this year, starting it working with creative agency Meiré und Meiré on a series of stickers for German luggage manufacturer Rimowa. His work also turned up in an exhibition on the smiley image at the Underdogs gallery in Lisbon curated by Norman Cook. He helped create the look of an exclusive loyalty programme for MATCHESFASHION.COM and worked with BBH to illustrate ‘Vorsprung facts’ for Audi.
We think we’re safe in saying that most exciting for Kate Moross this year was their work on the Spice Girls’ Spice World tour, as they’d long been a fan. Though they also designed a set of softback journals for stationery brand MOO, the cover and graphics for a Guardian guide on applying to your university or college of choice and the pack for ‘rainbowless’ Skittles in support of Pride. And they talked to Refinery29’s Tom Glitter about how their hair reflects their identity in a piece called Hairstory.
You may have just recently seen Matt Blease’s work as part of Guinness’s campaign in support of the Rugby World Cup 2019 in Japan through AMV BBDO. Staying with Japan, earlier this year he designed a t-shirt for Japanese brand and retailer BEAMS, sold from their booth at The Greenroom Festival in Yokohama in May. He also added illustrations to outdoor clothing brand Patagonia’s recycling campaign, and added his images to a celebration of 100 years of Guardian Weekly. And he was especially excited to be asked by New Yorker magazine to provide illustrations celebrating the 50th anniversary of man landing on the moon.
Natasha Law’s exhibition ‘Deliberations’ at Eleven gallery has just closed, and showed a number of larger works of female figures. Earlier this year she was to be found aboard the US edition of Boat International magazine, illustrating a story by Kristin Ducote.
Aside from creating her own works, Paula Castro has also run a series of workshops this year, including one called ‘Originales menos perfectos’ at the CCK centre for contemporary art in Buenos Aires, tied into an exhibition of work by Claudia del Río, and a free drawing workshop at the Museum of Modern Art in Buenos Aires. As far as her own work is concerned, Paula has illustrated a piece on genuine craftsmanship in the luxury retail sector for the Harrods magazine and experimenting with printing some of her designs on t-shirts. She also appeared at the Frieze art fair and is working on a new project with Neumeister in Stockholm, which will be out later this year.
Earlier this year Phillippa Mills found herself inspired by the V&A’s Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams exhibition and captured images of some of the outfits shown in her own style. She also produced illustrations for new fashion brand rosamacher.com and imagery for London-based Americana band The Honey Ants. Oh, and there was a portrait of her horse, who has a liking for apples.
By the start of 2019, Quentin Jones had moved into her new Soho studio and got straight to work on projects like a new line called We Belong to Something Beautiful for international personal care and beauty brand Sephora and designing a snowboard called the Bottle Rocket for American ski and snowboard brand K2. She was also featured on Habitat’s website and in Harper’s Bazaar magazine showing them around her new London home. And November sees further changes as she bases herself back in New York.
Steven Wilson’s been working incredibly hard this year. He’s continued producing posters for gigs on America’s west coast, including for names like Mark Knopfler and Chromeo. Moving from music to fashion, Steven has recently contributed to the White Shirt Project, a tribute to the late Karl Lagerfeld, which saw 50 creatives reimagining the classic white shirt long associated with the fashion icon. He also created limited edition customisable Summer packaging for Calvin Klein’s CK One fragrance, a large-scale painting for an HSBC ‘Let’s Ride’ cycling event at Aston University which children could add to, and designed seasonal Pepsi cans in Korea. Sticking with Korea, Steven held an auction of his work with Seoul auction house K Auction, with the money raised going to charity, as well as solo exhibitions at Gallery Jeon in Daegu and Gallery Son and Gallery Insa Art in Seoul.
That’s our 2019 so far. And there’s already lots more underway that will be appearing in the coming months. We look forward to telling you about that soon.
Image – Steven Wilson