Breed Christmas 2016
A festive round robin from Breed
We thought we’d do something a little different to mark the holiday season this year and send you a Breed round-robin letter. You know, one of those massive missives that arrives in a Christmas card from someone you once met on holiday, describing their year in excruciating detail. But we’ll spare you tales of Auntie Doris’ brave battle with lumbago or young Tarquin’s stellar performance as a sheep in the school Nativity play, and instead let you in on what our band of artists, photographers and film-making talent got up to over the course of 2016. And remember, this is just a small taste of our favourite projects amongst all that went on.
January
Cat Garcia started the year with a stunning personal folio of images documenting a trip to South America, and hasn’t stopped since, with commissions for MR PORTER, The Journal and Boys by Girls magazine. In between, she’s been shooting subjects including Sam McKnight, Skye Gyngell and Olivia von Halle, for her Quarterly exhibition next year. And we were also thrilled that she was named as an official ambassador for Leica.
Meanwhile, Neal Murren was busy creating a beautifully-detailed map for Pottermore, the digital heart of J. K. Rowling’s magical universe. Over 20 feet across, the piece also featured at Universal Studios Orlando ‘Celebration of Harry Potter’ event at the end of January.
February
The big event for James Joyce was his solo exhibition at colette Paris in February, based around the word ‘Like’, and how it has taken the place of the word ‘Love’ for the internet generation. His illustration work has also graced the covers and pages of Le Monde and M le magazine du Monde.
And Anna Bu Kliewer found herself illustrating a piece about walking across London by Will Self in ES magazine, just one among many pieces of work she produced this year.
March
Matt Blease turned up with some new boards he’d designed for skater types Flatspot in March. And he stayed on wheels for his next projects, though two this time. First he illustrated Rapha’s celebration of the Tour de France, before setting off on his own cycling odyssey across Belgium, following the route of the Tour of Flanders for his own project An Illustrator’s Guide to the Ronde.
April
This spring, we were delighted to welcome Craig & Karl to Breed. More recently, they’ve produced ‘Optimystic’, an installation for Showcase ITCH in Guatemala City. And they worked on a project with IRIS for Wacom, which is to be released in Dec 2016.
May
Steven Wilson opened his first solo show ‘Article’ at The Book Club in Shoreditch in May. But that was just part of an extremely busy year for Steven, that included working trips to LA and New York, and collaborations with Strut and Fibre, MullenLowe, Citroën, The Guardian, New Scientist and Wired.
June
MASA created a series of striking collages to illustrate a piece by Florence Rolfe on swimming pools in House & Garden’s June issue. He’s also been heavily focused on personal works, including the series’ ‘Future Primitive’ and ‘Imaginary Travel’.
July
The summer belonged to Natasha Law, whose exhibition ‘Line and Curves’ was at Eleven in London during July and August, while just a month earlier she was one of six illustrators commissioned by British Vogue to help them celebrate their centenary in the June issue.
August
Paula Castro worked with Here Design creating some incredibly detailed illustrations for the Palomar Cookbook, specifically the ‘For Those Who Want to Kick Back’ section, on the art of making the Soho restaurant’s signature cocktails. The book was published in August by Octopus.
September
As autumn approached, Kate Moross was asked by Disney to design a poster for children, highlighting the principles of being a modern princess. For Kate, this was a dream job, as she’s been a Disney fan since childhood. She’s also been hard at work with Studio Moross on numerous projects, highlights including work with her team for MTV on various projects, including the broadcast design and show packaging for the VMAs, and developing campaigns for both Wild Life and Parklife festivals for 2017.
October
Daisy de Villeneuve collaborated with the V&A and Penguin Random House Children’s publishing on a book ‘Fashion Mash Up’. It’s part of a range of books that encourage children to engage creatively with art and design. The book was issued in October.
November
The big event this year for Danny Sangra was the Hollywood premiere of his feature film ‘Goldbricks in Bloom’ in November, which followed earlier screenings in London and New York. The Los Angeles Times described it as ‘sharp’ and ‘surprising’ while calling Zosia Mamet’s performance ‘pitch perfect’. Not that Danny has directed just the one film recently – this year there were also the three short films he created for Standard Hotels’ ‘Standard Time – check in/out’ campaign, and the short film ‘Tourists’ he made for mytheresa.com and Balenciaga. Plus, as he’s recently joined production company B-Reel Films, we can expect a lot more him onscreen soon.
Over in Germany, Andy Gilmore was working with Mercedes Benz, which came in addition to pieces he did for Wired Italy and Hyperion in the USA.
December
And so to Christmas, which sees Steven Wilson getting into the festive spirit with Hunters, bringing the feel of the penny arcade to their ‘Winter Hunterland’ campaign.
Back at Breed headquarters, we’ve had a pretty busy year, too with marketing trips to Paris, Berlin (x two) and Miami this month.
All that remains is for us to wish you all a very Happy Christmas, and we look forward to seeing what 2017 holds for everyone (Spoiler – we already know there are some very exciting things in store from us).
Image – Steven Wilson