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ExploreThey have the tee culture in their blood and they breath creativity. Tee designers are the guys behind the tees. We’ve got ourselves an interview with David (Kgullholmen). He’s from Leipzig, Germany and he’s creates tees for brands like RedBubble, Tee Fury and many others..
Kgullholmen, the designer behind the tee! Let the interview begin!
TH: What would be a typical day for you?
David: Well, I climb out of my bed and try hard to make it to the coffee machine.
One mug of black coffee and a bowl of cereals later, my brain will start to work too. Checking e-mails, news channels, whatever happened online, and then I’ll have a long, empty stare at my schedule. One column is usually full of unpleasant notes like „get taxes done“ or „contact webspace company“, but then there’s my art column that provides my dose of artist nutrition: „finish zombie design“ or „ink & colour pin-up“. Usually I will try to get some of the boring stuff out of the way before getting behind artwork. Then I will spend most of the day working on or promoting my art. The latter includes everything from submitting artworks to sites, maintaining my social network channels, my shop … well, all that kind of art-related stuff you have to do to actually sell your art.
Depending on how much works needs to be done before bedtime I will either wolf down a pizza and work ’til midnight or 1am or I will cook something really nice and spend the evening catching up on my favourite TV shows.
TH: How would you describe yourself?
David: I’m not very organized. I can be, I really have to force myself to be. My desk looks like an explosion of chaos (yes, exploded chaos) most of the time and I never really find what I’m looking for. But none of this matters when the music plays (usually really loud) and I’m drawing. Hours can go by without me noticing any of them when I draw.
TH: What inspires you to make artwork?
David: I guess it’s two things: some of my works are experimental, some form of self-expression. I try to put on paper what’s in my head, regardless if it makes sense or looks pretty. A lot of my artworks are things I encountered in disturbing dreams.
My shirt designs on the other hand usually stem from spontaneous ideas that make me go „I bet that would look cool on a shirt“. These I try to make as aesthetically pleasing as possible. My pop-culture designs are based on films, books or series I really like a lot … I’m a sucker for Futurama, Breaking Bad, Venture Bros and the like. My original designs are usually a combination of both sides: experimental but aesthetically pleasing designs.
TH: What was your first piece of professional work?
David: Well, I worked in advertising for a while before I decided that I don’t really like it. So I guess my first pro work was just logos. Then I enrolled at university, studied literature and started making posters and artworks for local bands for little or no money. My first shirt ever sold was Rorschach from Moore’s Watchmen with a working QRcode for a face. The money I made from that shirt went straight into a new Wacom, and I decided to make more.
TH: I saw that you work with brands such as Redbubble. Could you tell us more about that?
David: Redbubble and daily shirt sites offer the great opportunity to get your product out there without having to get stacks of posters, shirts or stickers printed beforehand, and therefore invest money you simply don’t have as a newcomer. It’s one thing to know what looks good, but it’s an entirely different pair of shoes to know what sells. That’s something only experience will teach you, and that’s something else you don’t have as a newcomer. And yes, I do plan to have my own brand one day (like Glennz shirts for example), but until I have they money to invest, I think Redbubble is a good place to start. My shop has been growing ever since I started it and it’s a wonderful community over there.
TH: We’ll like to showcase your workplace, the tools you work with,techniques you use. Could you tell us more about that?
David: Everything I do starts out as a rather crummy scribble in one of my countless notebooks I keep close to me at all times. They are just sketches to not forget my idea, but I will add notes like colors I’d like to try, slogans or references all the time whenever inspiration hits me.
Most of the time I will create my own references, like posing as a zombie myself, and then pencil and ink the idea on cardboard. I use a simple HB mechanical pencil, and I ink with a Pentel Brush Pen, as it combines the best of both worlds: a real brush tip with the comfort and usability of a fountain pen.
The next step is to scan and vectorize the linework. I use CorelDRAW because that’s the program I’ve been using ever since and I recently got my hands on a copy of X5. That’s the step that is most time consuming: I add typography, tweak lines, colour and clean up the design. I use a Wacom
Intuos3 for actual drawing processes, but I use a M570 Logitech trackball for all the vector-bending. I just recently switched from mouse to trackball for my wrists sake. Finally the design is put away for at least a day to be looked at again for a final check and off it goes to wherever it’s needed. It takes about 2 to 4 days from the initial idea to a finished design, but that’s mainly because commission work or other tasks will always get in the way.
TH: How would you describe your work?
David: I clearly come from comics. I love comics and I draw comics myself. So I guess my designs are heavily influenced by that. That and psychedelic and exploitation style poster designs from the 60s and 70s. Other than that I try to give the theme room to breathe: I wouldn’t force “my style” onto a design just to make it “kgullholmen”. I’d rather incorporate my style into a design but let the design’s topic work for me. Go where the design takes you, see if you like where you ended up, work from there. And I do love to experiment, if time permits it. So I can stray from routines easily to see what can be done in a different way, which naturally results in different stiles.
TH: What is the most important thing that you’ve learned about art?
David: A lot of concepts in the world of art are overrated. Originality for originality’s sake will only make you look obscure. But creating one crowd pleaser after another will cost you your integrity as an artist. An artwork isn’t just the looks of it or just the concept behind it, nor is it the artist’s name. It’s all of that and more. There is a certain quality in art that isn’t any of that but will make all the difference between “what a load of crap” and “I don’t know why, but I love it”. For me art is about pushing boundaries. Not necessarily for art as such, but for myself. I know something I made is good if it strikes me as “my best so far”. Not everything I produce makes it over that threshold, but that doesn’t stop me.
TH: Could you tell us about some of the reactions from your tees from the general public?
David: I’d like to believe people like my output. I know my followers on facebook do, because they let me know every now and then. And I know the people who buy my shirts like them … for obvious reasons. It really makes me very happy to receive friendly notes how or why people like a specific shirt.
Because then I know that all the details and references hit the spot. But if you put your art on public display on the internet, there’s always going to be someone who doesn’t like it and feels compelled to let you know. That’s something I had to come to terms with, but Jimiyo (the art director of TeeFury) gave good advice regarding this: “Don’t read comments. And if you do, be careful who you believe.”
TH: What project are you working on now?
David: Right now I’m trying to get some original designs done, really hoping to get something out on threadless. Then there’s of course commission work, poster and logo designs. And then I’m to get a more personal project I’ve been working on for quite some time now done. It’s a graphic novel called ’01 that includes a lot of dreams and thoughts my younger self had about the world as it is … sort of a coming-of-age story with a lot of confusion, death and question marks. That’s what I’m working on right now … and of course, finding perfect Christmas gifts for my loved ones .
The interview has been exciting for us, thank you David for straight shooting the answers. If you guys have any questions for David, comment below!
