I had the chance to meet Mauro Gatti at Cut&Paste 2009 in Milan, where he was in the jury and I was contestant. Then I met him in his awesome art toys shop in Milan, Atomplastic, so we arranged this interview about him and vinyl toys.

K3- Who is Mauro Gatti?

MG- I am an Italian illustrator and designer. I love to draw and put on paper all the ideas swimming in my head. A smile is the cheapest way to be happy, that’s why I always try to make people smile through my drawings. As I always say “Welcome, stranger, while you’re in my territory no boring thoughts will fill your head.”

K3- What about Mutado? When did it start? What does it offer?

MG- In 2004 I founded Mutado, a creative studio, in Milan together with my longtime friend Lorenzo. Our goal is to entertain, engage and mix all the different talents inside the studio to produce some quality work that ranges from print, to video, illustration and mobile.

K3- When did your passion for art toys begin? When did you design your first toy? What was it?

MG- My passion started a long time ago, I am an avid and loyal collector of James Jarvis’s toys. My house is filled with toys, my office is crowded with toys and my mind is overloaded with toys All my illustrations are conceived to become a toy but I’m not rich enough to make this happen! But I do remember that the day I drew the Carrot Slayer I had the feeling that it was time to stop daydreaming and to try to enter the magic world of vinyl.

K3- Let’s talk about your new businesses: VeryBravo & Atom Plastic Milan Shop

Very Bravo was born out of a question: What if we could see all the bad things in life through an optimistic lens? My answer was simple, let’s add a touch of humour to everything that is frightening!
The first character that came to my mind was the Death, usually an icon of sorrow and pain.
I created a funny Death making the OK gesture and a mocking sneer and turned it into the brand’s mascot.
The Ghetto Reaper flirts with the hip-hop culture in an ironic and funny way, starting from its name, the golden tooth and the large bling jewelry with the RIP symbol around his neck.
The Carrot Slayer is Very Bravo’s tribute to the vegetarian movement: a funny executioner that, being against the murdering of people and animals, decided to put himself to the test in the art of cookery, cutting and chopping vegetables with his axe. His sidekick is a little freshly chopped carrot

Talking with my friend Piero, the owner of Atom Plastic, I mentioned that Milan was lacking an 100% toy shop and in a few minutes we decided to join our forces, Mutado’s creativity and Atomplastic’s experience, and open an Atomplastic Shop in Milan. Every Saturday I go to the Shop to meet some people and it’s like living a dream… being surrounded with toys and smelling the vinyl vapors that make you high

Once we joined our forces we also decided to create a toy production company called Superpowers and to produce Very Bravo under its name.

K3- Can you explain us the process of creating a vinyl toy, from the design to distribution?

The first step is obviously to design the toy. When I was happy with my design, I got a sculptor to make it into a toy out of polymer clay. When this was approved, I had a factory make a rotocast mould from the sculpture, cast it in vinyl and colour it the way I had planned (they produce colouring masks and tampons for this). The first prototype was ready. Once I approved the test shots the factory sent me, the assembly line could make as many toys as I wanted. That’s basically it, really! In the meanwhile someone works on the packaging and distribution.

Jared Nickerson is an illustrator/designer based in Seattle – USA. His funny and colorful style is becoming more and more popular, he’s also co-founder of Blood Sweat Vector collective and community director of  La Fraise.  I’ve been lucky enough to collaborate with him and join BSV, and besides a talented and skilled artist he’s also a really nice person, so here for you: Mr. Jared Nickerson.

1- Can you introduce yourself to our readers? What’s your background?

I’m a 27 year old freelance illustrator based out of Seattle, Washington. I have over six years in the industry, and I run my own design studio, J3Concepts. I’m also remote Art Director for European based clothing label laFraise and Co-Founder of renowned vector community BloodSweatVector. I specializes in character, editorial, video game, product, and textile design along with art direction and management.

2- When did you start working with vectors? Using which software/version?

I actually took a media tech course in highschool, it was the first ever offered of it’s kind in the area and I was taught to work with CorelDraw. A few years later I picked up a copy of Adobe Illustrator 9 and slowly taught myself that. Illustrator to this day remains my tool of choice.

3- What do you like most about using vectors?

Versatility for the most part. Vector can really fit any sort of product. You can change color schemes in seconds, increase the size without losing quality, no more saving in massive 300 dpi format for print, etc. The advantages are huge. Essentially though it depends on what look you are going for and vector itself seemed to suit my style and approach a lot better than raster. It’s all a matter of taste of course.

4- You have a superfunny style, very modern but with a retro look in a lot of details of your characters. Where do you find inspiration for your art and characters?

Inspiration can come from anything really, real life people I know, certain animals, or even other artists. I find browsing www.ffffound.com on a regular basis to be a good source of inspiration. I do like very vintage style characters and cartoons, so I always try to implement that look into my work.

5- Besides being an illustrator you’re also creative director of LaFraise.com. How did you start your collaboration with them?

I actually started out with them last year as Community Director on their EU English site. I handled artist communications along with their English blog and portions of moderation. I had won a few times on laFraise so had gotten to know the staff, so we worked if out one day for me to work along side them. That slowly evolved into the Art Director position I hold now.

6- Because of this role in LaFraise you travelled pretty often to Europe. What do you like of Europe, and Berlin in particular? Which are the main differences between Europe and USA as a designer, in your opinion?

I love Berlin, truly a great city. Great art culture including music. I enjoy the overall attitude to the industry in Berlin and other parts of Europe I’ve been to. They seem very open to various methods and mediums of art including the more digital kind that I specialize in.
Differences, honestly besides architecture, there aren’t a lot of major differences. I find attitudes towards art in general are fairly consistent throughout the places I’ve travelled. Seems like what’s popular in Europe is also popular here and vice versa. All trends seem to cover the globe eventually.

7- Designer, illustrator, creative director of LaFraise and also co-founder of Blood Sweat Vector collective. What can you tell us about BSV project? Where is it came from? You just had your first collective exhibition in Berlin, next goals?

Well Brad Mahaffey and myself sat down awhile back and figured there wasn’t a real outlet for vector artists to sit down and post their work, a vector exclusive website where the artist is in control. That’s where we came up with BloodSweatVector. The artist themselves are in control of what the public sees.
And by artists I mean some of these guys are known world round for their artwork. Some have produced toys, video-games, clothing, you name it. These guys are on top of their game and we figured what a good place for all of these like minded artists to get together and mess around. We really try to encourage the members to comment on each other’s work. A huge thing for artists is getting feedback from other like-minded artists they respect and look-up to, and we really want to encourage that sort of interaction. So far it seems to be headed in the right direction. Next steps could include an upcoming show in LA, we’ll see.

8- Who are your creative heroes? Someone in particular you look at?

That’s a tough question without leaving anyone out. I’d def. say any of the members of BloodSweatVector. We hand picked them all, so I obviously admire all of them. I’d have to say some of my favorite vector illustrators are BSV members. Some of these artists I’ve had the privilege of working on various projects with as well, including a few upcoming ones.

9- Can you reveal us some of your upcoming projects? What are they about?

I cant get into too much detail, but I’m working on a number of projects including a full deck of playing card series, vinyl toy series, and various shows. Included in these are various personal projects and the usual commercial projects with clients such as Nike, laFraise (of course), Delta Airlines, Mad Decent etc. And keep in mind you can always check my website for updates at www.jthreeconcepts.com or Behance www.behance.net/j3concepts.

Thanks a lot to Jared

Koikoikoi made this interview for the fourth issue of italian magazine Bang Art, out now (you can buy it here). We had this interview, for our and for Bang Art’s readers, with Kid Acne, english street artist, illustrator and… rapper

Koikoikoi: Let’s start with a quite obvious question: you’re a musician and a visual artist at the  same time. If I ask you which one is the job and which one is an hobby, what  would you say?
Kid Acne: Well, they both started out as hobbies, but I would say I am an artist first and a musician second. I don’t see either as a job, but I am self sufficient as an artist. With music, I rely on my friends – so I guess it’s less regular.

K: What the deepest connection between your music and your art?
KA: The only real connection is that I make them both. I suppose Graffiti and Rap both come from Hip-Hop, but as I get older, my music is less-rap and my art is less-graffiti. It’s just my personality presented in different formats depending on what I feel like doing or want to try and say.

K: You have a strange way to be a “graffitist”. You have an entire world of charachters and you prefer to draw “scene” that told a sort of story than usual letters or tags. Where you find the inspiration for your works? Where are your characters from?
KA: I’ve always painted letters and tags and I still do, but it’s not enough to express everything I want to say. Some people are happy to only paint letters, but after some time I felt I was just adding to mediocrity and not really having my own voice. Graffiti is important schooling, but it is also about having your own style and breaking conventions. I come from a graffiti background, not a Street Art background, but I think the inspiration for my work came from wanting to see things I didn’t see in regular graffiti and I was trying to present some of these things to a wider audience, not just graffiti writers. Actually, many Graffiti Writers would ask me to paint characters because they were different to the usual stuff and they wanted to see some changes too! My work is not groundbreaking, it’s not the best, but I am proud to say it’s mine! It’s my style and my personality. I see many people creating things that look competent, but it’s not really theirs – they stole it from books and the internet. Individual style and personality is most important I think, otherwise you’re just painting by numbers.

K: Your style looks very “handmade”, how’s your relation with digital design?
KA: I draw everything by hand. I never use a ruler to measure things, but I do use a computer to lay out work for print. My favourite mediums are screen-print and spray-paint. I never mix them together, but I love the analogue process of them both. Everything is better in real life.

K: Have you got any “art-hero” you look at? And a “music-hero?” Both in the past or in the present…
KA: I would say my art heroes are Ramm:Ell:Zee and Quentin Blake. My music heroes are perhaps Beastie Boys, New Kingdom and Mark E. Smith. The artist who has influenced me most however is She One and the musician I learnt from the most from is his brother-in-law, Req One. They are both true heroes!

K: Tell us something about the environment you’’ve grown up in. Did the fact of  being in a small town and not in a big city like London influence you in some way? How’s the street art scene changed in these years in front of your eyes, for you that lived both like visual and music artist?
KA: I grew up in a small town – a nice, quiet place, but also the kind of place where it’s easy to get lost in drugs or get someone pregnant at a young age. I was the only kid who did graffiti, but I really enjoyed having non-graffiti friends. We used to go on road trips, have BBQ’s, swim outdoors, play in bands, get drunk, take drugs, make music and make comics – basically anything to escape boredom. It was good, fun place to grow up, but I would hate to live there now. I moved to Sheffield when I was 17 to study Fine Art and I stayed here since then. It’s a good base, there’s not much of a graffiti scene, but i have a lot of good friends here and it’s also surrounded by beautiful countryside. I go to London regularly and also travel abroad as much as possible. Living in Sheffield means I can travel round the world but also have somewhere to come back to I can call home.

K: You’ve always been inclined to experimentation, trying to distinguish yourself. Have you got any advice in this moment, where on the internet you can find a lot of inspirations but also a leveled language? You have a blog, so what’’s your relationship with the internet? Which sites do you surf?
KA: I really hate the internet. I had a basic website 7 or 8 years ago and then decided to take it offline because it just felt pointless. I went on FaceBook for 6 months and deleted that too. I have a My Space page, but i keep thinking about deleting that too. I started a Blog 18 months ago. The main reason was to keep track of my work output. It’s nice to look back over a year and think “I actually did something this year. When did that happen?” I try to keep my blog strictly artwork, but it is only really 5% of what I do. I don’t want everything I do on the internet, but it’s a necessary evil – i got sick of seeing shitty photos of my work on Flickr and decided “If you can’t beat them, join them” – so here i am! It’s nice to have control of your work, but it’s also nice to let go. Once it’s on my site – i don’t think about it anymore and i don’t care about Flickr anymore either. I’m glad people like my work enough to photograph it and put it on the internet, i’m just glad i have my own site too. I check a few websites, but i much prefer finding old music videos on You Tube. There’s some classic stuff out there + i don’t have a TV.

K: Can you tell us something about your so much different experience.  Designing art toys for Kidrobot, skateboards, totem, also apparel… What the different for you at the beginning of each project? You try yourself to get closer to the client or maybe you do your stuff and only after you adapt it to the new “media”?
KA: I’m interested in different print processes, but really everything starts the same – with a sketch. I don’t really look for work. People often contact me. I had an agent for a while, but they never got me any work and it’s nice to do things on your own if you can. Some companies are good to work for, some aren’t. The best work is usually the stuff you never get paid for, but I don’t really change what i do. If a company likes my work, cool. If not, they can find someone else. it doesn’t matter if it’s £50 or £5,000 – i always do my own thing, you just need to remind yourself that that’s the reason they contacted you in the first place!

K: Where will be Kid Acne in 2014? And in 2019? And in 2059? You know, a sort of crazy time travel!
KA: Well, 2014 is not so long away, so i’ll probably be doing the same kind of thing. I hope i’m not dead before 2059, but if i am – please play ‘Ooh La La’ by the Faces at my funeral, followed by ‘Infiltrate 202′ by Altern 8 and ‘Tribal Bass’ by Rebel MC. Thanks for your interest. Peace out. x

Dont’ miss the new Bang Art issue, where, beside this interview you can find many other interesting contents and 2 pages by Koikoikoi!

Extra content:

Click here to view the embedded video.