Gallery on 4th’s Sanele ‘Snitch’ Xolo recently had the privilege of posing a few questions to Mark Ward, prolific and acclaimed graphic designer from London, in connection with his recent Nike collaboration.
Snitch: Please tell us a bit more about yourself, your background. Who is Mark Ward and what do you do?
Mark Ward: I’ve been asked that question a lot so it’s pretty hard to give you an original answer but basically I’m 28 years of age and I come out of South London. I’m a graphic artist and grew up in and around skate culture. A lot of my artwork is based on skateboard graphics. I used to work for Stussy in the U.K and have been my own boss for the past 2 years.
S: A lot of your work appears very detailed and hand crafted (you use a lot of spray paints and acrylics etc.) How much of it do you do digitally?
M.W.: All my work is created by hand and then rendered on computer. I use my Mac to digitise my work to be able to set it up for print etc. It also balances my work between that hand crafted aesthetic and mass market printed objects (that looks flat), i.e. no visible brushstrokes; reminiscent of Saturday morning cell painted cartoons and screen printed graphics.
S: You’ve done a lot of work with a number of streetwear brands like Stussy, Burton Snowboards and even Nike. How has this helped your career and what does this mean to you?
M.W.: I’ve always wanted to do what I do and I’ve just been fortunate to be approached by brands like Nike. Having worked for Stussy has helped to get my name out there. It’s helped me grow and to get to work on stuff that I’m into. I’ve stuck to what I like and have been true to my own vision. I’ll collaborate with brands that I have shared interests with, and that allow me to do what I do best. I’m into skating and snowboarding, hence the collaboration with Stussy, Burton and Nike.
S: You recently worked on a collaboration with Nike [FA09] to produce graphic and theme for your team. Can you tell us how this came about?
M.W.: I’ve been good friends with Acyde [Nike Marketing Manager, London] for a while now - since he used to work at Crooked Tongues. I used to do flyers for him so when he went on to work for Nike he called me up and things just progressed from there.
S: The brief for the collaboration was to come up with a sports team identity, mascot, nickname, look etc. You chose St. Reathem. Can you tell us what the inspiration for that was and what it means?
M.W.: St. Reathem is the nickname for Streatham, the place where I currently live in South London. It’s just south of Brixton which is infamous for knife crimes (no different to any other city). Most varsity sports teams choose a name associated with the surroundings or history of their location – Miami Dolphins, San Francisco 49ers etcetera.
St. Reatham Souls pays homage to the victims of the crimes. As this brief was more of a graphic logo brief and a step away from my more illustrative work, I flipped it on its head and used flaming halos and devil icons rather than imagery of winged harps. It’s a play on me selling my soul to the devil and is also reminiscent of 1980s skate graphic humour that is found in my other work.
S: A lot of graphic artists, such as Kaws, Parra and Dave White tend to branch out into vinyl toys and fashion. What is your plan for the future?
I’ve worked with Medicom in the past and worked on an existing Be@brick mould. It all comes full circle. I don’t want to force it. Also, I think the market went crazy for a little while and has started to calm down more recently. I don’t want to jump on the bandwagon but, yeah, I would love to get into toys and produce my own figure. But only if the time was right. It’s a similar situation on the fashion side of things. My enjoyment comes from creating images, not necessarily clothes. I work with brands where it makes sense. I’m into sneakers and skateboarding so the collaboration with Nike was only natural - same with Stussy.
Thanks to Acyde for facilitating this telephonic interview and, of course, Mark Ward for his time.
The results of this collaboration will be available at Gallery on 4th and selected retailers.
See more here and here .
