Pete Fowler Interview

Interview
British-born creative Pete Fowler has been a pioneer in the field of toy design with his playful take on the possibility of accepting a world with monsters. His career spans over a decade of unique work for the likes of Super Furry Animals to Kia cars. He gave UKAdapta an exclusive peek into the world of Monsterism with a visit to the headquarters, located on a little island….

- Tell us about yourself as an artist and your role within the company Playbeast.

P: My name is Pete Fowler, I am an artist, illustrator and toy designer and I work in a variety of mediums, for example toys, which I do with my company Playbeast, which is based in the UK. We set that up about 5 years ago to produce my own toys, after I had finished working with Sony in Japan.

- Tell us about your work/concepts, both as Director of Playbeast as well as your own personal work.

P: I guess my work comes from the world of monsters, the supernatural, myths and odd characters. I created this world called Monsterism where all these creatures I created exist and interact with each other. This is something that has been going on for a number of years and I also have my commercial-side of work, like projects for Kia cars and right now, I’m working on a project for a French power company. Some of the commercial projects I do, feed off the Monsterism thing a little bit. For example the characters I created for the car ads were quite monster-based and I guess this helps to keep my work fairly recognizable; so these two things run alongside each other. Every little project helps to feed into a part of the Monsterism world, kind of like fitting parts into a puzzle.

- Why have you decided to create a world?

P: It started when I was doing a lot of editorial work for GQ magazine in London. I was doing a lot of figurative work and had a brief for each project which I had to stick to. With a world concept, you can choose to make anything you want as there are no rules. I had some characters that I wanted to develop and came up with an environment for them all to inhabit. It also gave me a chance to really get into a project that could be developed over time and continue to grow and evolve.

- Where else do you draw your influences from?

P: From supernatural and scary stuff like the Yeti, ghosts, Loch Ness Monster, UFO’s and giant snakes. When I was young, they seemed so real and it really caught my imagination. British comics, now sadly a dying industry was also an influence as well as collecting a lot of music.

- You released a CD a couple years ago as part of the Monsterism world, any plans for a second one?

P: Yeah, I released that compliation album, entitled “Sounds of Monsterism Island” under Heavenly Records, to try and create a soundtrack for the monsters inhabiting the island. I have a big record collection and am a huge fan of music and it’s definitely been a source of inspiration for a lot of my own work; it can affect your mood in different ways and I quite often feed from that. The album varied from Psychedelic Rock, to Exotica to early electronic stuff and we plan to release the second compilation this year. This time, the style of the album will be based around “Library Music”, which is a style of music which is created by top session musicians.

The music that they made was sold for television and for films, so as a film maker, with not much of a budget for an original film score, you could buy these ready-made tunes from Library record labels. I’ve compiled about thirty tracks that I think fit with Monsterism, so the music tends to be slightly surreal, psychedelic and weird. These tracks were then given to some other musicians that I like, who have written a new track inspired by the Library music!

- What projects have you just finished/working on now?

P: I have just had my Vol.4 Monsterism toys released, I just finished with my solo exhibition at the Stolenspace Gallery and am also currently working on an animation. The animation has been in the works for a few years now and involves animating and bringing the world of Monsterism to life.

We have worked with a few writers over the years and each area of the island has grown and developed, making the need for a

funnier and darker, yet more playful script. Recently, we have been working with a London-based production company called Baby Cow and an animation studio called Triffic. At the moment we are in negotiations with various television broadcasters like Channel 4 and ITV to see if we can do a TV series about Monsterism Island. It’s great because I have always loved cartoons and with the music and toy-side, it can all be incorporated in an animation and it brings all my interests into one project.

- Any new projects that we should be looking out for in the near future?

P: Just did a hooded top, jacket, cardigan and t-shirts for Boxfresh which should be dropping soon. I’ve always been interested in doing fashion, for example I did some stuff with the Osaka based label Satan Arbeit a couple years ago.

Interview:ukadapta.com