Ian Viggars

In Autumn 2024 I was approached by my long term collaborators The French Workwear Company to create an illustration based on old-school fashion drawings, that could be used to promote their markets and pop-ups.

The request was to have two figures, one male and one female, dressed in classic examples of vintage French workwear, plus to have one character holding the tote bag featuring the logo I’d previously designed for them. That, and a wire fox terrier too.

The end results is two A4 size illustrations, one with a simple brick wall background, and one without, but the idea also came up to create a square image with text explaining the various factors that make-up classic workwear.

The illustration style is the one I usually use for human figures, and is very similar to the animated music videos I’ve made.

I’m open to taking on more illustration commissions of this nature, so if you like what you see, please get in touch to discuss.

I sell a range of colourful prints featuring my work. Some are straight forward reproductions of paintings, others are digital illustrations.

Pretty much every print can be bought in three standard paper sizes - A5, A4, and A3.

Shop my full collection of prints here.

On May the 7th 2016 I completed my first ever mural / street art commission. I was asked by Tjinder Singh of Cornershop and Ample Play records to replicate my original Fab Lolly and 99 Ice Cream painting design on a wall, with the record company 'phone' logo in the middle.

You can now see the finished piece at anytime at 256 Albion Road, Stoke Newington, London. This was a dream commission as not only is it a prominent position for a piece of my art but I've been a Cornershop fan since I was 16.

It was a hugely enjoyable experience and I'm open to creating more murals and street art for businesses. If you like what you see please get in touch using the contacts page.

On Saturday the 17th of August 2024 I took part in the second ever Bottle Alley Art Market in Hastings / St Leonard's. Artists of all ages, abilities, experiences and disciplines were invited to apply with 110 showing, sharing and selling work to over 13k visitors, there to experience 500m of art and inspiration. I took a range of my prints, badges, and paintings, most of which are available via my online shop.

The French Workwear Company invited myself and several other artists and illustrators to use vintage chore jackets as a canvas to create unique exciting pieces. The results are playful, wearable artwork. I myself have painted objects straight on to four jackets, using the placing of the pockets to frame them.

All jackets including mine are available to buy here.

From the website: - “This classic garment, which dates back from the 19th century, has always been favoured by creators such as Van Gogh, Niki de Saint Phalle or Bill Cunningham. Here it is revisited through different techniques from spraying to embroidery. We cannot wait for you to see amazing pieces by Jenni Allen, Becky Baur, Rana Begum, Stewart Easton, Paul Farrell , Sally Minns, Jayde Perkin and Ian Viggars. Wear it or frame it, it is your choice.”

In 2022 I was asked to create a new logo for my local primary school’s annual fund-raising music festival called Rob Fest, organised by the PTA.

I was given the brief of 60s / 70s rock festival style, and created the logos you see here. The final picture shows some of my other rough ideas, and the logo even ended up being on a t-shirt, as worn here by me. Alongside the logo I also picked a general font to be used across all branding which included the pictured advertising banner.

In 2023 and 2024 I was asked re-do the logo in different colours, as they were keen to use it again.

I designed the logos and general branding for a company that buys and sells vintage french workwear clothes, based in London. 

My designs and illustrations were based around examples of authentic French workwear from the past.

I originally designed the branding in 2017, and the company has since gone on to use the logo on a range of tote bags, patches, t-shirts, sweaters, and lately, beanie hats.

Visit the site here - www.frenchworkwear.com

Stoke Newington based estate agents Location Location interviewed me for their monthly magazine about local creatives and businesses in the area. This came about as a result of my mural commission in Stoke Newington, an image they’d previously used in their promotional materials.

http://www.locationlocation.com/blog/meet-east-londonrs-fab-food-loving-pop-artist-614.htm

in 2019 I designed the logo and general branding for a new product coaching consultancy company called Rather Good.

Since the company has launched I’ve started to create illustrations for the regular blog posts and article that they publish. Those can be seen here on Medium. The first few images are displayed in this gallery.

This new series of paintings is a bit of a departure for me. I live in a flat in East London, so nature isn't something we see a lot of, but last summer we installed a bird box on our 5th floor balcony, and right away we were surprised at the amount of birds that would come to visit.

I started to sketch birds and a new style of hand-drawn lettering at the same time, when the idea of turning them into a series of poster-like paintings of birds occurred to me.

The result is this series of paintings. They’re all painted on unframed A3 paper and are available exclusively in my ArtFinder shop here.

At the end of 2018 I was hired to create a bespoke logo for a startup company called Perched. The brief included a desire for bold lines, bright and/or pastel colours, and the logo must be a parrot.

The results are the three vector files you see here. One has straight pastel colours, the next has more traditional parrot colours using gradients, and the final one shows the black and white outline.

Perched is an app which lets food professionals find trusted kitchens and venues - https://www.perched.at

This project is a proposal for a children’s book written by my good friend Stewart Turner. He created a story based on his own lovable-but-lazy rescue corgi called Sandy.

In the book Sandy is a bit lazy and unwilling to get involved with all of the usual canine activities - walks, playing fetch, that kind of thing. Then at night Sandy has a crazy secret life where she gets up to all sorts of things!

To help Stewart with his proposal I created five illustrations based on pages from the book. Four of them show Sandy in her lazy day-to-day life, the final one shows Sandy dancing at a secret party at night while a Doggie DJ spins the tunes.

If the book got published we’d use these illustrations but create new ones to illustrate all of the other pages. So if you’re a published and you’re interested in hearing more about Sandy the Lazy Corgi then please get in touch.

Based on my own design but inspired by classic Walkman cassette players of the 80s and 90s, this colourful enamel pin badge is the ultimate accessory for any retro music fan.

You can buy one from my Etsy shop here.

From the 30th of August up to the 12th of September I’ll be presenting an exhibition of paintings and prints at Stour Space in Hackney Wick.

The vague theme of the collection is ‘discontinued’ - so expect retro tech, vintage design, and discontinued foods top be featured, all in my colourful pop art style.

This enamel pin badge was funded through a Kickstarter campaign. Eggs, and breakfast, are a recurring feature in my work.  

You can buy one from my Etsy shop here. 

From the 5th of August to the 15th of September 2019, I’ll be displaying a series of new prints and paintings at The Haberdashery cafe at 170 Stoke Newington High Street, London.

The theme is summertime and features a trademark selection of ice creams, ice lollies, Walkman cassette platers, and roller-skates.

An image I’ve painted quite a few times is a paint roller creating improbable and colourful designs across the page or canvas. Here are a few examples of my paint roller series. I also love including the image of a rainbow or colour spectrum throughout my work.

Through the website Talenthouse I entered a competition to design 'good vibes' inspired artwork for the phone company Viber. I didn't win but I did get commended and shared by the official Viber Twitter account. 

I'm sharing it here as I was really pleased with the results and I plan to turn them into prints at some point. 

I designed the record label image for Seattle-based indie label Pacific Trash, based on a simple brief created by the label head. The image was completed using my usual mix of handmade paint and Posca pen drawing, but I used Photoshop a lot more to edit the end result.

Pacific Trash Records sadly ceased to exist as of 2017 but I still believe my designs created a pleasing and consistent style that suited the music and image they were trying to portray.

In March 2016 I displayed several of my pop art food paintings at The Job Centre Pub in Deptford, South London. I created a mixture of old paintings and new ones for the exhibition, and tried to link it with my experiences of living in South London.

It was organised by Deptford Does Art. Below is my official write up for the event, and next to this are some images from the launch night. I also designed the official poster. 

-

" The Egg Shop painting is an homage to an unusual but striking shop front on Deptford High Street. It doesn’t sell eggs anymore but once this was all it sold. The sign has been visible for years. The second image shows a mock up of the old sign with my recreation.

“Eggs have always figured heavily in my paintings. So I saw this exhibition as a perfect opportunity to combine the unusual shop front signage with my depiction of eggs as a small tribute to Deptford High Street.”

On the chicken painting: “I've lived in London for many years and these type of chicken shops are everywhere. While I know this fast food is unhealthy, my painting is intended as a celebration of city living. A lot of the chicken shops are technically independent businesses and that should be applauded. Andy Warhol painted soup cans, I think of this as a modern street art equivalent.”

Ian Viggars lived in South East London for five years when he first moved down south. He actually used the Deptford Job Centre as an actual Job Centre when he was briefly unemployed back in 2007/8. He now lives in East London. "

In late summer 2016 I displayed 11 of my A3 pop art prints in the cocktail bar of the People's Park Tavern in Victoria Park, London.

The exhibition called Pop (t)Art was organised with Shoreditch-based print and design shop Lik + Neon, who also stocked some of my prints during the exhibition.

Between the 17th of April 2015 and late September I presented an exclusive new work as part of the latest LHR Exhibition in London organised by Mr Gresty. Read a People Of Print article about the exhibition here.

The exhibition took place at The Regent, Islington. The second two photos show my piece in context of the exhibition. You can buy the piece through Art Finder here.

This was the brief - 'The artists were invited to create a piece within their unique style to the format (B2) with the limited colour palette of red and black (plus the white of the page).
Red = 100% Magenta, 100% Yellow'

My first foray into enamel pin badges featured my double egg yolk design. Double yolks are so rare that some think they're lucky. The limited edition 22mm badge sold out back in 2017.