Featured Artist: Snevi

With a focus on typography, French artist Snevi uses wordplay to create positive and inventive expressions.

Read on to find out how Snevi discovered his artistic path and how Robert Downey, Jr. could make his dreams come true.

Tell us about your career. Why did you choose typography – or did typography choose you ?

I’m initially an Artistic Director in a web agency (MONKEES – Publicis group) and, after working on the web all the time, I felt like working only on prints and more specifically on t-shirts prints. When I started as a freelancer, I used to create logos and other design work for my clients on a variety of media: business cards, websites and especially t-shirts. I realized that I missed it with time and Redbubble allowed me to put my work on a lot of objects.

Why did I choose typography? I don’t know why, actually. It was probably typography that chose me :) All I know is that it allows me to create positive and humorous messages

What inspires you? Describe your creative process.

My inspiration comes a lot from American vintage t-shirt styles. I like the worn or “dirty” look, it feels real; you can feel that there is a story or an experience behind it. So by adding this feeling to a message, it gives it even more sense. In my creative process, I look for old typos that I modify often by distorting and adding effects to them, and sometimes I draw them myself. The goal is to find the way to assemble all these elements in the right composition. The work should please me first of all, I must feel that I’d like to wear it on a t-shirt :)

What is your favorite tool and why?

Obviously, my favorite tool is Illustrator :) The most funny thing is that basically I’m a big fan of Photoshop. I am self-taught artist and it was during my various internships, when I was a student, that I learned to use it for websites, photo editing etc. I came to Illustrator much later, I had the impression it offered fewer possibilities, but I was young I didn’t know better ;) Now I use Photoshop for my website creation job and Illustrator for my personal works.

Could you tell us more about your favorite work ?

A man without a beard is not a man is not my favorite, but I can say that this work was the most decisive of all, because it influenced me for the following ones, it was a starting point somehow. It is my bestseller. Thanks to this design I received a lot of very touching and very funny messages. Basically I created it just for fun, a kind of joke really, but in fact people like it a lot, and I did not expect it :)

What was the most significant moment in your career as an artist?

I don’t know… I would say one of my internships when I was a student. I didn’t like school and during this internship, I showed the manager of the studio various options available to him with tools such as Photoshop, Illustrator, and Indesign. He used to work only on photos but I offered him the opportunity to work on retouching, cropping, layout etc. After that he wanted to hire me, and this proved to me that this job was made for me. I finally had found my path, I was 18.

What would be your advice to a new artist?

Practice, draw, monitor technological developments, look around, get interested in everything…

Imagine not having any limits or restrictions. What would be your dream project?

Create my own brand and go live in the USA or Canada. And that Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) wears one of my t-shirts in a Marvel movie :)

Don’t be left short on sayings, stop by Snevi’s shop to start your own collection of typography works.