Signpainter and graphic designer Shon Price paints for The Rolling Stones / Hilfiger Denim

Recently, signwriter and graphic designer Shon Price - along with a group of other signwriters, some from Amsterdam, others from all around the world - painted three Rolling Stones logos on to 300 Tommy Hilfiger leather Jackets, using 1 Shot paint and Handover brushes. Here's the story, as told by Shon:

Background: I’ve worked for 4 years as a graphic designer for Hilfiger Denim, where I was mostly designing graphics for men's and women's clothing. It was mostly Graphic Tees, but I also designed hoodies, sweatshirts, jackets, buttons, zipper pullers; you name it - any fashion item that had a graphic on it. After 4 years I left and started working freelance while building my own company; Shon Price Ambachtelijk Graficus (meaning Graphic Artisan). I did a lot of cool jobs for LVC; Levi’s Vintage Clothing - mainly redesigning prints from their archive and some old lost Levi’s pieces that they found in mines, etc.  I really loved recreating prints for their Hawaiian Shirts, and I also designed labels, hang-tags, and t-shirt prints - everything! Besides designing for fashion brands I also had clients that had a business they needed designs for; these could be logos, corporate identities, websites, posters and other things like that. For these clients I also tried to push signpainting jobs - in Holland, signpainting is not so known by the general public so you have to teach them it exists, and then hope you get some jobs! I started signpainting 3 years ago but I've been painting murals for over 18 years, although these were mostly illustrations. After finding out about signpainting, I joined a Mike Meyer workshop in Amsterdam and since then I've been hooked - It was the perfect combination for me between design and art.

---

The Project:

[gallery link="file" size="large" columns="2" ids="1543,1541,1540,1539,1534,1535,1536,1537,1538,1533,1532,1530"] At the beginning of this year I got contacted By Hilfiger Denim - we were always in contact and they really liked my signpainting work, and they had a new project coming up that they thought I might be interested in. The Rolling Stones were having an exhibition called 'Exhibitionism' and Hilfiger Denim was gonna sponsor them. This meant a whole line of clothes branded with The Rolling Stones artworks on it which would be sold in Hilfiger Denim stores and online. But for in the shop of the museum they wanted something special. Handpainted Hilfiger Denim Jackets! This job was super-cool, a dream job, so off course I said yes! The expo would open in London and we picked 3 artworks from The Rolling Stones archive which would be suitable to paint. One was the Tongue with an English flag on it. This because it was very commercial and it fitted the location. Next a cool funny looking graphic. The round shape was perfect for the jacket. And last an image with four tongues in poppy colors. This pop art style fitted perfect with the brand Hilfiger Denim. I painted 40 jackets in 3 months time. Not nonstop of course, but it was definitely a big job. Especially painting on wrinkled leather was very time-consuming. Exhibitionism will travel the world for 5 years. Next up was New York and Hilfiger Denim contacted me again if I could paint 300 jackets! Plus they needed them in one month this time! Off course I wanted to do his, but this would take me a year. I needed to find help because this job was to big for myself. Last time Amsterdam Signpainters helped me with a few jackets and this time they were up for it again, but I knew now I needed a big team. Luckily the Amsterdam Letterheads meeting was coming up and I knew I could find people their. The Letterheads meet was great and meeted lots of people. I tried to focus on finding people who lived in the Netherlands because they would be easier to help. In the end I was able to form a team of 13 people including myself. There were people in the team who lived in Amsterdam but who came from all over the world: The Netherlands, England, Greece, Poland, Australia, Italy and Switzerland. The artworks were the same as last time, only now the England flag changed into a American Flag. We’ve locked ourselves up in a studio and painted all the jackets in 12 days! It was really fun to work with so many different people on the same project. Everyone really focussed and dedicated to finish 300 pieces. I think people could dream the tongue after those two weeks, at least I could! It was also interesting to see that even though everyone painted the exact same design the outcome was so different. You could see everyone style and at the end of the project we could recognise the painter of the artwork just by looking at the stars, the letters, the negative spaces, etc. I think that’s the beauty of sign painting. Even though you all have the same sketch line, it’s impossible to paint without your own style. It’s handpainted, you can see it, it gives character and that’s what made Hilfiger ask for hand painted jackets instead of screen printed ones. I don’t know which city is next, but I look forward to see how much people are interested in buying these jackets and if Hilfiger is up for another round of new jackets. Would be cool to paint the tongue artwork with a Japanese flag, or brazilian! [gallery link="file" size="large" ids="1528,1527,1529"]

---

Watch the video here. Extra info: Shon Price Ambachtelijk Graficus www.shonprice.com Signpainters in group picture: Top left to right: Chris Tomas, Pieter Snijders, Jerry Ronda, Josh Cadwallader Bottom left to right: Martijn Krabman, Irene Brok, Judith Jansen, Shon Price, Giulia Bierens de Haan, Jagoda Dmochowska, Riccardo Russomanno Video: Moron Studios Music: Droideka - Plethora