We Present To You His Highness: Anouk!

Sometimes in life, you just gotta go all out. Like when you see a t-shirt, and you think, “I just wanna draw all over that thing. Like really. ALL OVER IT.” What, you guys haven’t all been thinking that? Well, we just decided to assume you had, so we launched the Big Ass Prints design challenge, so everyone could just let loose and go CRAY! Well, per usual, we had to perform the nearly impossible duty of determining the best t-shirt covering design, and finally named Florent Bodart the winner for his design “Anouk”! Read on to find more about Florent, and don’t forget to snag his awesome design here!

Congrats on your winning design “Anouk” for our Big Ass Prints challenge! Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself?

I’m a French graphic designer and I live with my girlfriend, two whippets, and a marvelously weird cat called Kiwi. I’ve been involved in the graphic world thanks to Threadless for years and now it’s my job! I’m so grateful to you for all this. I also make home furniture under the name Derkman and music with my brother with Idioma (when I find time!).

You’ve been a part of the Threadless community for a long time (yea!). How did you initially become involved?

A friend of mine told me about Threadless six years ago. He explained me the concept of the brand and how the design selection works. I immediately loved it and wanted to be part of the community! The start was epic (see my first submission), and then I began to increase little by little by submitting and submitting. The community has also been very helpful (the “critique” section in the forums was perfect for me at this time!).

How you describe your aesthetic and why does it mesh so well with Threadless? (Obviously, the community loves it!)

I don’t think I have a specific aesthetic. I often try to explore new way of creating and mediums. But I think we can often see elements of fun, as well as animals and landscapes in my work. When I can, I always try to include a surrealist side in my design. My weird side also surely meshes with the community of Threadless!

The Big Ass Prints design challenge was all about designing a print that uses as much of the front of the tee as possible. Did you find that aspect to be more or less challenging than the usual design dimensions and why?

I created Anouk for this contest. I had this idea of a parody of a Renaissance painting because it was great to use the t-shirt as a canvas for the contest. I typically use the whole t-shirt for a design so it was not so hard to be part of this contest.

Thematically, the world was your oyster for this challenge. What different ideas did you consider?

I had the idea to do the hoverboard of BTTF on the front of the tee, but it was quite a failure! “Hoverboard” and ‘Anouk” were my two entries for the contest.

How did you land on the concept for “Anouk”?

Actually, I always loved the idea of putting the head of my girlfriend´s family dog on a portrait (because Anouk is the real dog of my girlfriend´s family!). I had this big collection in my files of high resolution Renaissance portraits and I chose this one for Anouk.

Would you mind taking us through the process of creating this design? Feel free to share any WIP’s, if possible!

I had this portrait of Renaissance painting, I put it in Photoshop, made some changes, and then created the face of Anouk from a picture of her. It was 100% digitally painted. The main challenge was to have the same colors and lighting as the initial portrait.