Stanley Chow

Stanley Chow is an artist and illustrator from Manchester, England.[1]

Stanley Chow
Born1974
Manchester, England
Known forArt, illustration
WebsiteStanley Chow Illustration

Early life and education

Chow was born in 1974 and raised in Manchester by parents who had migrated to England from Hong Kong.[1] He grew up in a fish and chip shop and says that living in this environment helped him to become an artist. Speaking to the BBC in 2014, Chow said, "The reason why I am an illustrator is because growing up, the only form of amusement I had was with a biro and chip paper. I didn't really have many toys when I was a nipper, all I did was draw and draw and draw."[2]

He was educated at King's School in Macclesfield and during his time there he was inspired by his sixth form art teacher, Robin Hidden, who was himself an illustrator.[3] Chow went on to study at Swindon College of Art[4] on a course which included an exchange placement in Lyon, France.[5]

Back in Manchester, Chow worked for a time as a club DJ, regularly playing at venues including The Roadhouse and The Night and Day Cafe.[6] While out drinking, he would spend time entertaining himself by sketching his friends, who included Elbow's Guy Garvey, using simple line strokes which eventually became the defining style of his work.

Career

Early work included creating fashion illustrations for the teen magazines Just Seventeen and Sugar, but when his father bought him a computer it changed the way he worked as Chow found himself being able to send work to clients digitally.[4] He moved away from drawing and painting and started creating vector-based work using Adobe Illustrator,[7] becoming a full-time illustrator in 2006.[5] In 2007, his career took off when his art was seen by the musicians Meg and Jack White from the band The White Stripes. Chow had made a mock poster for the band and they liked it. Months later, he was commissioned to create artwork for their Icky Thump album[4] and he designed a limited edition USB flash drive which was later nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package category.[8]

Portraits

Much of Chow's work is portraiture, specialising in images of celebrities from the worlds of music, television, film and sport. The people he selects to illustrate are spontaneous choices[1] although his love of football can be seen in the number of portraits he has made of footballers. Hhis work is influenced by the Panini football stickers which he collected as a child in the 1980s.[9] As a lifelong Manchester United fan,[10] Chow also agreed to illustrate poet Tony "Longfella" Walsh's poem The Govan Boy which was written in tribute to the Manchester United football manager Alex Ferguson.[11] They both met Ferguson and discussed the project on BBC Radio Manchester.[12]

Commissioned work

Chow produces work for a wide range of clients including local businesses and internationally recognised brands. Throughout Manchester his work can be seen at Metrolink tram stops promoting Transport for Greater Manchester's "Get Me There" travel card scheme.[13] In 2014 and 2015, Chow's illustrations were commissioned by the Modern Designers agency to promote Chinese New Year celebrations in the city.[14]

Internationally, Chow's clients include Saatchi & Saatchi,[15] McDonald's,[16] WWE and Wired magazine.[17] He also regularly supplies illustrations to The New Yorker magazine[17] and, as well as producing images for articles, has created portraits of a number of the magazine's featured contributing staff.[18]

In 2014, he illustrated a set of characters for the advertising agency Leo Burnett UK's long term "Little Piccadilly" interactive campaign for McDonald's. The campaign enabled people to create their own animated characters using their smart phones, which could then be sent live to the McDonald's screen in Piccadilly Circus, London.[19]

In the same year, he was also invited to the Lego headquarters in Billund, Denmark, where he provided lectures and workshops to graphic designers. He has continued to work with Lego and at the start of 2015 was presented with a Lego miniature figure of himself which he had designed.[17]

In 2015, Chow designed one of his most high-profile commissions to date. On 4 October, The New York Times Magazine cover had a photograph of a metallic helium balloon depicting the face of presidential hopeful Donald Trump. The balloon was designed by Chow and then photographed floating away on a white background by Jamie Chung.[20] The project was turned around in the space of a week with Chow being commissioned on the same day that the idea was thought up. Rather than making an illustration of a balloon which could be photoshopped, the design director, Gail Bichler, and her team decided to manufacture an actual balloon which could be inflated, so 25 were produced in order for them to be photographed in different ways.[21] The cover was well received with, gaining 71% of votes in the Adweek weekly magazine "Cover Battle"[22] although in an interview with GQ Magazine Trump referred to the cover as "ridiculous".[23] In the following year, the cover won a gold medal from The Society for News Design in its annual awards, in the 12C Magazines, Cover Design category, with judges describing the illustration as "Playful, fun, timely, tells a story, also timeless".[24]

Exhibitions

In June 2014, Chow launched his first UK solo retrospective which was held at the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art in the Northern Quarter of Manchester. He reflected on his upbringing in a chip shop by turning the window of the arts centre into a takeaway shop front.[25] At the end of the exhibition all of the works were sold on a first-come, first-served basis at takeaway prices with buyers being able to remove the art from the walls and take it home immediately.[26] All proceeds went to the CFCCA artistic programme.[25]

In early 2016, Chow announced plans to return to the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art for a follow up exhibition which would take place for six months from February as part of the centre's 30th anniversary celebrations. The new exhibition, entitled InStangram, would follow on from Chow's previous Takeaway exhibition by presenting 30 new designs featuring food, locations and objects inspired by Chow's experiences of growing up as an English-born Chinese man in Manchester.[27]

References
  1. Sumner, Emma (17 June 2014). "Irresistible Illustration: Stanley Chow's Takeaway". The Double Negative. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  2. Long, Chris (11 April 2014). "Stanley Chow's simple geometric shapes and sweeping curves". BBC News. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  3. "Q&A with Stanley Chow". The Agency Web. 18 November 2013. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  4. Benson, Kevin (14 June 2012). "Manchester graphic illustrator Stanley Chow to return to old stomping ground". Mancunian Matters. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  5. "Profiles - Stanley Chow". Communication Arts. 6 November 2012. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  6. "Night and Day Cafe flyer". Manchester District Music Archive. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  7. Neilly, Ali (6 March 2015). "Stanley Chow". Shillington Design Blog. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  8. Futterman, Erica (6 December 2007). "Bizarro Grammys: The White Stripes' USBs, Gerard Way's MCR Packaging, Flaming Lips' Surround Sound". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  9. "A Cuppa with Stanley Chow". Toffs Blog. 11 November 2014. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  10. Nicholls, Josh (17 June 2014). "Icky thump! Manchester artist Stanley Chow on going from 'anonymous illustrator' to drawing for Hollywood". Mancunian Matters. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  11. "The Govan Boy". Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  12. "The Devils' Advocate - A Manchester United Podcast". BBC Radio Manchester. 15 January 2014. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  13. "Get Me There website". Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  14. Gallagher, Lynn (February 2015). "Modern Designers and Stanley Chow team up again to create identity for Manchester's 2015 Chinese New Year celebrations". Creative Review. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  15. Hiorns, Ben (31 July 2014). "Transport for London and M&C Saatchi celebrate the capital's unexpected destinations". Creative Liverpool. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  16. "Little Piccadilly". McDonalds. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  17. "Interviews - Stanley Chow". Inky Goodness. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  18. "Contributors". The New Yorker. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  19. "McDonalds: Little Piccadilly". Ads of the World. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  20. "The 10.4.15 Issue". The New York Times Magazine. 16 October 2015. Retrieved 3 January 2016.
  21. Sieh, Alexandra (23 October 2015). "The Stunning Simplicity of New York Times Magazine's Donald Trump Cover". The Society for News Design. Retrieved 3 January 2016.
  22. O'Shea, Chris (1 October 2015). "Cover Battle: NY Times Magazine or Vanity Fair?". AdWeek. Retrieved 3 January 2016.
  23. Heath, Chris (25 November 2015). "The Thing Donald Trump Hates Most About Obama". GQ. Retrieved 3 January 2016.
  24. Quinn, Sara (14 February 2016). "SND37 Medal Winners". The Society for News Design. Retrieved 20 February 2016.
  25. "Illustrator Stanley Chow's Manchester Exhibition". Nee Hao Magazinr. 3 June 2014. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  26. "Stanley Chow Retrospective with Prints to Takeaway". Manchester Wire. 16 June 2014. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  27. "30 Years of CFCCA - Stanley Chow". Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art. Retrieved 6 January 2016.
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