Author: Nick Carson

In 2005, I collaborated with renowned graffiti artist Temper to produce a limited-edition 60-page book exploring his career so far.

Read more about Temper’s portfolio

Introducing…

‘When I was a kid, my Granddad had books and books about history. They were the only things that had pictures in. He used to tell me to draw Montgomery, or Mussolini – I even drew Hitler. He wasn’t an artist, he wasn’t an art critic, but if it didn’t look like Mussolini he’d say so. That’s the only art lesson I had.’

‘I used a little pencil that must’ve been six years old; he used to cut it with a little knife. And I always drew inside a cigarette packet. Whenever I’m stuck for ideas, I sit and open up a cigarette packet – that’s where the idea for Saatchi & Saatchi came from. He’s still over me now; in everything I do, in every decision I make.’

It was the death of his Grandfather and mentor that prompted young Arron Bird to abandon his 9-to-5 warehouse job and pursue a more artistic vocation. Having witnessed the birth of British graffiti in the early Eighties, he had been honing his aerosol skills illegally on streets up and down the country for eleven years, under numerous pseudonyms. A friend lent him £1000 to get a batch of t-shirts printed – which sold quickly – but they were soon back on his doorstep. The print was washing off. ‘My first business experience was to sue the printer,’ he smiles. ‘I’d left my job and it was hard. We never had much; now we really had nothing.’

Blind Mice Clothing had meagre beginnings in 1993, but a successful lawsuit left Arron with an improved batch of tees and enough money to repay his friend. Sweeping and cleaning in the printers cut down costs, and the process continued in their high-rise flat in Wolverhampton – where his girlfriend sewed on the labels. His were fresh designs to an untapped market: although many skateshops turned him down, Ideal in Birmingham stuck by him. BMC flew off their racks.

Popularity grew, and the brand went from strength to strength. It has been said that Adrock from the Beastie Boys wore BMC on stage. There were BMC-sponsored club nights, and successful launches for new ranges. But it just wasn’t making enough money, and in 1997 – when well-funded American brands started seeping across the pond, and rival UK artists pitched their oars in too – it all got too much. So Temper let go of the well-chewed bone and decided to design for other people. Enter Airwalk.

‘I did two t-shirts for them,’ he recalls. ‘One was the fastest selling they’ve ever had in the UK; 10,000 in the first four weeks, and it carried on selling for six years. So quite a few t-shirts.’ But inexperience left a loophole in his first corporate deal, and the initial flat fee was all he saw. Some money trickled in from album covers and live demos, but when Temper organised a group of thirty graf writers at the Sprite Urban Games he found himself at the end of a runway. The following year he was spotted by Coca Cola, and took off on the largest graffiti campaign the UK has ever seen.

As the new millennium dawned 100 million cans and bottles hit the streets, thrusting his brand right into the hands of the general public. The year 2000 was pivotal not just for Temper but for the culture that raised him: alongside Sprite came the first solo show by a graffiti artist in a public gallery, and a dream commission to paint Saatchi & Saatchi. It also saw his first dedicated studio space: a dark shell without water or electricity, but a welcome change of scenery from the flat nonetheless.

Temper chose to detach from commercial projects, and began work on his first fine art collection, The Good Die Young. Two years later it was finished, and he was awarded his current studio. Six ground-breaking collections later he’s halfway to saying hello, and this folio is just a snapshot of his career to date: ‘I always said my first twelve collections would be my introduction to the world – then you’ll know who I am. I’ve never had backing from people like the Arts Council; I’ve got backing from people that believe in me and share my vision. And I’ve had to introduce myself to the world.’

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In 2005, I collaborated with renowned graffiti artist Temper to produce a limited-edition 60-page book exploring his career so far.

Read more about Temper’s portfolio

Outroduction

Breaking on lino in the dead of night. Spraying the final touches to an outline, beads of sweat prickling as a siren draws nearer. MCs battling it out in a sweaty underground venue to a baying crowd. All of these things are alien to me: they’re not my background; they’re not my culture, and having known Temper for two years I’m still scratching the surface of what fuels his compulsive creativity.

But I think he’s enjoyed such phenomenal success partly because his journey is a universal one. He’s changing the face of the culture that made him, not simply by exposing high-quality graffiti to the public – and by playing with the context in which we view it – but also because he justifies his work as an expression of his soul. In his words, ‘I don’t spray paint, I spray me.’

When I first met Arron back in 2003, he told me that inspiration hits him in the chest like a punch. It’s that primal need to pour the contents of his head onto canvas that makes him an artist – in that respect, the fact that he uses a spray can is circumstantial. But it’s also deeply relevant, because when Temper became the ‘face of graffiti’ after putting his mark on Sprite he gave a glimpse of what drives some illegal writers too. Sometimes it’s mindless defacement of public property; that’s why it’s illegal. Sometimes it’s about expressing yourself in the rawest possible form, making your mark on the world.

Temper remains fiercely true to his roots, openly disregards artistic pretension and superficial society, and keeps to a small circle of trusted friends. Working deep into the night in a sleep-deprived haze, aerosols rattling around in his cavernous studio, it must be a lonely process at times – and it’s obvious from the sparkle in his eye when discussing his fans that their personal feedback means the world to him. But what strikes me most is the creativity boiling over the surface; the number of collections stored up in his mind and ready to rush out when the dam breaks. Somehow, when Temper tells you he can paint every day until he dies and still have more to come, you’re compelled to believe him.

Hip-hop culture is all about stepping up your game, and the future can only be a global one – but hoisting himself up from nothing has seared the need for a rock-solid grounding in every aspect of Arron’s life. He’s got a lot of canvases to paint, and prefers to build a tower to the stars than shoot a rocket that soon comes plummeting down. Right now, he’s still digging the foundations: to steal the artist’s own metaphor, this book marks a full-stop at the end of the first paragraph in his artistic career. The way he talks about the next five years is enough to make anyone tingle with anticipation. Now is the calm before the storm; the slow-motion leap before the fight begins. It’s safe to say that Temper will be around for many years to come.

Read other copywriting case studies

In 2005, I collaborated with renowned graffiti artist Temper to produce a limited-edition 60-page book exploring his career so far.

Read more about Temper’s portfolio

Move Collection

‘I didn’t want to see faces; I didn’t want to see limbs. I wanted them to look awkward. That awkwardness is what I call reality, as an artist. When you watch someone do a backspin you don’t see their feet, you don’t see their face, you do not see their features – and that’s the purest essence. Painting breakers static isn’t reality. What makes you excited about breaking is the speed of it; the not seeing. If I see somebody doing a windmill, the faster the windmill is the more excited I am. I wanted to capture that on canvas.’

Move’s apparent unreality stems from this quest for realism, based on lightning-quick charcoal sketches of breakers, djs and sportsmen invited to perform in Temper’s studio. But as a result, it’s not an easy collection to have on your wall. ‘You look at it and it feels like it’s shaking; it’s going to give you a headache,’ he observes. ‘But if art was always about playing it safe – doing collections because they sit right – I wouldn’t be an artist.’

‘This isn’t a natural way to paint. I think that’s why nobody’s painted like this, or probably will for a long time. It’s not a style that comes comfortably: you have to look at everything in double vision. You know there should be a leg there, or a foot there, but you’ve got to ignore it. You’re working in blurs – it doesn’t look right, but it’s not supposed to. If you watch something move and then stop it, the honesty of that stop is what I’ve painted.’

Wordplay in the lengthy title of each piece acknowledges landmark names in the history of the culture: ‘The Tables Turned for Hercules’ is a respectful nod to Godfather of hip-hop Kool Herc, while ‘Charlie Chased Them Through the Short Cut to Islamic Africa’ flags up pioneering djs Charlie Chase, DJ Shortkut and African Islam. There’s reference to Harlem Globetrotters’ founder Abe Saperstein, renowned breaking crew Street Machine and Bubbles, the UK’s first female breaker.

Keen to get the entire subject out of his head and onto canvas once and for all, Temper poured out this pioneering 50-piece collection in just a month. ‘I can get someone to quote this: I did not sleep for four weeks. Literally didn’t sleep. A few power naps. To be truthful, after I’d done the collection, I collapsed in exhaustion. But I enjoyed it.’

Read other copywriting case studies

In 2005, I collaborated with renowned graffiti artist Temper to produce a limited-edition 60-page book exploring his career so far.

Read more about Temper’s portfolio

Too Good to Die Young

The Good Die Young drained the life from 27 colourful characters. For Temper, the next stage of his bereavement process was to splash it back in glorious celebration of what made them iconic in the first place.

‘When I lost my Granddad I was very, very angry,’ is his example. ‘But when you come out of that place you start thinking about the good times you’ve had; his personality. I celebrate his life in my mind – the perfect image of him. That’s what I wanted to do with Too Good to Die Young.’

Of course, a full-colour portrait using freehand aerosol is in a completely different league to greyscale. ‘Technically it was something I had to prepare myself for,’ he says. ‘If it were that easy, everybody would be doing it. It’s got to look realistic. Comfortable.’

Some of the earlier black-and-white portraits certainly have a cold intensity that makes you shift in your seat. ‘Hendrix in The Good Die Young is looking at you straight on. It’s almost like a stencil. His eyes are staring; he looks like he’s in the wrong place, like he didn’t want to die like that.’

‘With this collection I wanted to remember him in the sense of his life; that perfect image of him. And the only thing you can do with Hendrix is put a guitar in his hand and put him on stage, pulling that face he pulls when he’s feeling what he’s doing. That’s a celebration of his life.’

Judging by the overwhelmingly positive feedback from diehard aficionados, the essence of these great legends courses through the fibres of each canvas. ‘Every single one has its own community of fans. I could start a fan club for each painting, and that’s going to be one of the highlights: true fans saying there’s something more than just the painting there.’

Seven pieces took nine months to complete, and it was emotionally draining as well as technically challenging. Contrary to popular belief, it’s still not finished. ‘I actually stopped, because it started working in reverse,’ admits Temper. ‘Instead of being more comfortable with my bereavement, I opened up old wounds. I’ll go back to it again when I feel emotionally prepared.’

Read other copywriting case studies

In 2005, I collaborated with renowned graffiti artist Temper to produce a limited-edition 60-page book exploring his career so far.

Read more about Temper’s portfolio

Saatchi & Saatchi

‘I’d been speaking to a guy called Chris while preparing the Minuteman show,’ begins Temper. ‘He had an office in London he wanted me to paint. Lovely guy. He was very creative – I knew that – but I didn’t know he was a Creative Director.’ When an opening finally came up, the two arranged a date and the company’s name was revealed. ‘But I didn’t know who Saatchi & Saatchi were,’ he grins. ‘Totally alien world to me. Even when my manager showed me what they’d done, I kept it on the level of me doing something for Chris. It’s the sort of job you could get quite nervous about.’

Saatchi’s Creative Team felt their surroundings had grown stale. Temper’s open brief was to inspire them, and he had a weekend to do it. ‘Chris wanted to surprise them, so I started at 7pm on Friday and went straight through to 8am on Monday. I had two or three 45-minute sleeps, but apart from that I was painting non-stop. There were coffee machines everywhere; that’s what kept me going.’

The result is nothing short of a 45-foot-long masterpiece. ‘I wanted to link the word ‘Creative’ with the word ‘Temper’ and I thought, we both look for a reaction in what we do. That was the middle word. So the piece actually spells out ‘Reaction’, with the ‘o’ giving birth to little Trobots – representational drawings of my ideas.’ Beginning with the artist running to London with spray cans in his hands, it then launches into a multicoloured explosion of creative symbolism.

There’s a character standing in a whirlpool, holding his brain while electric sparks pulse from it. A crossroads, one route drooping to represent ideas with no mileage. But those ideas, instead of being scrunched up and binned, become a paper aeroplane that flies into the artist’s temple: ‘Even my wasted ideas are ideas,’ he says simply. A thick white border frames the work top and bottom but it bursts over the threshold in places, not to be boxed in by anyone.

Delighted with the result, Saatchi dubbed him an ‘aerosolic visionary’ and invited him back to paint the office next-door. This time he had just seven hours to spare, no large area of wall space and no clear concept in mind – his only brief was to keep to the walls. So he freestyled all over the carpet, the ceiling and the sofas. ‘They’re creative people, and they trust me making a creative decision,’ he reasons. ‘I wanted it to feel as if somebody had just come in with a couple of cans and gone bang, bang, bang. It worked really well, but was nothing like the first one.’

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