Born in the late sixties I spent the first part of my childhood growing up in South Africa, near Johannesburg. With a father who was a freelance art-director working from home, there was always a lot of inspirational material at hand. I can vividly remember the German Graphis-magazines, showcasing illustration, logos, photography and graphic design.

I felt especially drawn to the work of Jean Michel Folon and André François.

Also the frequently featured posters of Polish designers with their free spirited use of typography, handwriting and dark imagery (which in hind sight was actually quite messed up) made a great impression.

Another big influence was my collection of American superhero comics which amoung others consisted of Superman, Batman and Spiderman. I really enjoyed the comic covers (which were often far more appealing than the stories inside that they reprisented) and the effect of the cheap printing technique on the paper.

I could often be found in my fathers studio under his drawing board making my own comics while he was working on a project. When my father went to design agencies for work, I was frequently allowed to accompany him, which was absolutely great! Nowadays most design studio’s look rather sterile, but pre computer era studio’s were totally magical places, often literarily bursting with creativity. There was all kind of stuff laying around, like markers, pencils, gouache, ink, paint brushes, piles of Letraset, spray mount cans, rubber cement, paper tape, cellotape, sheets of colored paper, cardboard, tracing paper pads, scissors, knives, all sorts of rulers.

The walls were filled with posters and torn out magazine pages for inspiration. And can you imagine the designers, art directors, illustrators and photographers walking around there during the mid seventies, with their long, wild hair, huge sideburns and mustaches?
I was greatly impressed by this world as a young boy and all I wanted to do was create images!

Me as a model :o) during a photo shoot for an ad campaign my father directed.