Shed Creative: Sports Illustrated
Sandwich’s Shed Creative has been commissioned to illustrate some of the world’s biggest sports stars
© Shed Creative 2020
“I work very closely with F1, so this year alone I have illustrated Lewis Hamilton 12 times”
At the launch of the Kent Cricket Club’s 150th Year celebrations in 2020, a new mural was launched featuring the county players to have represented England.
With the likes of current and former captains like Sam Billings and Rob Key at the forefront, there was something familiar about the style of the mural. If you are a sports fan, whether that be rugby, football, Formula One or even Basketball, you have almost certainly come across works by ShedCreative.
Husband and wife team of Josh and Tasha French have been commissioned to work with the likes of BT Sport, Bundesliga, NFL UK, Match of The Day Magazine, the NBA, the English FA and Livewire Sport for the rugby Six Nations and the Premier League, to name but a few.
Based in Sandwich, ShedCreative was started by a trio of university friends before Josh took sole charge, and, seven years on, the former UCA Canterbury and UCA Rochester student is one of the go-to designers for sports media!
We caught up with Josh to find out more.
© Shed Creative 2020
Hi Josh, we have seen your work all over social media, TV and billboards, are you the illustrator in the company?
I am. I am completely self-taught as I went to uni to study Product Design and fell into Graphic Design and Illustration through interests in other courses. I was interested in Design, Branding and Marketing and started introducing that into my work. Within a year of leaving uni I was purely doing graphic design. My interest in Illustration came much later.
There is clearly a distinctive style that ShedCreative has within the illustrations. Can you describe it for us?
Is a hard one to describe, I’m not fine art or illustration educated so I can’t roll off a beautifully well articulated interpretation of my work, other than it is a vector illustration, simple and structured.
What I do isn’t very freeform, my approach to illustration is very formulated and structured and I have a process of how I illustrate; I can’t just start drawing.
Was it influenced by anyone or anything?
There are so many illustrators that have inspired me and there is one illustrator whose style has led me to where I am now called Matt Pascoe. He illustrated programme covers for Peterborough United FC, and I just thought his style is so simple and beautiful.
© Shed Creative 2020
We have seen some of the huge clients you now work with, but how did it all begin?
I work with a fair amount of sport-based clients and really that all stems from one client. BT Sport started a campaign called ‘the Champions Draw’, which initially had five very talented illustrators. In the second season they introduced another five and I was lucky to be one of those alongside some of the best sports illustrators in the country.
This gave my work great exposure and I did more and more work with BT Sport on their social media around football and rugby. That led to me working with the Premier League and Harlequins. From then on I have networked with more people and work within some great agencies and built great contacts.
Are you a sports fan, and have you ever had to illustrate one of your idols?
I have illustrated lots of sportsmen and women! I work very closely with F1, so this year alone I have illustrated Lewis Hamilton 12 times, I’ve illustrated some of the most iconic rugby players of recent years for Harlequins such as Chris Robshaw and Joe Marler. I have also illustrated footballers such as Harry Kane and Raheem Sterling for England. Many of these guys are my idols and I feel privileged to be able to illustrate these on a regular basis as my job!
We saw your Kent Cricket commemorative piece that is due to launch this year, how did you come up with the concept?
I can’t say that the concept is down to me, as the idea was brought to me by Liam Knight (marketing) at Kent Cricket, to create a modern version of the 100 years of Kent Cricket book cover, which was a painted cover of iconic Kent players.
As a Kent fan, and as someone with experience of illustrating in a more modern-clean style, I seemed to fit with what they were after. It was great fun and is a real privilege to do work for a local sports team. I especially enjoyed working with some images that were more than 100 years old.
We have seen the pieces on Lionel Messi, Pep Guardiola, Floyd Mayweather, Lebron James and many more, but what has been the favourite piece you have created?
Oh what a tough question! I’ve had some great clients, I’ve had jobs that have been really well received and also some work which I have done and thought ‘that looks great!’.
I’m actually very proud of some of the work I’ve been doing this week for the International Swimming League.
My artwork is currently up along the Vegas Strip on screens outside the biggest casinos and venues in the world. I’ve created some great pieces for the Premier League, Six Nations and F1, but nothing really should beat doing work for England. Being asked to produce work for England by the FA was a great honour, and doesn’t really get much bigger than that for me.