BIG.TOE

With an eye for colour, Big Toe designs a bright future with his art. Read more about his approach to his art, his inspirations and his personal journey through creative arts.

Where did the name Big Toe design come from?

"I started my design page at the very beginning of lockdown 1, before I started uni. I just wanted a place to document my work so when someone asks to see my work I can swiftly pull up my instagram page. For just as a temporary fix I chose the name ‘Toe.Studio’ because I have a double barrel last name being Lewis-Steptoe but I prefer to just go by Daniel lewis because ‘Steptoe’ is a bit weird let's be honest." 

"It then evolved into Big.Toe.Studio because standing at 6’4” i'm not exactly small. Then changed to Big.Toe.Design because Big Toe Studio has already been taken, it also confirms to my audience that I am a designer because with my style and the direction I want to head in, I fear that people will assume I am more connected to the music industry than the world of graphic design."

What are your plans with graphic design? What is something on your bucket list you would love to do? 

“Really and truly I want to expand across a whole range of different mediums, over lockdown I picked up Djing as a hobby and apparently i'm pretty good at it, now that i'm in my second year at uni I’ve been DJing a lot, my flatmates definitely hear a lot of unrequested drum and bass bangers at 3 am on the regs, but that's all part of the experience I guess. I've already got ideas about how I can combine my graphic design work with DJing and electronic music in general, I also have t shirt mockups on my phone that I  just haven't sent off yet, very poor from me. I would love to expand into something beyond art and design. I'm thinking of sculptures, comic books, toys, figurines and exhibitions, all of that good stuff. - I’ll just have to see how it goes and what opportunities come my way. “

What got you into graphic design and arts overall?

“Its that cliche’ answer: I DrEw PicTuReS WheN I WaS A YoUte,  jokes aside I’ve always been a bit stupid but mad creative, and I always give everything my all; so this goes back to 16 year old Daniel just starting A-level art and I could not paint at all, I was looking around and everyone was producing amazing masterpieces and my piece looked like the kid that did gcse art for the vibes painted it, I creatively hit rock bottom basically. But I knew I was good at art and something just wasn't right, so that night I went on pinterest nonstop for about 3 hours trying to find the artist that would change the game for me, and I definitely found them.”

“Bicicleta Sem Freio is a Spanish trio of street artists who produce trippy illustrations (mainly of women) in fluorescent colours that totally overwhelm the viewer. They kicked off my art redemption, my style became totally different to everyone else in the class, my intention was to make work so bright and overwhelming that people won’t even notice it’s quite badly painted. This is also when I began experimenting with digital art with a graphics tablet to produce the bright colors paint could never produce. This is also where my love for fluorescent colors comes from. I ended up with an A* in A level art which is probably my greatest life achievement at this point.”

You have your signature smiley face logos, how did those come about? 

"Ah yes, I knew this question was going to come around in some form or another, I have two distorted smiley logos: Big Toe and the Slimey." 

"The Big toe logo was created totally by mistake. I needed an image to set as my design account profile photo and I knew I wanted to incorporate a smiley face in some way. Whatever I tried just didn't work,  the stock smiley was far too boring, even that upside down just looked a bit plain to me, even tried to make a Starbucks style logo with text around the outside but that looked awful, bearing in mind this was before I started university so I really had no idea what I was actually doing."

"You know what they say, when in doubt: liquify, so I did just that and the result was exactly what I needed, the recognisable smiley face; distorted to bring something new to the table and present something people will be intrigued by. I could blag some contemporary art stuff but that's the real origin story: it sums up the beginning of my design career really: just messing around in photoshop, learning all the different tools and creating a weird blend of graphic design and fine art in the process."

SLIMEY

"The Slimey however has more depth, It actually came from a uni project which I reckon is the best thing I've created till this day. We had to make a craft beer based on an assigned shape and mine was a circle. From this I used the smiley face as a starting point to base my project on rave culture. I took a lot of inspiration from vintage rave flyers. I loved the abstract nature of them, many of which were far ahead of their time. I even bought an overpriced book full of 90’s rave flyers for future inspiration. I called my beer ‘!’ as I wanted a name that was really out there, that would catch people off guard, I also liked the mystery surrounding it: How do you ask for a drink called ‘!’ in the bar or pub? My task was to essentially combine the exclamation mark with a smiley face and the Slymei is the result, I liked the logo so much I decided to take it with me, Big Toe and the Slymei both work in tandem to communicate my connection to rave culture and science fiction.”

What made you make the motion posters instead of still image?

"My lectures said: “If you want a job you’ve got to learn motion design” so I said “Bet”. Jokes aside, I can imagine my motion design being static but then when the viewer scans a QR code or visits some website they can see it move; this is something I’d love to experiment with at some point during uni. "

You have also done concept designs for sports clothing such as skateboards and motorcycles, why these niche sports?

"I always try to spin my uni projects to design something I really want to because my enthusiasm will create better work and so the No Fear rebrand you’re thinking of was my first year final major project. The assignment was to rebrand a struggling brand, I chose No fear because they are STRUGGLING. Streetwear is also one of my passions and so No fear being an extreme sportswear brand I knew I could turn it into a more contemporary, trendy streetwear brand. I found out that No Fear was massive name in the motocross world in the 90’s so I took a lot of inspiration from this idea, essentially making streetwear influenced by motocross gear; bringing something new to the streetwear landscape."

Is sports designing something you would like to go into?

"I think graphic design and garment design go hand in hand, I think if you choose graphic design as a career you will end up designing clothes or at least help with the brand identity of a clothing company at some stage. As I mentioned before, I am a streetwear fanatic. Buying overpriced clothes is what got me through the lockdowns so I would not mind designing clothes at all. - as long as I align with the brand's morals and they are cool and edgy."

What do you wish the fashion industry had done more with their designs and overall use of art?

"I think the fashion industry has a good relationship with art. Well from my perspective anyway. I love street art and that goes hand in hand with skateboarding and fashion. In the late 90’s - early 2000’s it was the one thing rejects all had in common. Stussy, Obey and Supreme all started around this time, fuelled by the reckless energy of the lifestyle the creative outcasts used to live. I think the evolution of streetwear has always and will continue to pay homage to the beginnings. 

However, I don’t like it when it is obvious collaborations and designs exist purely to make money, we all like money at the end of the day, but at least make it more discrete. I think KAWS is a great artist who deserves his fame but at this point I think he’s more synonymous with clothing than art which I think is a bit unfair, I feel like it would take one massively influential figure who wears a lot of KAWS collaborations to do something wrong and that would reflect badly on KAWS’ art - that might just be me though.  

I also don’t like when companies keep on collaborating with the same artists because they know it will sell. *Cough cough* Travis Scott. The amount of collaborations Travis has done in recent years is astronomical (no pun intended). But now he’s getting bad press which will have an impact on the whole streetwear market. "

"On the other hand I find that Streetwear brands often work with lesser known artists, I really like this because I have found out about so many amazing artists just from a streetwear brand deciding to give them the spotlight, opening a world of opportunity for them, in turn producing garments with graphics no one has really seen before. For example R Crumb, Sean Cliver, Keo CT5 and Boris Delta are all artists I found out about through Supreme collaborations."

"Keep learning new stuff, there's always a way to push it further and elevate yourself. You’ll never be the best artist or designer in the world, but you can be the best at your unique style."

What do you wish you saw more of in the creative industry?

"Kind of adding to my previous point, I like it when you can tell work has been created with heart and passion. I think you can tell when the creative has put all they've got into whatever creative output or something that has been created purely for money. I like it when companies aren’t afraid to take risks with their banding and put out really amazing eye catching forms of promotion. I notice Nike does this a lot but at this point Nike is such a big name just their logo on a black backdrop will serve whatever advertising purpose they need. I still appreciate how they know they can get away with more exciting adverts so they essentially take one for the team, allowing the smaller companies and brands to play it safer. Doing a graphic design degree I fear that I may be pushed to create more corporate designs and branding but I see myself balancing on the fence between fine art and graphic design and I want to stay here, I think I could bring something new to the industry because of it.”

FOLLOW BIG TOE ON INSTAGRAM