Solaris Interviews: Haniboi

I am always massivly inspired by creative people doing their thing. That’s why I loved living in London so much! 

Han Lee aka Haniboi always stuck out for me as he was very proficient translating his illustrations and ideas into fun products and prints. So it was really great catching up with him and gaining a little insight into his creative mind…

Hi Han! Please introduce yourself to the amazing readers of this blog… 

Hi amazing readers, my name is Haniboi, I’m an illustrator based in Taiwan! My main work is character design, and I recently created this new character called “Happy Crotch “.

The reason why I started this new character is very simple: I wanted to throw 3 of my favourite things ( drawing, music and sex ) into one pot and see what’s going to happen!

We know each other from our time at Central St Martins. What was the most important lesson you learned studying at such a well known university you think?

Don’t be afraid to try new things! With this attitude in mind I am always looking for new things to learn, and also to enjoy the progress doing it.

You were already using the name Haniboi when I met you, can you elaborate on how to got the name and what it means to you?

I am a childish guy and Han is a such short name! So my flatmate started to called me Haniboi. Personally I love the idea of staying a boy forever: Boys love to have fun, boys can play anywhere and boys are brave! Plus a boy has a simple mind which I really want to keep.

When we hung out in London you already started producing products alongside all the illustration work you did as well. The Haniboi Wallet Tape comes to mind. Was that your first official product?

I’ll say my first ‘official’ product was back when I was in high school and I started to make badges to sell. When I saw my friends loving and wearing my badges I fell in love with the idea of making my own things!

Can you tell us a bit about how you got your first products made?

The badges were an easy project even for a high school boy, I still remember I took my pencil sketch to the badge studio and look at them turned my work into computer. It was the coolest thing ever! I loved the clean line and color blocks! It still influences my style nowadays!

My first mass manufactured product was called Hanitape. It’s a cassette tape looking wallet. 

I started this as a project during my product design course at university. In that time I really wanted to figure out the whole process from designing a product to developing it and putting it on market. But no one could teach me that and college takes money and years to learn ‘design’! 

So I saved 1/4 of the college fee to use the money to made this product and see how long it takes to make this money back.

After that I just keep on learning and doing in the same time. It is not the best way of releasing a product because I made all the mistakes I could make! Lucky for me I had a good feedback from trade shows and order started to come in quickly.

It was a great experience and much cheaper than college!

I really liked the Rock Alphabet you did. Seems to me music has a big influence on your work…

“YES!!! Music is a huge influence” I have been saying it since… forever! At one point I was really tired of myself saying I love music so much without creating my own. It is like to say you love basketball but you never play ball and only watch the NBA on TV!

I really felt like something was missing. So, 2 years ago I started to make my own music. Today’s technology helps you making beats so easily and fast… I couldn’t find any excuse not doing it! 

  via Typefoundry
via Typefoundry

You have quite a couple of tracks now on your own Soundcloud account. Do you see your music as an extension of your design practise or is it an additional thing you do for fun?

At a moment it’s for fun and practice, because it takes time to learn. But I have this plan to make sex music for my character Happy Crotch! I’ll like to do an whole album full of sex tracks: From how you touch yourself to old school candle red wine strawberry sex etc.! To use music to tell that story would be a fun project, so just wait for it… 

  via Flipermag.com
via Flipermag.com

We both graduated awhile ago. Any advice you want to give any budding illustrator out there who is just about to leave university?

I can’t give any advice sorry, everything is changing so fast! I don’t even think you should go to university to learn “design” now! To have a big number of followers of your work online is much more important than a diploma or C.V.

In fact… personally I always ask for advice from much younger people that I meet, so… need to pass!

You did quite a couple of screen prints which got sold via known galleries like Nelly Duff. Tell us a little bit about that.

I used to spend a lot of time in London Print Club to make my own prints when I living in London, I love the color in screen print! It suits my style very much. Nelly Duff is a great gallery, I had a nice time working with them.

I wish there would be a screen print studio in Taiwan too!

You moved back to Taiwan after working in London for some time. Was it hard to settle back in? I can imagine the design scene in Taiwan is quite different from London…

The hardest part is you understand them but you don’t agree with them! They like your idea but will not go for it. People are afraid of change, that’s what worries me!

Let’s talk a little bit about the UPUP app you developed. You ended up creating plastic character toys for that as well. Tell us a bit how it all happened.

Dude… it is a long story… here is a short version of it…

UPUP started as my own side project. I put the website online and after 2 days it went viral! After that I started to get a lot of interest for UPUP and we started to license the characters. There are so many stories in between, because the whole process took about 3 years!


You even collaborated with UNIQLO at that point. How do you manage a project once it goes this big? I assume there might have been a lot of legal stuff you needed to sort out?

In Taiwan is once your name is up their people would line up to work with you. The legal stuff is not the problem, my agent took care of it. The big problem is they always asking for the same thing! When working with big companies it’s hard to ask them to listen to you. There would be advertising and PR company in between, so is hard to communicate. I need more experience of working with big company for sure.

Your most recent project is HappyCrotch which is a cute character which is basically… a crotch! How the hell did you come up (no pun intended) with that one?

One thing I love about Happy Crotch is that the name sounds so wrong but yet so funny! 

The reason I created this character is very simple: my crotch isn’t happy! 

I didn’t have sex for a very long time and when I ask my friends for advice just found out that no one’s crotch is happy. We are all living in a fake world full of sexual content to excite our crotch but no one is truly happy with it! I found it very interesting because there can never be just one answer to this issue, because everyone has a different kind of ‘happy’. So Happy Crotch is my way of finding my own answer…

Did you get any flack for creating a toy that talks about masturbation and sexuality this openly?

Not yet… it is still a new character, people still don’t know about it. But I am looking forward to it! I like to hear about different points of view and see some angry people!

At a moment the work I do for Happy Crotch is still very safe, I need to spice it up more! Still working on it…

The packaging and the figures ( there are three colourways now ) look very slick. How did you get them produced?

I worked together with a HK figure studio called “Unbox “ and they are very professional.  Thanks to them my crotch came out very smooth and shiny!

Are you collecting toys? How do you feel about the current character design / urban vinyl scene?

In fact… I don’t collect anything at a moment. It takes too much time and money! I think we are in the best and the worst time of character design, or creation in general. Everyone has a social media account and can be an artist, this is the best thing ever! So many people are doing exciting works, and people can find them on their phone! However, we don’t get excited any more, we can find anything in no time! 

I remember when I was young and saw some new Japanese figures in the toy store: I needed to find out their story myself through hard work! I had to ask around friends, spend time to collect all the information and merchandise. Nowadays an artist has to put out works daily for people to like, it is totally another way around now! Things are very accessible.

I love both, it’s just up to you how you see the scene.

Most designers and illustrators dream about creating their own prints or toys. Is it hard to make your money back once the production cycle is done? Can you give some advice how to approach creating and selling your own products?

Oh, no… I can’t give advice again… but I’ll like to share a lesson I just learned: Spend times on the category you want to do before you started your own project!

 via ecurator2013.blogspot.de
via ecurator2013.blogspot.de

If you want to make a toy, spend time on learning how to make it: Ask people who know, follow their fan page, like their photo, get to know more people who are in the scene. Go and meet them face to face! 

In the process you will learn new skills and be able to tell people what you working on. You will build up your own network! Not a media one, a real one with people who will sort things out for you and help you to spread the word! This way you are making friends, creating work and do marketing in the same time. It sounds easy to do, but it takes time! Years maybe, but it feels much more solid.

What can we expect from Haniboi in the future?

I am working on the first music video for Happy Crotch, it is coming soon! 

Any final words of wisdom?

Be honest with your crotch.

 

http://happycrotch.com

https://www.behance.net/Haniboi

https://www.nellyduff.com/artists/haniboi

 

 

Their 7″ vinyl weights a ton: Secret 7s 2016

That London hosts amazing exhibitions is no secret, but this exhibition hold some secrets itself! Kickstarted in 2012, Secret 7s picks 7 tracks and releases them on 7″ vinyl. Then selected artists, designers and illustrators create unique covers for the song of their choice.

The catch: The artist, the designer and the track stay anonymous so each visitor has to guess which creative messed around with which song!

Especially when it comes to the infamous sale day where all the sleeves get sold off for charity, having the right hunch can bag the vinyl lover an original artwork by a world famous artists for the price of £50!

The list of contributors is as eclectic as the selection of songs for the 7 inch vinyl: From total newcomers to big artists, Secret 7s prides itself to be open and accessible which I think is great. And not just because I managed to get to submit an artwork to the show 😉 

So many different approaches to customizing a 7″ cover! Trying to figure out the songs as a visitor is as much fun as designing a sleeve as an artist: It’s all about dropping enough hints to make the cover relevant to the song, but not too many that it’s too obvious. 

Name-dropping all of the artists featured would be impossible. The whole list can be seen here. Needless to say it’s great to share the exhibition space with friends like Daniel Clarke, Patrick Hanke, Mark James and Stevie Gee and personal heroes of mine like Pete Fowler and Swifty, just to name a few.  

As all monies will be donated to Amnesty International there is  no need to cling onto your cash: Get yourself a piece of affordable art and support a great cause! 

Wonder which songs are on offer? Tracks featured on vinyl this year: Chvrches / Clearest Blue, Etta James / At Last, Jack Garratt / Worry, The Jam / Art School, John Lennon / Imagine, Max Richter / Dream 3 and Tame Impala / The Less I Know The Better. Quite a range of musical styles!

To create the right vibe for the private view at creative space Sonos Studio featured artist and vinyl lover Pete Fowler and friends provided the soundtrack to the kick off of this years show with their 7″ vinyl  only selection while ice cold craft beers made the rounds. Cheers! Now I really have to get that amazing Turkish Funk record he played…

So head down to Secret 7s in Shoreditch and go on your own musical expedition into the unknown… and discover more than one visual treasure!

The exhibition runs from 8th of April till 1st of May 2016 with the Sale Day being on 2nd May! Open Tuesday till Sunday, 10AM – 6.30PM at Sonos Studio, 21 Club Row, Shoreditch.

http://secret-7.com/

Before I am off to the record store, let me say that Secret 7s is not the only project worth mentioning when it comes to fusing art and music on 7″ vinyl…

1) Waiwiyahttps://www.facebook.com/wiaiwya

I came across these great designed 7″ records during the Independent Label Market this year. Apparently Waiwiya is a singles club where a subscription gives you access to seven vinyl singles designed by seven amazing artists. What a fun concept! Check out their Facebook to find out more. 

 

2) 45/7 Vinyl Clubhttps://soundcloud.com/45-7-vinyl-club

Hailing from Hamburg / Germany, the aim of the 45/7 Vinyl Club is to connect 7″ vinyl lovers and present new eclectic 7″ mixes on a monthly basis via their Soundcloud. Every contributing DJ gets a unique hand painted 7″ sleeve by Secret 7s artist Patrick Hanke and they just celebrated their first limited release on vinyl:  A limited promotional only pressing of their “45/7 Theme” which already has a special place in my record collection!

 

3) Mondo Tees | http://mondotees.com

The illustration heavy hitters from Austin / Texas don’t only deliver when it comes to amazing and limited screenprinted posters, no they go all out too for their vinyl releases! These Batman and Superman 7″ vinyls are just a thing of beauty. Catch them if you can!

Pencils at dawn: ELCAF 2015

One of the events I always put in bold into my calendar is the East London Comics and Arts Festival… or in short: ELCAF!

The very first ELCAF took place June 2012 at East London’s Village Underground and the festival has been going strong ever since. No wonder with London having such a thriving Illustration, Art and Design community! This year the event was hosted held across two venues just around my corner: The Laundry and SPACE in Hackney. Easy peasy!

With Workshops, talks, gigs, performances and movie screenings ELCAF has something for everybody and the big exhibitor hall is packed with stalls selling zines, patches, screen prints, tote bags and anything else comic and illustration related. Renowned comic shops and publishing houses like Nobrow Press and Gosh! selling alongside local artists is a great concept and provides a good variety.

It’s just awesome to be able to have a chat and purchase some hand pulled screen prints directly from the artist! Bought a great Dracula print by Peow!Studio and a copy of the great female fighters zine you might have heard about on Kickstarter at the stall of Dilraj Mann. PS: Dilray, next time I’ll buy a screen print as well I promise! Love your work!

Although I promised myself not to buy too much stuff I couldn’t say no to this kick ass She-Hulk by the very talented Donya Todd! Reminds me not to piss off the ladies which is not an easy task..

Another highlight are these absolutely great hand painted Wookie badges by Benjamin Wright. Very PHRESH indeed! Plus you can never go wrong with a great selection of vintage trading cards…

Events like this are so inspirational and I got a big energy rush getting back into my own work. So who knows, maybe there will be a Solaris100 stall at ELCAF 2016! 😉

Visit the official ELCAF website here and seeya next year!