Becoming well known for their impressive, large-scale murals, Daisylegs have applied their art to restaurants, shop fronts and even a dementia clinic.
There’s a lot more to Daisylegs than murals though. The talented duo — Jamie Edward and Maddison Kitching — specialise in custom wall graphics, illustration and graphic design.
Today we chat with Jamie to find out more about Daisylegs and how it got started.
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The Daisylegs collaboration between Maddison and Jamie started on campus and has taken them across Australia.
“My mate Maddison and I met on our first day of uni and we were both into graphic design and painting.”
[Jamie studied Communication Design, which he says is a fancy word for graphic design.]
“We decided that rather than work for other people, we’d work for ourselves and do the kind of work we wanted to do.
“That was two years ago and now it’s our full time job.”
Looking at your portfolio, you’ve done such a wide range of work with really different styles. How would you describe your style?
“It’s a bit hard to pinpoint because as you say, we do lots of different work and we’re always evolving.
I would say our style is always young and we have a playful take on it.
“Where we differ most to others is that we combine art with commercial — applying art based stuff that’s tailored to meet the client’s brief.
“We’re also hands on with our design work. I always start with hand work, drawing illustrations and sketching it out, and then I digitize it.”
Are you also hands on in the sense that you carry a project through from start to finish?
“Yeah, we do all our murals and art work from start to finish.
“Sometimes our work is part of a rebrand where we’ll design the look and then elements of creating it are passed on, for example we have designed websites and then passed that on to web developers to create.”
I’m interested to know what a typical day looks like for you? How would you describe a good day at work?
“Our days are so varied!
“We do a lot of corporate illustrations so if we’re working on a project like that, we wear a shirt and slacks and go into the office.
“If we’re working on a mural we can be out on the street all day.”
“Sometimes we’re just in our office, checking emails and planning for projects.
“And some days are completely different. Like recently when we went to Tiwi Islands and Wadeye promoting healthy skin and healthy heart messages through art for the Red Dust organisation.
“When we’re in Melbourne though, each day generally starts with a morning swim at Prahran pool with Maddison. We’re both into sports and keeping active.”
Starting any business is challenging — especially one in a creative industry — what do you find most challenging?
“Deadlines!” laughs Jamie.
“We’re still pretty new to this and are learning everyday.
“We have a tendency just to say yes to every job and some of them have really tight deadlines — we’re up to our eyeballs in work!
“That can be pretty stressful and there are moments when I think ‘why are we doing this?’ but we love it and know how lucky we are to have continual work.”
I suppose there’s no such thing as a bad day and all that stuff I don’t enjoy like BAS statements is just part of the package of running your own business.
What are you working on next?
“We’ve got lots of mural work coming up including a secret launch of a restaurant I’d love to tell you all about but we’re under strict instructions not to spoil it,” laughs Jamie.
“That’s our biggest job right now. Outside we’re doing a 70m2 mural and inside a two storey mural.
“We’re also doing a really fun one at the moment for a dementia clinic. Art is a good way to calm and reassure people with dementia. Our murals will be placed throughout the clinic and used to interact with residents there.”
That sounds like such a great project, how did it come about?
“At the moment all our work is from word of mouth.
“It all started from one job where we did live mural painting at the premier of a new TV series. They keep coming back to us with new work or bringing new clients to us.
“Murals and internal graphics are in demand at the moment and we do a lot of painting in corporate settings.
I think people are realising more than ever that if you have happy workers, you’ve got productive workers so we’re getting called in to brighten up some pretty boring places.
Have you ever done a mural for a person’s residence?
“Yeah, we painted a sparrow in an 8 year old girl’s bedroom and we’ve done some walls for a lady who wanted the walls of her farm house painted in street art and graffiti.
“Often Maddison will do a lot of art on commission for people’s homes. He’s an oil painter as well.”
Where would you like to see Daisylegs go in the near future?
“At the moment we’re doing the projects we want to be doing. More of them would be great!
“Eventually we’d like to become a design studio that employs people and becomes ‘successful’ but I don’t know what that looks like yet,” laughs Jamie.
“Oh and a few surf trips to Bali in between.”
To check out more about Daisylegs, visit their website or connect with them on Instagram.
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