James Jarvis Maker of designer toys
“I’m no longer bothered about making sure everything makes sense in this one world.”
A gifted creator is having a philosophical moment.
“It’s not that I don’t care, it’s just that there are millions of parallel universes where my people can live, each with their own set of rules.” He’s the patriarch of a new world order, founder of a greater zeitgeist – the master of a plastic race.
They call him James – a conventional name for a seriously unconventional creator. Away from the realms of politics and religion, James Jarvis is the humble British pioneer of the designer toy phenomenon. He’s the illustrator from London whose obsession with the potato head has propelled him to rockstar status – the Western face of a scene steeped in the urban styles of Hong Kong and Japan.
And today, in this mint London office, he’s more than willing to chat – about plastic worlds, mainstream ambitions, and the serendipitous stroke of luck that was a humanoid called Martin.
All smiles and childlike candour, James Jarvis is the personification of the designer toy scene. In a world where grown-ups fight over toys that aren’t made for playtime, he is both man and boy, imagination and sense – a whimsical creative grounded in the power of logic. “I have this need for order and discipline in everything I do,” says the elfin-like James. “Even if things seem illogical, they have to be driven by logic. That’s why, when I create another universe, I have to also create rules for my characters to live by.”
Glance over James’ plastic tribe and you may well brand them a bit of cartoon fun – but you’d be wrong. Behind the giant gorillas and pear-shaped humanoids lies a world of academic research. “My thing is modernism,” says James. “I’m talking about early twentieth-century constructivism, Bauhaus. That minimalist functional way of looking at the world and design.”
With a childhood spent absorbing the work of author-illustrators Richard Scarry, Gary Panter and Hergé – the man behind Tin Tin – James always knew illustration was his calling. An MA tucked firmly under his belt, his trailblazing career kicked off in that most creative of cultural scenes: skateboarding.
The late nineties saw the fresh-faced graduate team up with Russell Waterman and Sofia Prantera of London’s Slam City Skates on the couple’s new venture, clothing label Silas. “It was a happy accident. And it came from being involved in a scene, in London skateboarding, and hanging out at Slam,” says James, on the solid partnership that would be the making of his now iconic style. “It was the first time I got to do what I wanted without having to moderate it. And that involved these kind of weird minimalist characters.”
With James ensconced as all-round illustrating wonder kid, the trio were soon catapulted into an entirely new dimension – of the injection-moulded variety. “Our Japanese distributor sent over a Bounty Hunter toy and was like ‘I think you should make one of these,’ so we did,” explains James. “We never set out to enter the world of designer toys, because it simply didn’t exist.”
Another happy accident, another unplanned birth – this time to a healthy eight-inch vinyl humanoid called Martin: a conventional name for a seriously unconventional character. People loved him – and over the next five years, more plastic personalities popped out of the ‘World of Pain’, their creator’s comic universe. Having sampled the sweet smell of vinyl, James was bitten by the three-dimensional bug. “When you make an illustration, there isn’t that air of mystery, because you’re in charge of the whole thing,” he says. “I liked the industrial aspect – the fact that we got this thing back that was related to my idea but at the same time new.”
Martin and co. hit a chord with skaters and regular folk alike, becoming sought-after collectables: “The toys were popular in their own right – they had a Silas audience, but they also attracted people that weren’t interested in fashion.” Unwittingly, James had catapulted the global-sweeping designer toy craze into being.
But where other aspiring trendsetters would give their skinny jean butt to christen their own cultural niche, soft-spoken James and geezer-man Russell are hesitant heroes of this underground scene. Far from wielding a blueprint on ‘How to make your subculture exclusive’, this unlikely coupling’s business plan was decidedly more mainstream: bring toys to the masses.
“Russell always said toys aren’t fashion, that it made no sense to lump them in with that seasonal, ephemeral world,” says James, glancing admiringly over his shoulder at a computer-happy Mr. Waterman. “If we wanted the toys to be mass-market, it was weird to associate them with this underground, more subversive brand, and vice versa.”
This moment of clarity led to the 2002/’03 establishment of Amos, a company dedicated to toys. “The whole idea of Amos was to let the toys take their own direction,” says James. “The first toys we put out, the In-Crowd, were meant to be a mainstream thing. Kind of like the Beanie Babies, but with all of the subversive aspects that we like in culture.”
Today, Amos is home to a growing troupe of plastic characters. Many stem from James’ philosophical storybook, Vortigern’s Machine and the Great Sage of Wisdom, co-written with multi-tasking partner Russell. The ‘In Crowd’, meanwhile, is a satirical ode to pop cultural trends. Figures like ‘The Young Ruffians’ hit a chord with anyone struck with the post-high-school realisation that they’re anything but original – which is basically everyone. “People buy them because they’re like, ‘that looks like my friend Dave,’” smiles James. “They have characteristics that people can relate to. That was the whole thing about having a basic appeal.”
Subversive and accessible in equal measure, Amos Toys dominate their own micro-economy. Hardcore collectors and wheeler-dealers alike are part of a global trade in plastic that sees vinyl and currency swap hands across the world. Earlier this year, an olive green King Ken – the gorilla who’s now a beacon of the designer toy scene – amassed a whopping £1,200 price tag on eBay. Not bad going for a plastic monkey that wasn’t even meant to be. “I felt sorry for the guy that bought that,” says James. “It’s not even the best colour. In fact, it was never meant to be green – it was supposed to be a black sample, but I sent the wrong pantone.”
Away from the fashion-conscious figurine, James’ inspiration seeps from a very different toy – one that actually is meant to be played with. “What I had in my head as a really great toy wasn’t this designer, boutique, fashion thing – it was Playmobil,” says James, lighting up like a kid at Christmas. “It has that Bauhaus ethos to it: it’s very minimal, it’s very practical and logical. But within that structure, there’s some really mad things, like weird tree spirits. They work as toys and they work as design objects.”
Balancing whimsicality with structure is the central force of James’ design ethos. Every aspect of every character is the product of hours of research – making the simplification of life anything but simple. “I develop particularly pointless drawn-out ways of doing the artwork,” he says. “If your character is going to look like it can live in a cloak, for example, you need to know everything about that cloak.”
Another winning recipe is the union of businessman and artist – Russell’s pragmatism offsetting James’ creativity. “Being practical is something Russell’s imparted to me,” says James. “My life’s a piece of piss. I draw things. His struggle in building up Amos is more quantifiable, while for me it’s some kind of airy-fairy intellectual struggle about the meaning of drawing.”
Looking back over a bursting portfolio of otherworldly creations, what emotion is James overcome by? “I’m always disappointed,” says the man whose compulsion for perfection is becoming more and more apparent.
What about his global fan base? It’s a good time to be British, right? “What?? As society collapses and kids don’t behave themselves?” replies James, to what was evidently a dumb question. “No, it’s a terrible time to be British!”
But, with a feature animation on the horizon and a humanoid race to his name, it’s a great time to be James Jarvis – master of the (plastic) universe.
www.amostoys.com
Vortigern’s Machine and the Great Sage of Wisdom, James Jarvis and Russell Waterman, Die Gestalten Verlag.
This story originally appeared in Huck #005.
Subscribe to HUCK for five issues for only £15 (UK) / £25 (Europe) / £40 (Rest of the World).
