The Early Days
Creativity has always been there for me in one form or another. Long before music, radio, poetry or clothing design, I had a passion for art. When I was really young, I wanted to become a cartoon background artist because I loved the worlds inside cartoons just as much as the characters themselves.
I studied art at school and naturally gravitated towards anything visual or creative. Back then I spent a lot of time experimenting with different materials including pen, pencil, charcoal, oil pastels, watercolour and coloured pencils. One day I could be drawing empty cans and crisp packets collected from the school playground, in coloured pencil, the next I would be recreating Van Gogh’s Starry Night in oil pastels on brown card as a final piece for an art exam.
At the same time, I was also studying technical drawing. I never enjoyed it as much as the arty side of things, but looking back it probably balanced everything out. One side was expressive while the other side was structured and precise.
Outside of school I would spend time painting scenery using watercolour, pencil or charcoal. Painting fields, trees, lakes, anything really. I was constantly experimenting and trying different approaches to things. Art never felt like a subject to me. It just felt natural.
Finding Inspiration Everywhere
Comic strips and cartoons were another huge influence on me growing up, especially Garfield. I was a massive fan as a child and it wasn't just the books either, it was anything involving that cartoon cat. On top of that, I used to cut out the one line Garfield comic strips from the Nottingham Evening Post newspaper and stick them into my own scrapbook. Looking back now, I think I was always drawn towards things that had character and identity behind them.
I also became fascinated with graffiti and spent a lot of time experimenting with styles, shapes and how letters flowed together, the character of the piece and the bright colours. Around the same time, I became drawn to rave flyer artwork during the early 1990s. There was something about those old flyers that grabbed me, same as the graffiti did. The colours, the typography, the energy and the unique artwork all felt raw, imaginative and full of personality.
When Music Took Over
By around the mid 1990s, music and DJing started getting more of my attention and focus. Once I got introduced to turntables properly, everything changed. Creativity was still there, but now it was coming out through music and not as much through drawing or painting.
Even so, I never completely stopped. I would still doodle little cartoon faces, cartoon fish, graffiti lettering or random shapes and ideas on bits of paper, especially if I was sat talking on the phone or thinking about something else. Drawing had become second nature by that point.
For years, most of my energy then went into developing musically. DJing became the main focus. After my BMX accident in 2004, I struggled with going back to certain things creatively, especially reconnecting fully with the pen-to-paper skills again. The creativity itself never disappeared though, the way I expressed it changed as I struggled to hold a pen in my right hand without shaking.
Finding My Way Back
When I started doing radio in 2006, and later launched Pauzeradio in 2009, another side of me started coming back again. At first it started with simple things like building websites, branding ideas and creating feature images for radio shows so they stood out online. Over time, I realised I was naturally drifting back to the art influences from my childhood through the work I was doing in music.
The graffiti influence, flyer artwork, typography all slowly found their way back, and with the reggae influence, that's how Pauzeradio became what it did over the years.
Then in 2016, I released my second poetry book, which became another outlet entirely.
Entering Clothing Design
With digital design tools opening new doors, designing for Pauzewear has been one of the newest chapters, though looking back, it makes perfect sense. That side really started resurfacing fully around 2024 and I was ready for the new challenge. I think the confidence to explore clothing design properly came from years of building other creative skills first. Music, DJing, radio, branding, websites, visuals, writing and artwork all added up over time.
When I look at Pauzewear now, I do not really see it as something separate from everything that came before it. It feels more like another chapter in the same journey that started years ago with sketchbooks, Garfield the cat, graffiti and old rave flyers.
