Josh Mckenna

0:01[Applause]

0:12hello hi thank you nice to Tuesdays for having me on this very nice Monday hello my name is Josh McKenna I'm a freelance illustrator I graduated from Falmouth University about three years ago since then. I have moved to London.

0:32And I work with in advertising and a bit of editorial and some brand work my work looks like this. And this and this however. That's quite boring so tonight I would rather talk about some bums some boots and some more bums so my pride journey began back in October I worked with anyways it's nice that's creative partner to create a set of stickers for Google they wanted me to create a pride themed sticker set but instead of doing the cliche kind of rainbow flags big gay bears and everything in pink I wanted to capture something else something a bit more unique as maybe more of like a celebration of what it's like being gay so I covered many topics within my sticker set I wanted it to be fun and sassy but also I wanted to cover some kind of like sensitive subjects as well.

1:56So there's there's a sticker for trans people there's gender fluidity same-sex marriage also a couple of drag queens some disco people a very sassy hair flick the Chiki bum slap and a hairy man with painted nails in tiny denim hot pants so as Pride Month got closer I was really looking forward to the launch of the Google sticker set I received an email from San Francisco it was Instagram getting in touch about their own pride project yeah they were commissioning six illustrators from around the world to do one sticker for Instagram stories they wanted me to depict my interpretation of gay culture they were going to be built into the Instagram app for one month during Pride and they were going to go worldwide so I started doing some sketches straightaway because they gave me a deadline of six days so I had six days to create something even though I was very very very small it was going to use gonna be used globally so I start sketching up what I thought would be kind of like the personality of being gay and and gay culture so my immediate thought would be sexy guy in speedos which is him up there some hairy men's feet in high heels and some folk dancers I narrowed it down to two options the sexy speedo guy and the vogue dancer I flesh them out a bit and gave him some shine and gave him a pair of high heels and I sent them off to get feedback from Instagram so I was pushing for sexy speedo guy I got my feedback straightaway. And it was too risky so I still wanted to push for a sexy speedo guy so I made his pants a little bit bigger not by much and they gave me feedback straight away on that one as well it was still too risky so I developed the vogue dancer you may have seen him on Instagram stories I gave him some turnips and some red heels and he was launched a week after I handed him it in and then the kind of pride work that I did this year snowballed so Facebook.

4:42And Instagram in London saw the sticker they loved him and they wanted me to do some more work for them Facebook wanted me to paint a mural at their head office in London. And Instagram wanted to do a piece of work for the parade of pride which was going to be outside Trafalgar Square so I got down to Leyland's in Dalston and bought a shitload of rainbow-colored pastel paint enlisted a friend called Charlie who does some murals for the comrades shop and we got our lanyards for Facebook and start to work the wool space I think was about three square meters and we had four days to do it using a projector we projected my characters onto the wall start painting and blocking the colors that's Charlie every day he wore a different colored shirt so everyone at Facebook thought it was his mural I looked like I was just cleaning the brushes so yeah that's the final me oh I'd never done a mural before it's really really fun and that's up indefinitely they say well I I have to say the best part of being at Facebook for four days was the free food okay. So after wrapping up and cleaning the brushes it was back to the computer to design the mural for Instagram I kept it really simple because they'd seen the sticker they'd seen the mural at Facebook.

6:21So I kept it pretty much the same it was sent off.

6:23And then before I knew it it was launch day launch day was held at Facebook's head office in Houston.

6:31And then the mural was moved to Trafalgar Square the next day for pride the pride wolves were to encourage people to take selfies and pictures in front of it with the hashtag kind comments to send to their friends if they felt inspired by anyone and generally just to copy the pose I think she did a good job and all the time that the I was designing the mural and I was at the the launch I had been approached by Vogue to first of all do an interview but also to take over their Instagram stories so on the day of the launch I I was filming myself on a phone to two million viewers with the chance that Sadiq Khan was going to be there.

7:27And I was unveiling my work at Facebook head office I was myself ♪

7:45that's me doing a spin to Madonna and this is the full Instagram story high VOC I'm Josh McKenna I'm a British illustrator today I'm going to show you my Instagram riot mural I started up folks VOC house and then we moved here we are at Facebook London and here's my mural everything was rainbow colored even the muffins and I don't know why I'm walking backwards I was told to you have the best style with a picture note and I wrote to Alice slowly my art director I loved working on this with a picture Modigliani hey guys thanks for watching I'm signing out and joining the party don't ask so as the dust settled from the launch the VOC take over the mess that was pride I got to sit back and kind of enjoy my sticker being used he was featured a lot on a lot of people's Instagram my family my friends - celebrities and apparently one of the Kardashians have used it.

9:18This is not the Kardashian this is Caprice the model here he is in LA looking fabulous. And I'm not really sure what's going on here but my all-time favorite video that I got sent was by a dancer in the States I think it's safe to say he nailed it okay. So he was only ever supposed to be around for one month during Pride he got extended for another month and now I found out recently that he's a permanent fixture within the Instagram app thank you.

10:12So I invite you please to just use him as you wish and then if you do please send it to me. So I can enjoy thank you [Applause]