Lloyd Stratton
Our Founder Pete Williams, spent the morning chatting to the brilliant Brighton based illustrator.
Lloyd Stratton is a very likeable bloke. An affable chap with an easy manner and excellent chat. But more significantly, he devotes his entire life to two of my all-time favourite things. Booze. And illustration.
I can’t comment on his parents’ love (or not) of fine tequila, but he definitely got a head start in life illustration-wise as his dad was an art teacher. Clearly spotting some serious pencraft skills in his son, Lloyd was encouraged to pursue his prodigious talent for art from an early age..
But Lloyd is no painter and decorator (at least if he was, it would take about ten years to cover a single wall, such is the intricate manner of his work). Lloyd is an illustrator who uses dotwork shading to create images which blend the natural world with the contemporary.
Armed with nothing more than a uniquely talented eye and an enviable to-die-for pot of fine point marker pens, Lloyd’s illustrations created in his Brighton studio have caught
the eye of many a high-profile celebrity. None less so that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson who commissioned Lloyd to create the brand identity for his Teremana tequila brand. Teremana is the fasted growing tequila brand in the world
selling over a million cases last year. That’s a lot of little dots.
Inspired by the Rock (I mean, who hasn’t been? 395 million Instagram followers and counting – that’s a cool 100 million more than Taylor) Lloyd has gone on to be invited to create illustrations by Conor McGregor for his Proper Twelve Whiskey and Allsopp’s for the relaunch of their original and best IPA. Allsopp’s invented IPA in 1822 and have recently recreated that original, asking Lloyd to faithfully replicate the original ‘red hand’ of Allsopp’s using his distinctive dotwork shading technique.
But it’s not just beers and spirits that Lloyd can turn his hand to. Seamlessly ‘hopping’ from Allsop’s Burton on Trent to Sonoma, California, the cult organic winery Guthrie Family Wines has also commissioned Lloyd to create the brand identity for their award winning “Electric Syrah” range of wines.
I opened this piece saying what an affable likeable bloke Lloyd is. And I meant it. When he and I sat down to have a look through some of the original pieces he’s created, I spotted a lovely old corner cabinet tucked away in the corner of his kitchen. He is too modest to volunteer what was in it. And I am too nosey to resist a snoop. Nestled in this corner cupboard is Lloyd’s trophy cabinet. His personal collection of his greatest booze bottle hits – Teremana Tequila, Proper Twelve Whiskey, Kraken Rum and Allsop’s IPA to name a few.
Britain has always had a great reputation for producing some of the best creative talent in the world. And there is no stronger case study for this than Lloyd Stratton. Dot, dot, dotting away in his Brighton studio only to be spotted via Instagram and now considered to be one of the world’s leading creators of brand identities in the booze industry.
Lovely bloke too. We’re very proud to call him a friend of Aubin.
So, look him up on line, buy a print or even some tequila.
Follow Lloyd @lloydstratton
