Special-edition, Congolese-inspired TOMS Shoes
We're teaming up with Giving Partner Eastern Congo Initiative (ECI), an advocacy and grant-making organization founded by Ben Affleck, on two Congolese-inspired designs with an additional give. Read More >>
TOMS x charity: water - An Eyewer collaboration
TOMS and charity: water, an organization founded in 2006 (like TOMS!) that’s dedicated to to helping bring clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations, join forces for the first-ever TOMS Eyewear collab! Read More >>
Giving TOMS Shoes in the DRC
Founded by Ben Affleck in 2010, ECI is an advocacy and grant-making organization that works with and for the people of DRC, the third most populous country in Africa, and one that struggled under a cycle of violence for nearly 20 years – particularly in the east. Read More >>
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Art + the TOMS Culture: Brennan, Hilary, Eric
Art. To one person it’s found in nature; to another, it lies among music notes, neon signs, murals, or portraits. Here at TOMS, art plays in to many channels, from Shoe and Eyewear design inspiration, to online banners & catalogs, and our personal lives & passions.
Our Creative department has no shortage of talented minds, and today we’re introducing you to three of them. Meet Brennan, Hilary, and Eric; Graphic Designers at TOMS HQ.
Brennan grew up in a small town in Wisoconsin, where he discovered his passion for pictures. Tracing back his artistic roots, Brennan said, “I can start from when I was in kindergarten. I was always the first person in class to finish my work because I wanted to get to the coloring sheet. Later in life, my mom was sorting through old documents and found a note from my kindergarten teacher that said, ‘Brennan is such an artist.’ It’s like I made my decision back in kindergarten that I was going to pursue something creative.”
Since then, he’s designed sets and dabbled in metal-smitthing; now he’s working on a project mixing scents. He infuses his work at TOMS with his own eclectic passions—if you see a flash of flourescent in a TOMS campaign, know it very well could have been Brennan’s idea.
Hilary takes a more systematic approach. “As a graphic designer, you are always presenting a solution to a problem. That’s how my rational brain gets motivated. Everything has a meaning; there’s no line or color that’s not serving some sort of purpose.”
And then there’s Eric, our resident jack-of-all-trades. Eric grew up skating, and that lifestyle has given way to an organic approach to art. At 15, he created a skate magazine with his friends using “pretty rudimentary stuff.” Now he has a screen printing studio in his home so he can work on art for bands and other fun side projects.
“TOMS has an independent spirit and nature,” he said. “Lots of our work is hand-done, even when it lives online. Instead of getting a picture of dirt, we’ll go out and grab some dirt.”
These three graphic designers created a special project for our Facebook page that we would love for you to check out. We asked them each to create a cover photo for TOMS, with the only parameters being, “Show us how TOMS inspires you.” So, what do you think?
