FIGHTER JETS AND MENACING GOATS: MEET THE ARTIST BEHIND LIV GOLF’S NEW TEAM ART

“I felt like I was the last person to know what LIV Golf was,” Brisseaux said during a recent interview. “I told a bunch of my friends that 'm being approached by this interesting take on golf called LIV Golf, where it's like a team-oriented thing.

“And of course, all my buddies who play golf – which is literally everybody at my age now; I'm almost 40 and everyone plays golf at this point – they were just sort of shocked. They were just starstruck that I was working on LIV Golf. So, it was definitely this pressure from them to be like, Hey, make sure you do good job. This is legit. I was like, all right, pressure’s on now.

“Yeah, I was totally a newborn in understanding what LIV Golf was.”

But as with many things related to LIV Golf, bringing in someone with a fresh approach to a sport that relies heavily on its traditions was part of the appeal. Brisseaux could offer a different take.

“He is a very digital-first artist, which is somewhat unusual for illustrators who often like to sketch and craft their work on analog materials first” said Will Newell, LIV Golf’s Vice President and Creative Director, Marketing. “Kervin is fascinated by what digital tools can do and how tech innovations can unlock creativity. There's something in there in regard to how LIV Golf has a similar innovation focus.”

Newell met with Brisseaux in the late summer to outline the project. Work on the illustrations began in August, and then in September, the animation was added. The deadlines were tight for 12 team illustrations plus league compositions, but “this was probably one of the smoothest projects I’ve ever worked on,” Brisseaux said.

With his artwork now unveiled, Brisseaux took time to discuss the creative process, his background as an artist, and why he’s particularly fond of the images he created for HyFlyers GC and Stinger GC.

Q: Let’s talk about your background. You initially studied architecture. What prompted you to become an artist?

BRISSEAUX: “It's interesting. The more I think about it, I don't know if it was actually a full transition. What I mean by that is I was always inclined to the arts, and architecture was just a way in which to kind of appease my parents as well as myself in terms of my urge for design. So, there was this pressure to go towards a more reputable career that wasn't just drawing pretty pictures, as my parents would say. But over time, as I got to understand myself as a designer and understand where my interests truly lie, after I finished school, it was a couple of things.

“I graduated during the housing recession, towards the end of it. So back in 2010, 2011, grad school. And I kind of made a decision on whether I'm going to try and struggle and stay within this profession that I studied for eight years, or do I really pursue my passion and try to take another leap of faith? And I decided to go for the latter.

“And I was always doing illustration in the background of my architectural studies anyway. So, it was never really a hard 180. It was more of a paradigm shift, like an agile shift to the left. Just hold onto what I've learned in architecture, not really throwing that away, but implementing it in an adjacent field.”

Q: How would you categorize your work and what are your biggest influences?

BRISSEAUX: “My work is hard to quantify. Obviously, my work is kind of a mixture of different things, just from layman's terms. It's just a very clear mixed media component to this. As you see with the LIV Golf project, there's a lot of implementation of photography and illustration, which is something I always like to experiment with. A lot of my work is very character-driven as well. A lot of iconography is implemented in that, some typography. So, there's this hodgepodge of different things that make up the kind of work I do today.

“And the inspiration comes from a variety of things. Pop culture, I'm hugely inspired by Japanese animation in general. I'm also really inspired by music. Just little sorts of things throughout my life and how I live that inspire me on my day-to-day that kind of make my way into my style I live.”

Q: What is it about anime that you like?

BRISSEAUX: “I always find it as an interesting canvas where the creators just are constantly experimenting. There's always new methods, new stylistic approaches, new ways in which they kind of push and pull different frames. They kind of approach character design. All of these things implement its way into my work somehow. And it's not to say that it's the only thing that inspires me, but it's definitely a baseline for sure, in terms of my starting point, looking for inspiration.

“Also, I think a part of that is just my upbringing, just my childhood. I grew up watching television because the TV was basically my babysitter growing up. There was a lot of early influences there in my more formative years – looking at not just Japanese animation, but just animation in general, cartoons and really trying to quantify that into something that was a profession where it's not necessarily animation, but illustration. Took a long time to figure out.”

Q: As you were going through the design process, what was your approach for the teams?

BRISSEAUX:“My approach started with studying and understanding the ins and outs of each team. The one side of that was looking at their tool kit, understanding their mantra, their visual language. On the flip side of that, looking at specific interpretations of the respective players as well, and the stylist that they were able to solve collaboratively with them. Kind of taking those two parts and filtering it through my own sort of stylistic vision was the approach. And in the beginning, it was a lot of trial and error just to see if I can nail that translation.

“I started very, very specific on two particular teams ­­– Fireballs and Stingers – and really kind of playing around in the sketch phase and starting to see how to best translate each of these approaches to make them all feel different, but still stylistically feel uniform, which is super-challenging at first. And then once we saw that, then honestly, it was just sort of smooth sailing from there. Once we understand the balance in terms of the elements, how much coverage, the overall template of the teams as well, all that was kind important to nail the other 10 teams that had to come together.”

Q: Were there one or two teams that you particularly enjoyed working on, maybe taking the design in ways you didn’t initially anticipate?

BRISSEAUX: “Oh yeah, sure. Definitely one of the first ones. Stingers. I had a lot of fun with that because they kind of embraced this sort of Brazilian aesthetic, which is very, very similar to South African aesthetic as well. So, playing with those color palettes, it's kind of funny looking at the artwork, I could kind of hear the music coming through it. Oddly enough, there's something very musical about the design in that.

“And then the other one – I really, really enjoyed working on the HyFlyers because it was an interesting challenge drawing out that fighter jet. Talking about architecture – that really stepped me back into my architectural skillset and drawing the perspective and trying to nail the balance of that along with the subtleties of the design levels that they had too.”

Q: Let’s discuss a few other teams. The RangeGoat looks particularly menacing.

BRISSEAUX: “That was actually really, really fun. It was one of the ones I saved towards the end because I was kind of fermenting on it a little bit and thinking, OK, what would be the best way to kind of approach this stylistically? … I think of all the teams, they had the most expansive brand color palette, I think it was about maybe eight different colors I had to work with. So, it was really interesting to find the balance in that and to kind of filter and see what would work best within that design.

“And then when it came to the goat itself, I mean that was kind of my bread and butter in terms of my drawing ability. I tend to draw a lot of animals for some reason in a lot of my illustrations. So, drawing the golf was just kind of par for the course for me.”

Q: The tiger you drew for the Iron Heads was also visually stimulating.

BRISSEAUX: “Yeah, the Tiger was a fun one too. Again, it was similar to the RangeGoats and that kind of felt like my bread and butter. The Iron Heads was really probably one of the easiest to crack outside of maybe the Fireballs, just in terms of once I understood what they were sort of passionate about or what they wanted to focus on to their brand – yeah, the tiger came together very quickly.”

Q: On a few of the designs, you managed to incorporate the team logo within the name of the captain. But you didn’t do it for all 12. I assume you didn’t want to force that concept if it didn’t fit visually.

BRISSEAUX:“That's exactly right. In terms of chatting with Will and the team, it had to be more than just being a one-trick pony. Yeah, some of them made a lot of sense to have some kind of a clear icon because that worked best for the team brand based on their toolkit.

“But then for others –I think one was Torque, for example. Torque is probably the most abstract of all of them. Originally for Torque, we had this motorcycle approach where we had the motorcycle zipping across the mound of the key visual. And looking at that, it kind of felt out of place. When you look at the team toolkit and the team brand, they are a bit more subdued. So, we kind of focused on this velocity as opposed to being a bit too literal on what are some things that kind of exercise for.

“So yeah, there was a bit of a push and pull across all the teams to make sure that while we did have a very clear strategic approach in terms of conveying that narrative for each one, we want to be very careful about not being a one-trick pony, and two, making sure that what we implemented, regardless of how fun it was, still made sense for the team brand.”

Q: Now that the project is complete, how do you feel about the outcome?

BRISSEAUX: “I'm proud of it, honestly. I think what makes me so happy about this project in terms of the success is not just because we were able to meet the deadlines and achieve such a large amount of work in such a short amount of time, but in terms of that collaboration as well, being able to work with multiple people, bringing on an animator that I was close with to help me bring a lot of these assets to life through motion.

“This project not only allowed me to push my illustration skills, but also push my managerial skills as well, just in terms of managing the timings and managing a small team of two. And also, just making sure that the client was happy and that I stay true to the brand. I think the project successfully accomplishes all this.”