KJ Tait

When we moved into our bigger office space on the Ground floor of Canada House, there was this big, plain wall that was begging to have something unique done with it. As luck would have it, a couple of us had seen a hand drawn wall at another Manchester building we were working at and immediately knew what to do with the big, plain wall.  

This led us to being put in contact with a local Manchester artist called Dave Gee, or Dave Draws in his professional capacity. 

We loved the fact he’s a local independent artist and so we thought we would get a bit of background on who he is and what makes him tick. 

 Q: Can you give us a little bit about your background?

I'm Dave Draws and I am a freelance doodle artist based in Manchester, I have been working full time as an artist for 8 years creating artwork for companies such as BBC Sport, Marks & Spencer, Nike and CHANEL. I have also created the branding for Salford Rum and Lancashire Tea. Before becoming a full time artist, I was based in Berlin where I worked in art galleries helping programme exhibitions. 

Q: Where did the idea of the maps come from?

I had the idea for creating map murals after a comment was made during an exhibition that I was part of in Berlin. I was exhibiting one of my early non-map doodle pieces and a guest commented that the work looked like a city from above due to the doodles grid like nature. This gave me the idea of drawing maps and when I moved to Manchester, I started to put this into practice. 

Q: Which has been your favourite wall to create?

My favourite project is the New York map I created for the Innside New York Nomad hotel; this was a New York map that has been printed in their lift so when you get in, the map surrounds you. New York is an amazingly unique place to draw and it also started a relationship with the hotel which led to me going back to create more artwork there. 

Q: What is your favourite part of KJ Tait mural?

My favourite part of the KJ Tait mural was actually drawing the buildings KJ Tait were associated with such as Bauhaus and Sunlight House. I had never drawn them before so as new buildings they posed a fresh challenge to me. 

Thanks davedraws.co.uk – we love our wall!