“I grew up in a creative family. Both of my parents were art lovers, and immediately saw that I was interested in art and introduced me to graphic design, ad since then, I never looked back,” laments Kide as he reminisced on his childhood.
Khiddir Baharudin, more affectionately known as Kide (Still pronounced as Khiddir) has come a long way since his entrance into last year’s Vans’ Custom Culture competition, having won the overall in Malaysia with his interpretation of Malaysian culture that’s vibrant, diverse, and playful.
“Kide was one of the finalists from our Asia Custom Culture Competition in 2017. His loose and colourful illustration
style is rich, vibrant, energetic and is synonymous with our Off The Wall spirit,” said Justice Lee, Creative Director of Vans APAC.
For his art, Kide started with a bit of research and sketching out whatever comes to mind, drawing inspirations from books, comics, the internet, and his travels. “I really love to read editorials, comics and children books, they are inspiring! I came up with the creative concept with ideas of local culture and heritage, as I still feel my style and drawing strokes fit best in the illustration world showing our local culture,” said Kide. From there, he comes up with images that compliment the characters’ emotions and activities, as well as adding humorous elements that relates back to local culture and heritage.
Vans also managed to document his creative process, more specifically on his home turf back in Kuala Pilah, to get to know how the environment that he was in shaped the artist that he is today. “We had plenty of good times and I was really excited to show them my hometown’s culture, my work space, and also managed introduced them to my family!”
To see Kide in action, catch him during Vans Asia Custom Culture at House Of Vans on the 9th of September, 2PM – 6PM as he helms this iteration of the customising workshop, or for more info of what’s going to go down, click here.
