The Wonderful World of Rhmyezlikedimez
How visual artist Robin Velghe went from building worlds for his favorite artists to his own cartoon series.
Welcome back to The Spark, IDEA GENERATION’s weekly newsletter and your source for all things creative entrepreneurship.
Spark Nation,
Happy 4th of July. We’ll keep it brief up here so you can get ready for your day full of hot dogs and fireworks. But if there are any lessons to take away from our interview with animation extraordinaire, Robin Velghe aka Rhymezlikedimez, it would be these:
Create your own IP.
Pay attention to the details.
Go for quality over quantity.
Focus on your own creations, hone your craft, and deliver quality content at your own pace. If you stick to that, you’ll see success.
Check out the full interview with Rhymezlikedimez below.
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HOW'D YOU THINK OF THAT?!
Artist Rhymezlikedimez is animating his own world.
Robin Velghe is the Belgian visual artist behind Rhymezlikedimez.
Known for his playful illustrations depicting musicians in surreal settings, Robin has collaborated with artists like Lil Uzi Vert, J. Cole, Bruno Mars, and more. Along with his business partner Freek Clinckemaillie, Rhymez has grown from a passion project into a full-fledged business, producing prints and figures, releasing collabs with KidSuper, and even creating an upcoming animated series based on the Rhymez mascot, Puff.
We talked with Robin to hear how he first broke onto the scene, the lessons he learned from turning his art into his career, and why he thinks posting everyday on social media is "bullshit."
When did you first get into art?
I've always had a very specific interest in creating stuff. I think it's because I'm an only child. I lived in a neighborhood with a lot of kids, but every time I had to go home I had to entertain myself.
In school I was always drawing throughout my lessons. When I was drawing, I could pay attention better. And I always had really good grades so my teachers couldn't really tell me not to draw. People got super hyped about my drawings, and then I had to draw on their folders and books.
I think that was a big thing. When people comment and have good reactions to your work, that gives you the fire to keep going. I had that hard work mentality from my parents who are self employed and always work their asses off.
How did you get your start professionally?
One teacher told my parents, “Let him go to art school because he'll regret it if he doesn’t.” It was scary, but I knew if I didn't try it I would regret it for the rest of my life.
I did my three years of a bachelor without skipping anything. Then I did an internship at an animation company here in Belgium. I learned a lot ‘cause I couldn't animate before that.
After my internship, I started doing freelance projects. I did stuff for the local internet provider of Belgium. I helped redesign a TV channel for kids here. Boring stuff, but I felt blessed to draw for a living. At the same time, I was like, “There's more to this.”
I didn't have a grand plan or anything. I started the Rhymezlikedimez Instagram page to keep drawing out of passion. I'm such a nerd about music, so I started drawing illustrations that were inspired by my favorite albums and my favorite artists at that moment in music: Drake, Chance The Rapper, Tyler, The Creator, J. Cole, all those guys.
“I knew if I didn't try it I would regret it for the rest of my life.”
How were you working on developing your style?
I decided to strip down my visual style. I could draw very well realistically, but I didn't have a distinct style. I also wanted to be able to animate it. Animation demands economical designs, 'cause the more detail you draw, the more you have to redraw all those details. So I stripped down my style to one thick outline and five colors.
I wanted to share an impression of what I heard when I listened to the music as a fan. And that comes with all these little details. I think it's cool for another fan to see my work and think, “Oh, he’s catching on to these little details as well.” It's also to prove that I'm a student of the game as well.
It goes way deeper than just fan art. I'm trying to show my impression of the world that an artist creates and make it very specific. That's what I admire about the Miyazaki movies and the Ghibli movies. It feels like his world is so specific that you can literally take a plane to it and visit.
“It goes way deeper than just fan art. I'm trying to show my impression of the world that an artist creates. ”
How quickly did your work start getting noticed?
It resonated pretty quickly with the internet. A Belgium artist named K1D was one of the first clients, and the YouTube channel Montreality.
Then Stones Throw reached out for the NxWorries project when they were just starting to blow up with “Suede.” Then Atlantic for the Lil Uzi Vert project. Those two put me on the map. Those made me feel like, “This might become my full time job.”
From that point on, I just kept getting emails. I never had to look for jobs. After a year and a half, I felt like I could work with anyone. But I also felt like I was hitting a ceiling in terms of possibilities because I didn't have my own IP.
I was always creating an animation for an artist. I worked with Bruno Mars, Wiz Khalifa, J. Cole, Playboi Carti… so many cool names. But at the same time, I was like, “Where is this going? How am I evolving? What would my character look like? What would the protagonist of my universe look like? How can I build that out? What are the next steps in that? Am I going to do a cartoon show? Am I going to do a clothing line?”
I started sketching Puff over the years and made that a character and implemented it into everything that I do. From that point on, he was in almost every visualizer. And I started to make the same deal every time. I was like, “Okay, I want to create an animation for you, but only if we're doing an official Rhymez collab.”
For example, with Rico Nasty I created a visualizer, but then we also dropped a print and I created a figurine for her with like the Rhymezlikedimez brand on there. From that point on, I almost never just did a visualizer anymore without more coming out of it.
People underestimate how much work animation is. It’s so much effort, and then to just put it online and not do anything else with it always felt pretty shitty to me because the internet just consumes it and then spits it out. And then it's done. It’s such a shame because there's so much more potential there. When you tickle people's brain in the right place, you can do way more with that. You can sell product, you can leverage it into a physical event, you can tell a longer story.
“When you tickle people's brain in the right place, you can do way more with that.”
Are there any lessons you learned while freelancing that helped you with building your own brand?
I learned a lot from the technical side and pricing. I got to learn how to run a business directly with clients. I learned how to negotiate about pricing and about ideas.
I learned about pitching ideas. In the beginning, I would give like three ideas and I knew one of them was bad. And it happened a lot for some reason that the client would pick the worst idea. And then you're like, “Oh fuck, now I have to go and execute that shitty idea. Why did I put it in there?” So I learned about only sending my best ideas. If I wanted to change something, I learned how to make them feel like it was their idea. It's almost like a game of chess.
I'm glad that I had that experience, not only for the financial stability, but it also gave me tools. Also simple stuff like administration, taxes, and all those things. It's very intense to run your own company, and it's also very intense to create your own style and be an artist. So I think it's a very good way to ease into it by being a freelancer at first.
A lot of social media best practices will tell you that you need to be posting daily. But you maybe post once a month. How do you balance maintaining quality and relevance?
Animation is incredibly time consuming. It's just so fucking stupidly intense. I don't know why people actually take the job or choose that as a career. [Laughs.] It's impossible to create good work and do it on a weekly basis.
At an early point I was like, “I'm not going to be able to keep this level of quality and post a lot.” If you want to post a lot then you have to be able to create animations very quickly, but that was just not an option for me because that's not how I work. And I think, from my experience, the “post on a daily basis” rule is bullshit.
I haven't done it and of course we don't have like 10 million followers, but we have an audience that's super loyal, and a community that gets a lot of engagement. It's actual people that actually care about it and they know that I'll deliver. It's a very scary thing to be dictated by a business or an online platform.
It's also about training your audience. If I would say, “For the next five months I won't sleep and I'll work and I'll post a new crazy animation every week.” I think after those five months I'd be in intensive care. And then my audience would expect me to still share stuff and they'll be like, “What the fuck? Oh, he fell off 'cause he didn't share for a month.”
You work closely with your business partner Freek. How important is having a collaborator like that for building a business?
Freek was in the music industry in Belgium. We talked often about everything. I would ask him, “What do you think here? What should I do here? I have this pricing thing, what would I do?”
Our tandem is not the cliche way where I am the creative that has no idea about business, and Freek is the super strict business guy that makes everything happen on that side. It's more a back and forth thing. I really like to be involved in the business and the strategy. And I talk to Freek about the creative ideas too.
You need someone that you can a hundred million percent trust. Otherwise, if you work with someone that you can’t trust fully, it takes up so much of your energy and mental space.
The moment Freek stepped in, it became a business. Before that it was just me working, me doing stuff, me trying to get as much stuff done as possible. But it was hard. Animation is a lot of work, so I was working all the time and my emails just kept stacking, stacking, stacking. I simply was not able to do administration and all that stuff by myself. I would never be able to grow without Freek.
“You need someone that you can a hundred million percent trust.”
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TAKE THIS JOB!
Cool job listings for creatives.
Creative software powerhouse Adobe is looking for a Content Creative, Design with experience in illustration, vectors, and design templates to curate content for aesthetic quality and commercial potential for our internal clients.
In this role you’ll be required to:
Evaluate and curate design (vectors, illustrations, design and motion graphics templates, 3D) content in a high-volume, fast-paced environment with an emphasis on evaluating assets for overall quality, artistic merit, commercial and visual trends, product needs, and technical execution.
Define and uphold best-in-class curation practices in adherence to Adobe's aesthetic, technical, and legal standards.
Create content collections and marketing collateral materials to support campaign marketing, landing pages, artist marketing, social elements, and enterprise marketing initiatives.
Ideally you are someone who was:
Advanced illustration editing capabilities with a solid ability to choose impactful, modern visuals.
Strong awareness of graphic design and AI-generated visual trends in marketing, advertising, and publishing .
5+ years of professional experience in a creative execution role: visual curation, research and evaluation, and graphic design, specifically serving global advertising, corporate, publishing, or media clients.
Sound like you? If so, send your resume to curation-recruit@adobe.com with “First Name Last Name: Application for Content Creative, Design” in the subject line.
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KEEP SHOOTING
Your weekly reminder to keep going.
Working a job that a) is adjacent to your ultimate creative pursuits, but b) feels like a dead end? You’re not alone. In fact, one of the hottest sneaker designers working today started his career at… Payless? Yes, Payless.
In his IDEA GENERATION interview, Salehe Bembury talks about the beginning of his career at Payless:
“It wasn't a name that I was going to be the most proud to say. But at least it was a name that people knew… And they make every kind of shoe. So the fact that I was working on men's sneakers and women's heels and little girls slides—it was just everything. I was getting probably the best introduction into a professional footwear experience.”
So if you’re doing what you love—even if you’re not doing it for your dream employer—keep at it and soak up as much game as you can. At least for a little while. Then absolutely jump ship and go into business for yourself and leverage working with the biggest artists in the world to create your own IP like Rhymez.