Resident Hero #001 - Lee Pitman

Barghest Illustration

Grizzly Man Poster

The Villain Screenprint

Let us introduce you to our first ever Resident Hero, the magnificent Lee Pitman! He is an illustrator, art-director,  and photographer. Lee will be working closely with us for the next few months and will have his own Hero&Cape capsule collection, as well as art directing one of our upcoming photoshoots!


What is your day job?
I work as a graphic designer/art director for a design & marketing agency - kind of like a poor man's Don Draper with less scotch and more tea.

How did you get into your job?
A lack of options. My dyslexia was undiagnosed throughout school, which meant I wasn’t going to set the academic world alight. I had always been good at drawing so I kinda ran with it and through trial and error I have found myself doing stuff I enjoy and am pretty good at.

What do you like best about what you do?
I like that things have to have a point or an idea, not just things that look good, which to me is key to marketing. I have taken this into my personal work and have made it a lot more than it would have been without it.

Tell us a bit about your collaboration project with Hero&Cape
The collaboration is a match made in heaven - my love for T-shirts and screen printing drew me to Hero&Cape and I feel we have the same interest in pop/alternative culture. I have been given a great opportunity to just run with a few crazy ideas and I'm really looking forward to seeing the finished product!

Who or what is the main inspiration behind your work?
I would love to throw a cool artist, band or author's name at you but if I'm honest with myself I would have to say Star Wars. I know that destroys all my credibility but it introduced me to my first love.. cinema. With that came other films and other subjects - mythologies and the idea of good & evil. These things have always been a big influence on my work and are still important to me today.

Which piece of your work are you most proud of?
I'm proud of the Grizzly Man poster because it was a marriage of my love of art and film. I painted the picture with my fingers which meant I had to force myself not to get hung up on details - after years of using computers it was quite difficult! I entered it into a competition, where it came 3rd, but more importantly it was seen by the distributors of the original film and I now have a copy of the poster signed by the director Werner Herzog.

What is your favourite/most important possession?
I would like to say some kind of family heirloom but I don't have any. I have a fetish for cameras and photos and I have spent a lot on screen printed posters, but my mac is my pride and joy - without it I would be lost.

What one thing do you do better than anyone you know?
I have a real problem remembering peoples' names yet I can remember, word for word, quotes from films I saw 10 years ago - I feel it's far more useful!

What was the last movie you watched and what do you give it out of 10?
I watch a lot of films, in some ways films are my music and I will just listen to a film in the background. The last film I really watched was Shame, which was very good, I would give it 9 out of 10.

What would be the title of your autobiography?
I've told you a MILLION times not to exaggerate!

What is your life long ambition?
To keep moving forward and upwards in everything, even if it's the tiniest of increments. Oh and get a Samurai sword.

Smart or Casual (clothing) and why?
I try to walk that wobbly line of smart/casual, but if I'm honest with myself I tend to be more casual/scruffy. It's not that I don't take pride in my appearance, it just so happens that I'm usually in some sort of T-shirt, jeans, boots and hoodie combo.

What would be your specialist subject on Mastermind?
I have a vast pool of useless knowledge on subjects of little or no value, so I would go for 80's cartoon theme songs - from Transformers to Samurai Pizza Cats I have it covered.

Lee's capsule You can find more of Lee's super cool work at www.leepitman.com