Adam Higton turns his hand to rugs, music festivals and comics 

Adam Higton has been weaving. His drawings are ones we’ve fallen for time and time again, but after recently spotting he’s been using a needle and thread to make the most joyful fluffy rugs (or what we think could be possibly the best bathmat ever), we checked in with the illustrator to find out more. 

Adam’s venture into textiles began after having some of his collages made into scarves, “which have been really popular with both designs selling out,” he explains. Broadening his fabric work into rugs now, the illustrator begins by “developing my collages and transforming them into small latch hook rugs,” he explains. “I make the collage first, then I make a grid using Photoshop and the hooks are made over a few weeks.” Using a colour palette of green, yellow, brown and dark blue — which has become a bit of a signature of the illustrator’s — gives his characters a new found, three dimensional lease of life. 

Currently working on his seventh rug, the illustrator says he is hoping to exhibit his collection at some point, alongside friend and fellow embroiderer, Stewart Easton. Excitingly, he also let us on a possible new textiles adventure having “inherited a tufting gun from a friend in Denmark recently, I haven’t got it going yet but I am excited about the possibilities of that.” 

In terms of the illustrator’s more traditional practice, Adam has been working on a screen printed comic titled Florian, illustrating the tale of “a boy and practicing witch who buys a second hand painting in a charity shop and using his magic is able to climb inside and look around, he hangs out with an elf and then comes home again”. Other illustration endeavours include a poster for a new music festival in Margate which sees Adam’s brilliantly bold typography make a comeback, as well as illustrated seasonal lager packaging for Camden Brewery and various editorial pieces for Munich-based magazine Süddeutsche Zeitung and The New York Times. While he certainly sounds busy with all this, our fingers are crossed for more rugs.