ChocoToy Love – Luis Alfonso
Born from the union of creativity, craziness, anger, talent, emotions, with a characteristic outline and colors that catch the attention of anyone.
Creative shapes that bring a smile just by seeing them, a unique style that is out of the ordinary but you will truly love. Chocotoy is a mixture of a Kawaii toy and candy that will always put you in a state of joy and laughter. This is who I am.
Curved shapes, intense colors and sweets do not have to be children’s matters. Chocotoy is a brand and a Venezuelan graphic studio that, in just three years of existence, has slipped into the Vip room of the Latin American illustration based on “breaking the statics of people, who live stressed”; says Luis Alfonso, author of a warm climate that engenders this line of drawings with Karen Guevara, her partner and fellow tracer.
In a subject for which I had to design a line of drawings focused on a supposed franchise. For the work they imagined that their creations would be ideal in premises for children, where they could play and eat sweets, and consequently, they created some strident little colored figures that lack right angles and have too much glucose.
But it turned out that the idea was not so childish. It’s about kawaii art” the illustrator explains, “a concept the Japanese use to designate beautiful things. A style in which everything comes alive”. When they wanted to take up the drawings they had made in the faculty with the aim of giving them a commercial outlet, Alfonso and Karen realized that this kawaii philosophy attracted the attention of many people who had long since abandoned childhood.
The 100 illustrated characters of Chocotoy, who even have their own names, only taste the color black for the case of very urban requests. In addition to paper, they are shown in a line of products that include T-shirts, purses, bags, make-up cases, bottles and any other things that can be kawaiized.
International assignments far removed from production for children from brands such as Toyota or for musical platforms such as Sound Club were added to those already made for others really focused on the smallest, such as the Spanish toy company Stimulo, among many others.
An extension of the target for the curved characters of these twenty-somethings that is consolidating with facts such as having been the only Latin American illustrators present in the book Fantastic Illustration (Designer Book), having been invited to the Offf cultural festival or having appeared until nine times in the trending topic of Behance.net, the most popular social network for illustrators in the world, an expo and product and workshop firm in Mexico and Monterrey, participation in the Comic Con venezuela 2013, collaboration with HP, a collaboration of a postcard that represents our country, to be presented at the PALERMO university by the recycling paper organization in Argentina and last but not least, the great collaboration with some extraordinary Mexican artists called Tixinda, where we made a poster fusing our graphic styles.
Luis says that his “public is between 15 and 45 years old and he gives faith that work is not a concept that only carajitos (children) will understand. The artistic consumption and the approach with which it is seen is changing for Venezuela and Latin America. Now being an illustrator is a job much better recognized and respected than before. People are interested in seeing novel ideas and appreciate them. And ours is out of what they were seeing the author analyzes the panorama of their sector in the region. “Chocotoy wants to break the social rigidity and work with youthful and cheerful concepts”.
Why there are so many ice creams, cookies, dolls, sweets and chocolate, because we want to make illustrations that you want to eat.
Contact Luis Alfonso “CHOCOTOY”
chocotoy@hotmail.com
IG: @ chocotoycute
