Shawn Murenbeeld

Shawn Murenbeeld is an art director, designer and artist with over 18 years of experience in both the agency and corporate worlds. He has worked acros...s virtually all conceivable design fields, from organizational identities to catalogues to product design, as well as in advertising, video and interactive media. Always tinged with a fresh personal style, his work has received dozens of national and international awards, including the prestigious One Show and Communications Arts, and been featured in five textbooks on design.

Shawn is principal of Touchwood Design & Illustration, a collective founded in 1995 and based in Toronto Canada. Though Touchwood develops corporate identities, programs and communications for both print and electronic media, Shawn's focus is now primarily as a freelance illustrator.

Crazy gadgets, battling robots, and multi-eyed guardians are but a few of the weird and wonderful creations that can be found in Shawn's studio. His influences are as varied as the objects of junk he collects and stores in his garage – folk art from Atlantic Canada, Tribal Art from Africa and Oceania, early Pop Art and Conceptual Art. He calls his work Urban Folk Art. Primarily constructed from wood, no material is ruled out in the realization of a piece. Work takes place in the garage where materials are carved, banged together and painted before being photographed. The finished product is a collision of objects and materials that brings life to editorial pages, corporate brochures and gallery walls. Show more