David Shrigley is a one man movement. Since he graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 1991, his irreverent, defiantly naïve illustrations have been equally successful on the walls of galleries as they have been on greetings cards, CD covers, t-shirts and in his own self-published books. In recent years he’s branched out into music, creating animated videos for Blur and Bonnie Prince Billy and releasing a spoken-word album, 'Shrigley Forced to Speak with Others'. Now he has entered the world of fashion, by collaborating with Pringle on a series of illustrations to promote the twinset – a time-tested combination of knit sweater and matching cardigan. Dazed Digital caught up with him, freshly kitted out in a Pringle v-neck, at the brand’s London flagship.

Dazed Digital: You’ve dabbled in music and you have produced your own t-shirts before, but this is the first project you’ve done with a high-end fashion house. How was that?
David Shrigley: Easy, actually. They said, “Do some drawings of some jumpers and cardigans.” And I said “Good. Anything else? You do know what you’re going to get?” And they said “Yes! Yes!” that’s what we want!” So I did 300 drawings of twinsets, and then they chose three they liked. So that was it really. They were happy and I got a nice jumper and a nice pair of slacks.

DD: You’ve previously said that “Advertising is boring”. How do you think you’ve worked around that in this project?
David Shrigley: I think it is boring, but I think this isn’t really advertising in its purest sense. Normally when you do an ad campaign, you meet some creative in an ad agency and he says “Oh, you’d be great with this client!” And then you work on something, you come up with what you think is a great idea and then the client just says, “Brilliant! Now just take all the irony and humour out of it.” On this occasion I got the brief straight from the horse’s mouth. So I did it, and they said “Yes! That’s fantastic!” And I was like “Well… Do you want me to do it again? Like you normally do?”

DD: The slogan “THIS IS FOR YOU!” could be an advert for anything. Was that an intentional irony?
David Shrigley: Perhaps. I’m always trying to make some faux-advertising copy, I suppose. But I work so quickly. Everything gets done in a few minutes really, I just keep going and going and going, and eventually there’s all this stuff at the end and they just pick what they like. But I don’t think I’m going to be doing that a lot because I don’t think there are that many clients who are as flexible or who want that kind of stuff to advertise their product.

DD: This project is all about supporting the best of Scottish Talent, but you were born in Macclesfield – how does that work?
David Shrigley: I might not be ethnically Scottish, but I’ve lived 21 years in Scotland – longer than where I lived when I was growing up. So that’s where my voice lives and that’s where my voice comes from. It’s just the accent that’s not quite there yet.

DD: And what’s the best thing about living and working in Glasgow?
David Shrigley: Definitely the art scene and the music scene. I mean, that’s my life, it’s where I work, it’s where my friends are, it’s what I do for fun. Hanging around record shops and going to see bands and making art in my studio. That’s what I do, and that’s what I want to encourage other people to do, people younger than me that are having the same experience.

DD: What are you working on right now?
David Shrigley: I’m making a new film. Some short animations that aren’t really for anything in particular. Maybe for an exhibition, maybe just to go on my website. And a spoken word record, that’s been in the pipeline for a long time. I’m a bit busy, but I’ve figured out how to work GarageBand. I’ve got a proper guy who works with Pro-Tools, but it’s nice to figure out all the music stuff yourself. There’s a lot of different voices involved – I suppose the only thing I do exclusively is write the lyrics, and I’m getting a lot of other people to speak them and sing them as well. But I like music. I still play the guitar, nominally.

DD: Do you see a big divide between your commercial work and your art? It seems like you mostly just do what you want.
David Shrigley: Yeah, basically. I’m not very good at illustration per se, I can’t adapt what I do. And if people don’t like what it is that I’m really good at, then really they’re misguided in asking me to do it in the first place. Because really, I’m good at doing one particular kind of thing, but I’m a conceptual artist in some ways. I don’t have much control over the style that I use, it’s evolved as a sort of anti-craft. I suppose I must have some grasp of graphic art, because otherwise I couldn’t make anything. But traditionally I’m not really aware of having a lot of skill in that area. But I make stuff, I edit stuff, I make films. I suppose when you do it all day, every day, you must be reasonably good at it.

DD: Have you developed a newfound love for the twinset?
David Shrigley: I didn’t know what it was – I think that’s my quote in the press release. I’m slightly ignorant about fashion, but I do like clothes. I like jackets. In the last few years I’ve got a new jacket every year from a tailor in the west end of Glasgow, who’s called Steven. I’ve got arms like a Gorilla so jackets are the one thing I can’t buy.

David Shrigley for Pringle available now.