Lex Johnson is a British designer, director and creative executive. He is the founder of creative agency DAZZLE SHIP, a former lecturer at Swedish design institute

Hyper Island Hyper Island is a digital creative business school with a consultancy side specializing in industry training using digital technology. It was founded 1996 in Karlskrona, Sweden and has presence through offices or campuses in Sweden (Headquarters) ...

, and the founding online director of

RWD magazine ''RWD Magazine'' (also known as ''RWD'' or ''RWDmag'') is a British-based magazine which features music, style, sport, gaming, film, technology, news, interviews and charts on hip hop, grime, dubstep, R&B, UK garage, drum and bass and U.S. ...

and RWD Forum.

Career

RWD Online / RWD forum

In 2001, Johnson became founding Online Director of

created to push

UK garage UK garage, abbreviated as UKG, is a genre of electronic dance music which originated in England in the early to mid-1990s. The genre was most clearly inspired by garage house, but also incorporates elements from dance-pop, R&B, and jungle. It ...

grime Grime may refer to: * Dirt, in the form of black, ingrained dust * Grime (music genre), a genre of music * ''Grime'' (album), a 2001 album by Iniquity * ''Grime'' (video game), a 2021 Metroidvania video game * "Grime", a 2022 song by Dallas Woo ...

and

dubstep Dubstep is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in South London in the early 2000s. The style emerged as a UK garage offshoot that blended 2-step rhythms and sparse dub production, as well as incorporating elements of broken be ...

, and RWD became the first platform to champion grime music and feature UK artists

Dizzee Rascal Dylan Kwabena Mills (born 18 September 1984), better known by his stage name Dizzee Rascal, is a British MC and rapper. A pioneer of grime music, his work has also incorporated elements of UK garage, bassline, British hip hop, and R&B. D ...

, Skepta and

Tinchy Stryder Kwasi Esono Danquah III ( ; born 14 September 1986), known by the stage name Tinchy Stryder, is a Ghanaian-British rapper, singer, songwriter, entrepreneur and investor. Stryder has released three solo studio albums, '' Star in the Hood'' (2 ...

. The RWD forum is mentioned in grime MC's lyric; the most notable incidents were in its earlier years when

Wiley Wiley may refer to: Locations * Wiley, Colorado, a U.S. town * Wiley, Pleasants County, West Virginia, U.S. * Wiley-Kaserne, a district of the city of Neu-Ulm, Germany People * Wiley (musician), British grime MC, rapper, and producer * Wiley Mil ...

would frequently post and often argue or troll with users. In the book ''This is Grime'' by Hattie Collins, Wiley states "the RWD forum was a good place" and Matt Mason added "Grime had always been a conversation and Alex understood this and grew RWD forums, making RWD one of the most popular music websites in the UK" During this period the website received London Business of the Year, UK Garage Awards : Best Website 2002 and Sidewinder Peoples Choice Awards : Best Magazine 2003. Johnson was also personally awarded an "Ernst & Young Future 100" Award in 2011.

The Booo Krooo

The Booo Krooo was an adult animated TV series. Lex Johnson was the producer/animator working in collaboration with Matt Mason (writor) and Julian Johnson (Art). Taking hints from underground music culture and the intersection between

UK Garage UK garage, abbreviated as UKG, is a genre of electronic dance music which originated in England in the early to mid-1990s. The genre was most clearly inspired by garage house, but also incorporates elements from dance-pop, R&B, and jungle. It ...

and

Grime Grime may refer to: * Dirt, in the form of black, ingrained dust * Grime (music genre), a genre of music * ''Grime'' (album), a 2001 album by Iniquity * ''Grime'' (video game), a 2021 Metroidvania video game * "Grime", a 2022 song by Dallas Woo ...

, the 3 episode web series was shortly co-signed by Missy Elliott after her PR team asked to feature the artist as part of the campaign for her hit single ' Work It'. The series then acquired a 6-episode deal on Channel U (now named

Total Country Now 70s (formerly Channel U, Channel AKA, Massive R&B and Total Country) is a British free-to-air music television channel, owned by All Around the World Productions, available through Sky UK, Freeview (UK), Freeview and Virgin Media within the ...

) and recorded a music video with UK Garage producer 'Sticky' known for hits such as

Ms Dynamite Niomi Arleen McLean-Daley (born 26 April 1981), better known as Ms. Dynamite, is a British singer and rapper. She is the recipient of the Mercury Music Prize, two Brit Awards and three MOBO Awards. Early years She was born Niomi Arleen Mc ...

's track (also named) ' Boo'. Music publication ''Ransom Note'' cited the series as the first 'grime comedy' saying it was 'essentially a proto(type) version of

People Just Do Nothing ''People Just Do Nothing'' is a British television mockumentary sitcom, created and performed by Allan Mustafa, Steve Stamp, Asim Chaudhry and Hugo Chegwin. The programme follows the lives of MC Grindah, DJ Beats and their friends, who run K ...

Creative consultant

From 2009 - 2013 Johnson worked as a freelance consultant providing strategy for various fashion brands creating campaigns such as the 'adidas About to Blow London Olympics 2012' campaign featuring

Tinie Tempah Patrick Chukwuemeka Okogwu (born 7 November 1988), better known by his stage name Tinie Tempah, is a British rapper. He has been signed to Parlophone Records since 2009, a subsidiary of Warner Music Group. He created his own entertainment compa ...

and

Mo Farah Sir Mohamed Muktar Jama Farah (born Hussein Abdi Kahin; 23 March 1983) is a British long-distance runner. His ten global championship gold medals (four Olympic and six World titles) make him the most successful male track distance runner ever ...

Dubstep / EDM / Grime

Johnson was responsible for design collaborations with

techno Techno is a Music genre, genre of electronic dance music (EDM) which is generally music production, produced for use in a continuous DJ set, with tempo often varying between 120 and 150 beats per minute (bpm). The central Drum beat, rhythm is typ ...

artists such as

Appleblim Skull Disco was an independent dubstep record label, based in Bristol, England. It was established in 2005 by Sam Shackleton and Laurie "Appleblim" Osborne, and ended in 2008. Releases on the label prominently featured African and post-African ...

, Headhunter, Pinch, Komonazmuk, Joker ( Kapsize) and 2562. The most notable being an Audio Visual live show with Headhunter (

Tempa Tempa is a garage and dubstep music label founded in 2000 by Neil Jolliffe, who also coined the term "dubstep" in 2002. The label, along with Big Apple, and parent label Ammunition, was part of the formation of dubstep as a genre. A key member ...

) now called

Addison Groove Tony Williams, better known as Addison Groove (and formerly known as Headhunter), is an electronic music artist from Bristol, United Kingdom. Noted for his fusion of styles such as Techno, Jungle, Soul, Juke and Dubstep, he released his first alb ...

. He also directed music videos for

and

. The most notable was 'Changa' which premiered on the

Adult Swim Adult Swim (AS; stylized as dult swim'' and often abbreviated as s'') is an American adult-oriented night-time cable television channel that shares channel space with the basic cable network Cartoon Network and is programmed by its in-house ...

YouTube Channel and gained official selection status and was nominated for awards at Aesthetica, London Short Film Festival, Berlin Music Video Awards, The Smalls, Stockholm Independent Film Festival. His work has been mentioned in books including: ''Dubstep Graphics'' and ''Contemporary Colour Theory''. Artwork has been featured in Vice Adult Swim Tech Crunch and includes collaborations with musician

James Bond - GoldenEye

Johnson worked as a motion graphics director with video game developer

Eurocom Eurocom (formerly Eurocom Entertainment Software) was a British video game developer founded in October 1988 by Mat Sneap, Chris Shrigley, Hugh Binns, Tim Rogers and Neil Baldwin, to specifically develop games for the Nintendo Entertainment Sys ...

, commissioned by

Activision Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one ...

to work with the ''James Bond'' franchise to develop '' GoldenEye 007'' and ''

007 Legends ''007 Legends'' is a first-person shooter video game featuring the character of British secret agent James Bond. It was developed by Eurocom and first released by Activision on October 2012 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, with Microsoft Wind ...

''.

Animation / Short Films

He created a handful of films entitled 'Monotone' 'Monkey Business' and 'Do Not Feed The Horses'. Screenings include : AniFest, Resfest, British Film Council and

Channel Frederator The Channel Frederator Network is an American animation, video game and pop culture Multi-Channel Network (MCN) founded by cartoon producer and serial media entrepreneur Fred Seibert and managed by Frederator Networks. After launching Frederat ...

He was invited to resident at The Pervasive Media studio in Bristol as part of art collective 'Lumiere Digitale' as Technical Director and Developer, Johnson was responsible for animation and visual art direction.

Hyper Island

The business school

recruited Johnson between 2014-2017 to teach 'storytelling' to the motion creative course in Stockholm/Karlskrona.

DAZZLE SHIP

In 2013, Johnson founded the design and motion graphics studio - DAZZLE SHIP. The studio divides its time between self initiated projects and client service work. Their clients include Wateraid,

Bloomberg Bloomberg may refer to: People * Daniel J. Bloomberg (1905–1984), audio engineer * Georgina Bloomberg (born 1983), professional equestrian * Michael Bloomberg (born 1942), American businessman and founder of Bloomberg L.P.; politician and m ...

SAP Sap is a fluid transported in xylem cells (vessel elements or tracheids) or phloem sieve tube elements of a plant. These cells transport water and nutrients throughout the plant. Sap is distinct from latex, resin, or cell sap; it is a separ ...

, The Drone Racing League and Blockchain. Their most recent work includes branding the sport of the future 'Drone Racing'

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Lex 1984 births Living people Designers from London English directors