Travel, food, health, fashion, beauty, and more Lifestyle stories you love.
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Travel, food, health, fashion, beauty, and more Lifestyle stories you love.
By Jashley Ann Cruz
Images courtesy of Quiccs and Johnnie Walker
Ask any visual artist or designer how they showcase their works to the public and collectors and their response would probably be through participating in countless exhibitions held in galleries. This is how many artists did it back then—make art, display it in a gallery, and hope for the best that collectors will pay attention to their artworks.
But toy art designer Juanito Maiquez, more popularly known as Quiccs, chose to do it differently from the very beginning.
Unlike other artists, he took up a business course in college. In an interview with GMA Lifestyle, he recalls, “My parents advised me not to do fine arts since I can teach myself and they pretty much recognize I can do it on my own already. So what they wanted for me to do is learn the business aspect of it and in a way they wanted me to stay in Ateneo (de Manila University) instead of going to a fine arts school somewhere else.”
“They advised me to take a business course with the hopes of making a business out of my art. I followed their advice and [also] because I wanted to stick with my friends from high school,” the 40-year-old artist adds.
Although he was taking up a business course back then, Quiccs, as much as he can, tried to squeeze in a few art classes to further hone his craft. He shares, “From there, I got units closest to what they have to offer [that is related to] arts since the Ateneo program didn’t have fine arts or visual arts back in my day. I took elective courses [related to] graphic design. So after a year or two, I learned how to use Photoshop, Macromedia Flash, and Illustrator.”
Having done this, Quiccs’s desire to become a graphic designer was further heightened. At that time, he not only had extensive knowledge of the craft, he also had a deeper understanding of how to monetize his work and turn it into his day job.
In his first few years in his career, Quiccs explored the graphic design field as a freelance designer. He would get projects from his professors and friends who were in the music and publishing industries. Despite finding joy and fulfillment in it, Quiccs admitted that his long-time dream to become a toy art designer always haunted him. While most artists wanted to paint, draw, or make film posters, Quiccs aimed to become a toy art designer.
He admits that it was his equally talented older brother who influenced him a lot. Together, they shared an interest in Japanese robots, ones that they watched on television when they were kids. Seeing Voltes V, Gundam, and Macross on the small screen ignited something in Quiccs.
He shares, “We grew up watching these shows mostly on weekends. And the concept of giant robots and the story, the struggles they have, and the villains they fight [were] something that really struck me as a kid. ‘This is the thing that I want to pursue, when I grow up I want to be part of this industry.’ I wanted to be recognized for this [because it’s] mind blowing for me when I was a kid, that whole robot culture of Japan.”
From then on, Quiccs found himself on a quest to chase after what he once thought was a fever dream. The works of toy designers Michael Lau and Eric So became his ultimate inspirations to really get into the designer toy industry and create his own toys.
“It took me around 12 years to be able to access the industry, to meet people in the industry of art toy designing. It was in 2012 when I joined the contest in Thailand, CE Planet Toy Contest. It was an art contest that they published on Facebook, looking for international artists that would be part of their one week competition. I joined. A friend of ours tagged me and told me to check this contest out. Luckily enough, I was chosen to be one of the finalists. There were five of us from [different] countries who were invited to that event in Thailand. We spent a week designing toys and that was a very mind-opening experience. I met a lot of toy bloggers and toy producers back then,” Quiccs narrates.
This experience led Quiccs to further develop his own brand. Mixing his passion for Japanese robots, hip hop, and graffiti with his expertise in graphic design and advertising, Quiccs gave birth to what would, later on, be his insignia character, the TEQ63. The number 63 pays homage to the Philippines’ country code number.
Quiccs explains, “The TEQ63 is like my avatar. He represents how I dress, who I am, and the passions I have. He is a mixture of Japanese robots, hip hop, and graffiti, and he wears Adidas.”
Since then, Quiccs’s signature character has undergone numerous renditions and he has collaborated with various brands. The most recent one is his partnership with Johnnie Walker Philippines. For the 2023 limited edition artist series, Quiccs designed four Blue Label bottles and a limited edition Quiccs x Johnnie Walker toy.
The launch also marked TEQ63’s 10th anniversary. He shares, “I already knew what I was getting myself into and the prestige that comes with it. I just wanted to combine that celebration of ours, the celebration of our 10 years of our struggle, our grind through making it to what our brand is today. I also wanted to make it as a thank you to our collectors and fans who always stuck with us by giving them a new collectible that they’ll really be proud of as Filipinos and as our fans.”
The collaboration features TEQ63 in four different colorways. Quiccs explains, “When I was given the chance to not just design one but four bottles I thought I’d make the first three ones based on the most cherished and sought-after colorways we do with our toys which is the OG blue, a reference to our Adidas collaboration, our collectors really love that.”
“And then the Dragon colorway, I guess a lot of our collectors really love the reference, and, us being Asians, I think [that] connection [with the] Bruce Lee colorway. And of course, one of the most famous ones, the Manila Killa, which is a reference to the Philippine Flag,” he adds.
“And then the fourth design, I wanted to make something new just for Johnnie Walker, ‘yung lightning blue and gold which is the brand’s colors. And of course, we wanted something significant, something that would show the new partnership with Johnnie Walker as a new color,” Quiccs continues.
During the launch party, the highlight of the night though was the limited edition Quiccs x Johnnie Walker toy. Quiccs shares, “I came out with the Resin 12 Megateq exactly 10 years ago, and we rarely release them to pave the way for our newer, more commercial 12 Vinyl version. We chose this platform as a throwback to our old releases, a thank you of sorts to our most loyal collectors and fans, using the blue and gold colors of Johnnie Walker Blue with the new lightning visuals to represent our journey in the industry.”
Quiccs’s collaboration with Johnnie Walker is just one of the many partnerships he has worked on. One of his most notable partnerships is with the popular global sportswear brand Adidas. The brand is an icon in hip-hop culture and Quiccs has a certain fondness for the brand.
He shares, “One of the key elements that I applied to the character TEQ63 even from the start, the very first sketch I made, was the three stripes that I illegally put. [I didn’t ask permission from] Adidas. Back then, in the back of my head, I knew it was illegal but, at the same time, I wanted to catch their attention [and hopefully] someday they will give me an opportunity to work with them for a collaboration. True enough, after 10 years, stars aligned. We had collectors that were part of the Adidas organization who invited us to pitch and then they liked the pitch so much that they gave us a lot more projects including the shoes.”
The collaboration catapulted a lot of opportunities for Quiccs and his team. They inked other collaborations with brands such as Smart Communications, Tier One, Secret Lab, and more. And what’s best about it is that they are tapped for who they are, their branding. For every client, Quiccs challenges himself. He admits, “The more challenging it is for us, the more exciting it is for me.”
After all these years, Quiccs remains enthusiastic about the work he does. In fact, when GMA Lifestyle interviewed him, we were really impressed by how full of life he was. Despite garnering success and cementing his place in the Philippine toy art scene, he remains humble and grateful for every opportunity.
You can really see through his eyes how significant every collaboration he had was for him. It’s like looking at an up-and-coming artist whose eyes are still full of sparkle, never getting dull anytime soon.
When asked what he liked the most about being an artist, he confidently says, “Number one would be working without really struggling or trying too hard because I’m earning from that thing that I was already good at since I was five. So it’s playtime for me. I wake up excited in the morning that I’m in an industry that already is attuned to what I’m doing so it’s very easy for me to create a living out of the passion that I always had since I was a kid.”
“I guess, at the same time, it’s very fulfilling for me to be able to express myself without pleasing any clients and people liking it and supporting it. People are fans of it. It’s a different sense of fulfillment. Something that you created to express yourself also makes other people happy and also makes other people fulfilled by owning my stuff.”
“As opposed to other artists [with the] ideology or philosophies that they fight for, I just really stick to the things that I love since I was five years old. I followed my dreams through the things I have passion for. These are the things I grew up with during the ‘80s, ‘90s, and 2000s-Japanese robots, hip hop, and graffiti. And I found a way to represent myself through art by representing these three subcultures. I don’t really seek the attention of everyone but I do feel fulfillment when I connect with people who also enjoy the same things I enjoyed growing up. That’s my ideology in creating art, making people who can relate to the stuff I relate to feel happy as well.”
For Quiccs to be able to monetize his passion is a dream and he will continue to do so.
“The strategy I used was not to follow the formula. The traditional path that artists took back in our day was you do paintings, you do gallery shows, and then repeating the process. You contact a lot of galleries and hopefully you also make it to the international galleries and exhibits,” Quiccs shares.
“With the advent of social media, I tried to break that formula. We could’ve survived without following that equation of meeting people, having to know the right people, and creating shows and galleries all the time. That’s why I found the toy industry charming as well since you can take it in your own garage and you have Instagram and Facebook as your gallery.”
“You don’t need to follow a certain formula. You can build your own community and build your own crowd and your own assembly line to create a living out of art,” he ends.
If you want to see more of his work, go to @QUICCS
on Instagram and Facebook.