James Jarvis

Amos was set up in 2002 by James Jarvis, Sofia Prantera and Russell Waterman. James had previously been designing toys for fashion brand Silas, beginning with the now legendary Martin figure, released back in 1998. Along with Bounty Hunter in Japan, Silas unwittingly became one of the pioneers of the soft vinyl designer toy revolution. With help from Bounty Hunter, who had already released two figures, Martin was unleashed on an unsuspecting world and the work of James Jarvis reached a whole new audience. For the following 5 years, Silas continued to pander to popular demand and release James' designs under both the Silas banner and as part of his World of Pain project. The Silas figures were Martin, Evil Martin and Bubba, Tattoo Me Keith and The Bearded Prophet. The WoP figures were the Policeman and Lars. All of these figures have become very collectable and some trade hands for exorbitant sums on eBay.

Because of the success of these figures, and to stop Mr. Jarvis selling his soul to The Man (he also produced the set of Juvenille Delinquents for the Sony Capsule Toy project), James and the two directors of Silas decided to create a new company. Amos was set up to independently produce and disribute James' figures; to take his work out of a "fashion" context and open up his designs to a wider audience; and to develop new projects and offer new oppurtunities to other artists whom they had worked with.

James Jarvis studied Illustration at the University of Brighton then at The Royal College of Art. There is a good interview with Jarvis on the Design Museum's site - click here

His homepage is here

JAMES JARVIS
James Jarvis graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1995. Since then he has embarked on a busy career creating numerous characters and fantasy worlds for commercial advertising and magazine editorial. He has worked for large international clients such as Sony, Nokia and Parco and contributed to a number of international style publications including The Face, Nova and Relax.

He has also contributed to a number of art book projects and had a collection of his sketches published by Relax Magazine in Japan. Jarvis has shown his work at various exhibitions worldwide including prestigious stand-alone shows at the Parco galleries in Tokyo, Nagoya and Hiroshima (during 2000 and 2001). In conjunction with these exhibitions he released two solo comic books detailing his World of Pain concept. These were also accompanied by Lars and The Policeman, two collectible 20cm plastic figures which have since become cult items. Indeed, Jarvis is perhaps best known for his plastic creations which have helped shape the infant, but growing world of designer toys and collectible figures. He is responsible for a large cast of almost 100 characters, now forever immortalised in plastic. Having previously designed figures for Silas and Maria, and Sony’s Time Capsule vending machine project, he co-founded Amos Novelties Limited which is now the exclusive base for all of his toy figure work.