If you’ve ever been on a leisurely stroll through Berlin, you’ve probably come across them: little graffiti unicorns with short musings about life (“techno is shit”), deep desires (“I want to be a mermaid”), compliments (“you look great”) and even the occasional insult, sparking joy among their beholders.
Truly, who wouldn’t adore a fat unicorn telling them to fuck off with a cheeky smirk on its naively-drawn face?
The little artworks, sketched in just seconds, are now available on t-shirts, totes, pins and postcards, so you, too, can express your innermost feelings to the world in only a few words.
Roy Draws, the alias representing the mysterious ‘unicorn gang’ behind the horn-y art, has been covering Neukölln and beyond in the moody creatures since 2017, but the demand for the cheeky little bastards only gained momentum during the pandemic, when unicorn ‘hunts’ became a popular pastime.
“I think they made a lot of people happy and have sentimental value to some. Everyone seems to have a story about them which is so nice,” a Roy Draws spokesartist tells us of the decision to turn the ‘corns into merch.
Unicorn ‘hunts’ became a popular pastime.
Their popularity is arguably rooted in their humanity. “The inspiration is mainly using different emotions, happy and sad, which are the two main ones we have as humans, so the unicorns represent us. I think that’s why they are so relatable. They are either positive or negative, or a bit silly and a bit dark sometimes too.”
Next on the Roy Draws agenda? “World domination,” the representative declares. “The aim is to get the unicorns on everything and anything and seen and loved by as many people as possible!”
- Shop at roydraws.com and follow on Instagram here.
