The Visual Artist So Many Cool Brands Want

Forbes

28-04-2025

Alex Alpert, Visual Artist
Alex Alpert is a phenomenon who in the past 3 years has created visual art with his fun, highly engaging style for brands including Nike, Subway, Jet Blue, Red Bull, Adobe, American Express, BMW, Puma, Chelsea FC, The U.S. Olympic Ski Team, The Chicago Bulls, McLaren, Bugatti, INEOS Grenadier, Sharpie markers and acrylic pens, as well as museum art, all without an agent or social media team. One success has led to another, in part because he creates so much of his art live, at high traffic, high profile events where he's seen by many brand decision-makers. It's entertaining and awe-inspiring to watch his images come to life.
Alex Alpert creating his customized art live at events
As a kid, Alex was always drawing and creating art and graffiti. He trained as a musician in piano and voice and won a scholarship to college for singing. After graduation Alex worked for Universal Music Group in marketing, which has served him well navigating the world of large corporate brands. During COVID, he made the decision to go back to his love for creating art and he refined his unique style that resonates with a wide range of people. That signature style typically involves black and white lines with curves in various thicknesses. Embedded symbols that tell stories that engage people who enjoy discovering them, a bit like Where's Waldo. Alex customizes the work for each client based on a combination of brand briefings, his own research, and free associations with the subject. He initially applied his art to friends' sneakers and bags which went viral and led the way to his first corporate deal with the handbag company Hammitt.
Mural for jetBlue painted by Alex Alpert at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn
The range of work since has been astounding and demand has snowballed. A restaurateur, Eytan Sugarman, asked Alex to create a tribute to New York City for a mural in one of his restaurants. That led to a mural for the Jet Blue Lounge at the Barclay Center. For athletes at the NBA All-Stars game, he created sneakers for players like Luka Dončić, who loved them. The hand-drawn, customized sneakers have delighted recipients from celebrities to lucky customers in special brand promotions.
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Subway sandwich wrapper and RedBull mural designed by Alex Alpert
Strategically, collaborations with Alex have been great for brands. Part of the appeal are the brand stories he tells through the art. The sandwich wrapper he designed for Subway has become the permanent wrapper. It tells Subway's history in an engaging way, with details like a depiction of its original store location back when it was called 'Pete's Subway'. It imbues Subway with a more memorable, creative, fun and celebratory brand image. Many brands like associating themselves with cool, relatively young artists, as it shows they support creativity, taste curation, and discovery.
It's fun to watch as Alex creates in places like the New York International Auto Show or the National Retail Federation trade show which attract broad audiences and media attention. For the high-end Grenadier car brand at the 2025 New York Auto Show, Alex drew all over their latest $79,000 station wagon while people watched and even returned later to see the progress. The Grenadier car and Alex were featured on a CBS News segment that aired during the show. Once the entire car is covered in Alex's drawings, it will be covered with a clear seal to lock in the design. From there it will be displayed at various auto shows and art fairs, which in turn will attract further media interest. This all helps the relatively new Grenadier car brand get noticed by coveted target audiences, and increases earned media generated by influencers, viewers, and traditional media. Videos of Alex's branded art in the making is fun brand content for social media, and watching the art in progress engages viewers for longer than any ad or billboard possibly could.
New York Children's Museum of Art X Google and Synergia NY - Annual Autism Initiative Picnic
Brands have been collaborating with artists to greater or lesser degrees for years, but it's rare for an artist to be:
Artist collaborations can be great for brand image, making brands seem more fun, cool, curatorial, and creative. In the fight for consumer and media attention, they help brands stand out, get noticed, and enable more quality time spent with more unique and engaging content.