Designers
Aaron Draplin, Draplin Design Co.
Raised in the Michigan Northwoods, schooled at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and currently located in the mighty Pacific Northwest, the Draplin Design Co. proudly rolls up its sleeves on a number of projects related to the Print, Identity, Web Development, Illustration and Gocco Muscle categories. We make stuff for Coal Headwear, Union Binding Co., Richmond Fontaine, Nike, Wired, Timberline, Target, Hutchco, Patagonia, Chunklet, Incase, Viva Voce, Giro, Cobra Dogs, Burton Snowboards, Hughes Entertainment, Esquire, Panic, Chuck Prophet, Field Notes and even the Obama Administration, if you can believe that.
Web: http://draplin.com
Twitter: @draplin
Mikey Burton
An Ohio native, Mikey Burton proudly describes his design aesthetic as “Midwesterny” and draws much of his inspiration from artifacts found throughout the hardworking, blue collar Rust Belt: old type-specimen sheets, arcane equipment manuals and ancient textbooks. “I’m fascinated with how past designers had to come up with ideas and solve problems using limited resources,” he said. “Like, for instance, figuring out how two colors can work harder than four. It helps me get to better solutions myself.” While earning his BS/MA in Visual Communication Design from Kent State University, Mike became one of the founders of Little Jacket. He has received awards from Communication Arts, Print, HOW, CMYK, Logo Lounge, Print’s New Visual Artist and most recently ADC Young Guns. Mikey now lives in sunny Philadelphia where he enjoys the myriad culinary delights of his adopted hometown, and continues to nurture his lifelong obsession with bears, which are “so cute and lovable, but probably the most dangerous animals ever.”
Web: http://mikeyburton.com
Twitter: @mikeyburton
Dan Christofferson, Big Cartel
Dan Christofferson was born and raised in the suburbs of Salt Lake City, Utah. Crowned by the world’s greatest mountains and populated by a thrifty, industrious people of intense, conservative christianity, Salt Lake was the perfect place to develop a love for mysteries and visual storytelling. A trained illustrator and designer, Dan came to Big Cartel to help other working artists follow their passions and make money doing what they love. Dan spends big chunks of his free time drawing, getting tattooed, and watching movies.
Web: http://bigcartel.com | BeeTeeth.com Twitter: @robotwithwings
Alex Cornell, ISO50/Firespotter
Alex Cornell is a San Francisco based designer and musician. He has worked at IDEO, ISO50, and has done more freelance than you can imagine, most recently for Google Ventures. Currently he is working with a few Xooglers at a startup in Mountain View.
Web: http://alexcornell.com | ISO50.com Twitter: @alexcornell
Andy Hayes, Hucklebuck Design Studio
Andy Hayes is an award winning graphic designer based in Springfield, OH. His work for a wide range of clients has been featured nationally in publications such as Communication Arts, How Magazine and CMYK. Along with his work in the graphic arts, Andy has 10 years of experience in higher education, focusing on design and typography. Creating great design as well as building into young designers sums up the passion he has for his career.
Currently Andy is an Associate Creative Director with Columbus based branding agency Ologie while maintaining his personal work by way of Hucklebuck Design Studio, a design boutique that he founded in 2004.
Web: http://hucklebuckdesign.com Twitter: @hucklebuck
David Gensler, The KDU
David is the founder and CEO of the Keystone Design Union, the largest Private Design Collective. Founded in 2003, The KDU finds and develops new and established creative talent from around the world, utilizing them to develop highly focused, vertical teams which service some of the worlds largest brands.
Justin Kamerer, Angryblue
Under the ‘Angryblue’ moniker, Justin Kamerer is an illustrator that designs album art, gigposters, websites, logos, art prints, movie posters, tacos, skateboards, t-shirts, sandwiches and just about any other thing he can get his hands on. He is a self-described “art whore†with an unhealthy fascination for birds, teeth & typography. Sadly, he probably draws more skulls in a week than you have buried under your house.
Quite Strong
Quite Strong is a collaborative made up of five female Chicago-based creatives. Professionally we are designers, art directors, web developers and illustrators. Personally, we are dreamers, crafters, lovers, bikers, nerds and wanna-be foodies. We love Chicago, we relish creativity, and we want to share what we’re into with you. e bites.
Web: http://quitestrong.com/ Twitter: @quite_strong
Bill Beachy, Go Media
Bill Beachy is the president of Go Media. As an artist and entrepreneur, he’s been through the lowest of the lows and the highest of the highs. He left college in 1997 wanting to draw comic books. After years of trying to break into the industry and working at stuffy corporate design firms, he started doing gigposters for the Grog Shop around Cleveland to get his name out there. He got hired for a few jobs and began what was the start of Go Media. At the time he called his freelance business Graphic Odysseys. In 2003, he met another designer named Chris Wilson who was on a similar path. The two of them teamed up and officially started Go Media.
For years, Bill and Chris worked 12-16 hours a day in their cheap apartment in Cleveland Hts. Barely making enough money to pay rent, their passion and drive helped push them to make it another month in business. The two of them firmly believed in doing work that was exciting and progressive. They believed in pushing the envelope of artisty, technology, and business. The moral values, character, and blue collar work ethic behind these two are principles that Go Media lives by today.
Web: http://www.gomedia.us Twitter: @william_beachy
Brandon Minga
My name is Brandon Minga and i’ve been on the hunt for greatness. I enjoy collaborating with empowered and inspired creatives to achieve award winning campaigns and concepts. I want to be challenged to lead and create award winning work. I enjoy working with open minded, talented creatives who are willing to take risks.
Glen Infante, Ilthy
Glen Infante is mostly known for being one of the artists for Hotcards.com. The majority of Glen’s art could be seen in and out of the Cleveland music scene. He has worked with many bands and recording artists through the years and actually used his visions to help break threw the wall in Cleveland like Chip tha Ripper, Machine Gun Kelly and Dj E-V. After realizing that his design work was something more than ordinary, Glen ventured himself into fashion design and started his own label, iLTHY (also known as I Love the Hype).
Shortly after starting iLTHY, Glen and his art had begun to make its rounds. He was also the man in front of thousands of Cleveland Cavaliers fans as they all rallied to try to keep LeBron James in Cleveland. Glen orchestrated a website to help generate money to put up an over-sized billboard illustration of LeBron James pleading him to stay in Cleveland, which was seen world wide.
After the execution of the billboard project, iLTHY’s recognition started to grow in rapid pace. Glen and iLTHY are now one of the most followed artists in the entire mid-west.
Web: http://ilthy.com Twitter: @ilovethehype
Aaron Sechrist, OK Pants
Pants is a designer and illustrator from Cleveland and he’s been a good friend of Go Media for quite some time. He does a lot of work for Tower City Amphitheater and has done gigposters for Angels and Airwaves, Jimmy Eat World, and Gym Class Heroes.
From his blog, "My name is Aaron Sechrist. I work within the realms of graphic design and illustration and branding for apparel, print, web and broadcast industries. I like to make things look cool, and the fact I get to collect money and occasional high fives for that is a great bonus."
Web: http://okpants.com/ Twitter: @okpants
Dan Cassaro, Young Jerks
Dan Cassaro is a designer, animator and print-maker living in Brooklyn, New York. He puts words on paper so that they might be accountable for themselves. He is available for freelance work or to talk about early Wings albums.
Web: http://youngjerks.com Twitter: @youngjerks
Steve Knerem, Establish the Front Line
Steve Knerem thrives off of creativity and imagination. Not a day goes by where he doesn’t create something new or push himself to the limits. Loves his hot wife, loves his cute dog and will never stop listening to Metal! Hail!!!!
Web: http://stevekneremportfolio.blogspot.com Twitter: @SteveKnerem
Janee Meadows
Janée Meadows is an award-winning freelance illustrator and graphic designer based in Los Angeles, California.
It’s hard to peg her style, as it runs the gamut of photorealism to retro cartoons. Like the mockingbird, known for mimicking the songs and sounds of the animal kingdom; Meadows is known for her ability to authentically mimic various illustrative styles of the art world.
Web: http://janeemeadows.com/ Twitter: @janeemeadows
Maarten Kleyne
I am Maarten Kleyne, a freelance visual artist specialized in – but not limited to – graphic design for music. Designing for music is something I am extremely passionate about and that I enjoy doing. As a freelance designer I am available for commissions. The type of work I mostly focus on is creating album art, CD designs, posters and promo-flyers.
Web: http://www.mkleyne.com Twitter: @mkleyne
Brandon Rike
Brandon Rike designs shirt graphics for bands – mostly. He also does logos from time to time. Once in a great while, he will do a poster, maybe even some low-key album art. “I try to stick to what I’m good at. I make letters look good. That’s my passion – tweaking letters around, getting them just right, and being able to come back to it, some time later, and still be pretty tickled with the work. That’s what these graphics are about, aren’t they? Longevity? Creating your new favorite t-shirt – that’s my business – a graphic that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy to look at. Well, that’s how I see it, I guess. I love this stuff. Whether I’m doing art for Deftones or Billy Joel, I get excited, all the same. I live and breathe this stuff.”
Web: http://brandonrike.com Twitter: @brandonrike
Mat Macquarrie
Art was my thing as a kid. I was really into comic books: creating my own worlds and characters. Knowing I could never write the next Spawn series, my works rarely progressed past their cover art. Today I am slowly building my studio, working on personal projects aimed to improve my talents as a designer.
Web: http://www.matmacquarrie.ca Twitter: @matmacquarrie
Simon Birky Hartmann, Studio Ace of Spade
Studio Ace of Spade is a design studio located in Northern Indiana. We do print and web design, and we do it well.
Featuring the combined strengths of Jon Savage and Simon H.
Web: http://studioaceofspade.com Twitter: @simonhartmann
Jeff Hulligan
Jeff Hulligan is a native of Cleveland, OH working to revitalize the artistic vitality of his hometown. His works regularly employ a combination of mixed media and graphic illustration favoring a range of inks, markers, acrylics and spray-paint. His inspirations often stem from a childhood intake of equal parts comic books and horror movies. Jeff has established himself with his raw, striking works that showcase his dark and somber talent.
Web: http://www.jeffhulligan.com Twitter: @jhulligan
Nate Utesch, One Lucky Guitar, Inc. / Ferocious Quarterly
Nate Utesch is a self-taught musician from Northeast Indiana. He spent the latter part of the 90′s daydreaming about space travel and illustrating tape cassette inserts for his short-lived punk bands. What started as designing out of necessity quickly turned into a full-fledged desire to study graphic art and illustration. Nate’s been working as an illustrator/art director since 2003 and for the Midwest design and marketing boutique, One Lucky Guitar, Inc., since 2006. His work has been seen in HOW, Print, Grain Edit, For Print Only, The CSS Awards, Humanize and a forthcoming issue of Fan the Fire. Any conscious hours left in the day are split between writing and performing for his current project, the Crossroads of America Records (USA)/Friend of Mine Records (Japan) instrumental quartet, Metavari—burning the midnight oil as the curator and publisher of the art and li t journal, Ferocious Quarterly—and pretending he’s going to one day ride a bike around the world.
Web: http://www.nateutesch.com Twitter: @nateutesch
