Website:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26196360@N06/

Background/Education:
I never had any professional training in art and design. Instead, I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering.

Why/How Did you get into design?:
I think i am really into art and design and trying to make a living at it even though I could get myself an engineering job much easier.
After graduated, together with a friend, I did some hand silk screened t-shirts for sale. Everything started from zero and it was just some sort of hobby stuff and we didn’t do this for long until I found out some online t-shirt design contests and started to take part. It was my first win at Threadless.com that brought up the thought of making a living from drawing and taking this into serious consideration. This might be the first time I wanted to get into the career of an artist/ designer.

Favorite Project(s) that you have done:
I haven’t have many opportunities to be involved in some really exciting projects. Most of my freelance work are art directed by clients and I can hardly say they are my best since the theme and concept were already provided. My favorites work would be some of my own illustrations which I submitted to contests and a few of them should be coming out very soon! Do check my flickr folio if you have time, it has my most complete gallery.

Influences/Inspirations:
As I didn’t go to any designing course I am pretty much influenced by the daily things and stuffs around me. Ever since I started taking part in online t-shirt designing contests, I have been surfing the internet for inspiration and this is by far my major learning process. Some of the artists that I am quite heavily influenced by are The Head of States, Frank Chimero, Nick Dewar, James Joyce, Luke Best, Josh Keyes, Paul Blow, Pietari Posti, Christoph Niemann, The Small Stakes, Emiliano Ponzi and many more.

How would you describe your Style:
This is hard to say, as I love doing more than one style. I always tend to create some conceptual based illustrations. I actually find hand drawn and clean vector quite ‘compatible’ as I think these two different approaches could be combined perfectly and the result is really fresh to me. Instead of describing my drawing style, it would be easier to define my work in terms of theme and concept, and they would be illusion, nature, universal and conceptual.

Is this your full-time gig?
I don’t think I have fully established myself as a professional artist/ designer but at this moment I have no day job and my income are purely from freelance illustrations. So the answer should be, yes. Anyone who happen to read this, please get in touch if you like my work!

One Piece of Advice:
Learn, practice, think, and work hard. Be confident about your work.

Favorite Medium:
Ink and paper, watercolor.

Favorite Website:
ffffound.com
flickr.com
swiss-miss.com
gigposters.com

Favorite Band at the Moment:
Not really listening to a lot of music recently, some of my all time favorites are Sigur Ros, Mum, Mogwai, Coldplay, The Strokes, Radiohead, The Arcade Fire, Belle and Sebastian, Club 8, Kings of Convenience, etc.

Favorite Clothing Line:
My fave would be Uniqlo from Japan, also 2k by Gingham, Rockwell, Youreyeslie, Sixpack.

Jeremy Shantz / 23

Website:

http://jeremyshantz.blogspot.com for now until I get a site running.

Background/Education:

UBC-O / UBC-VAN / EMILY CARR – fine arts.

Why/How Did you get into design:

My brother Mike had been doing it for a while and preached to me daily that I should give it a go. I had a chance to do some work for some big names and I just haven’t looked back.

Favorite Project(s) that you have done:

I have been working on a mixed-media/sculpture series called “When Things Used to be Good.” Consisting of rewired cell phone screens, looped clips from childhood events and relationships with surrounding fabrics originating from personal relics. Soon to be shown in Montreal in Early October.

Influences/Inspirations:

Michael Shantz, Jay Johnston, Ujino Monuteru, Barry Magee, Early Basquiett, Late Picasso.

How would you describe your Style:

Design wise its pretty diverse but still sporadic, I don’t think that will ever change, I pull from different inspirations daily, making it impossible to settle on one style.

Is this your full-time gig?

When I started it was an opportunity to work little hours and make enough to live, whilst having as many hours left over to do what I wanted. The few hours left from this balance was dedicated to monthly Artists Helping Artists events hosted at my gallery in Montreal called “The Shanty.” Thusly creating a three way full-time gig.

One Piece of Advice:

Advice is seldom welcome; and those who want it the most always like it the least.

Favorite Medium:

Video/Film/Fabric

Favorite Website:

“Free” page on Craigslist.com, ffffound.com

Favorite Band at the Moment:

It’s a tossup between a brilliant new musician, Thomas Gill (SELFHELP) from Toronto, and an equally under-rated musician, Leif Vollebekk (INLAND) from Montreal. Both albums are out and available. Go get them both, you’ll thank me.

Name/Age:

Sol Amstutz / 22

Website:

www.krop.com/solamstutz
myspace.com/solamstutzart

Background/Education:

I just graduated with Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Art with a focus in Graphic Design. Before college I took every art class in school that I could and got in a lot of trouble for drawing in my other classes instead of paying attention.

Why/How Did you get into design?:

I’ve been drawing since I was a kid. I’ve always kind of had a natural talent for art. When I was young my dream was to become a concept artist for Blizzard because of the art I saw people doing for Warcraft and Diablo so I drew a lot of monsters and that type of stuff early on. The whole concept art thing never really progressed, but I got pretty heavy into the local music scene in high school and one of my buddies told me one day that I should design merch for bands because he thought I’d be good at it. It sort of just naturally progressed from there and here I am.

Favorite Project(s) that you have done:

One of my first big projects was when I was contacted by Oliver Sykes from Bring Me the Horizon. He was fun and really easy to work with and I enjoyed that a lot. I’ve also done a few shirts for Mychildren Mybride and it’s the same thing with those guys, just really easy going and fun to work with. I’d also have to mention my friends in This or the Apocalypse. I’ve done a lot of work for them and they have a lot of hilarious ideas that I love to work on for them.

Influences/Inspirations:

I am a huge fan of guys like Horsebites, Godmachine and Dan Mumford. They are all really owning the game right now. Aside from that, I also get inspired by a lot of other contemporary artists like James Jean, Tomer Hanuka, Jeff Soto, Alex Pardee, John Dyer Baizley, Florian Bertmer…and the list could go on. I really respect guys who still hand render because there has been such a huge shift to all things digital lately.

How would you describe your Style:

Eclectic. I don’t even know if I have a specific style right now. I am always constantly changing and evolving the way I do things because I get really bored with myself if I do things the same way in all my pieces. I might do something that is extremely intricate and complicated one day, and turn around and do something very basic and simple the next. The more I work the more I think I will develop certain ways of doing things that will be recognizable as unique to me, and maybe I already do, but I would never want to be pigeonholed to the point where people would think it was strange if I decided to do something different.

Is this your full-time gig?

For the first time it is! I was really excited to graduate from school so I could finally get to design full time. I think I still have a lot of growing and learning to do as a designer, so hopefully the more I work at it the more successful I will become at it. I’m hoping this will continue to be my full-time thing, but with the economy the way it is currently who knows what will happen. Fingers crossed!

One Piece of Advice:

The biggest piece of advice I can give is to work hard. I believe a designer will only be as good as the time they put into the work. It really shows when you’ve worked hard and put a lot of yourself in to a project. If you get lazy it will definitely be reflected in your work. Also, sketch sketch sketch sketch!!

Favorite Medium:

pen/pencil

Favorite Website:

thecoolhunter.co.uk
gomediazine
iwantyourskull

Favorite Band at the Moment:

I’m listening to a lot of Kings of Leon and Foals lately. Other than them I’m really into Maritime, Pelican, The Acacia Strain, and Ultra Dolphins

Favorite Clothing Line:
I always like the stuff 410 B.C. puts out. I also hear that this company called Lock&Load Apparel has some awesome new stuff coming out (*cough* that i just happened to design *cough*).

Travis cook/18

Website:

myspace.com/collateralart
www.emptees.com/people/7945-travis-cook

Background/Education:

I’ve taken a few art classes over the years. I graduated highschool this year, and I plan on going to George Mason in the future and majoring in graphic design or fine arts.

Why/How Did you get into design?:

I’ve always been really into drawing and art growing up, but I really got into designing about two years ago. It started that I would draw up default pictures for little bands on myspace in return for them putting a link to my bands myspace on their page, and then as I got better I started charging actual money. haha.

Favorite Project(s) that you have done:

I really like this one design I made in December last year. It’s of this giant creature reaching for a girl on a tropical island. I guess I still like it because I think monsters are really cool? I don’t know. I usually start to dislike my old designs after a while. haha I think it’s going to be for Rockett Clothing. I’m not totally sure though.

Influences/Inspirations:

As a kid I used to collect comic books and I got lots of inspiration from them. I’d say my biggest inspirations have been Chad Lenjer, Mark Riddick, John Dyer Baizley, Pushead, and Tom Denney. As of late though, I’ve really been enjoying the stuff put out by Godmachine, Brandon Heart, Dan Mumford, and Alex Norman. They’re all really great artists and I can only hope that one day I’ll be as good at them!

How would you describe your Style:

I’d say my style isn’t completely developed yet, but it’s getting there. If I had to describe it, I’d say dark,complex, full of skulls. haha

Is this your full-time gig?

I guess you can say it’s my full time gig; I don’t have a job outside of designing. I still live at home with my parents, but when I move out I’ll probably try to get a consistent job also just in case I start sucking it up with my designs.

One Piece of Advice:

Practice, practice, practice. I actually use MS Paint for a good portion of my designing process. It’s not the normal way by any means, but I practiced and experimented until I got good enough to make some cool shirt designs. Also, when it comes to hand drawn designs, you can’t have a good design without good line art to back it up. Practice drawing the basics until you’ve got them down before trying to be the next Dan Mumford.

Favorite Medium:

Ink definitely. I draw with pencil first then go over with MICRON pens. I’m not too up to date on all the latest designing technology (i.e. tablets) and I also like having tangible drawings lying around that I can show people without running to the closest computer! I enjoy experimenting with stuff as well. Sometimes I get bored of the design I’m working on at the time and just draw something using random mediums. I used tie dye inks to render a skull on a white shirt once. It looked pretty cool.

(AWESOME TUTORIAL ON MAKING THE TIE DYE SHIRT TRAVIS IS TALKING ABOUT)

Favorite Website:

emptees.com (represent!)

Favorite Band at the Moment:

Carnifex probably. It really depends on what mood I’m in. Sometimes I like classical, sometimes I like death metal!

Website: liviumatei.com (I try to update it at least once per month, but it’s harder then it seems. Took me about 2 months to build the damn thing, had to learn HTML and CSS)

Background/Education: Informatics profile high school, Letters Faculty (graduated in Romanian and English Literature and Language specialty), now struggling to complete my masters in Irish Studies.

Moved from home when I was 13 to go to high-school in the city. Raised at the countryside, spent summers reading tons of books. Discovered Internet when i was 15. Had my first computer at 14. Always oscillated between a technical education and a humanist one. I hated Math, so…went with the last one. I am afraid my children won’t know the joy of reading a good book.

Why/How Did you get into design?: I always liked drawing, and I tried to improve, until around the age of 14 when i lost interest. Discovered digital graphics software around 16 and i started playing around, i also remembered i can draw. Continued to do so until around the age of 18, when i got into college and another 3 years hiatus followed. Going through some personal drama I had to find a hobby that fills my time and makes me feel better about myself. Again, i remembered i can draw. Some time after, i discovered you can make money from illustrating/design, and it further motivated me to improve. This year I decided I hate my 9-5 sales job and that I should give it a try at doing art full-time. Turns out..best decision i made lately!

Favorite Project(s) that you have done: All the personal projects, those that I did for personal exploration/training…or because i felt like it. I am lucky to have worked with great people, i only got screwed 2 or three times, so that’s a good percentage. It would be unfair to give hollers only to some of the guys I worked with…each experience was unique, and pleasant in it’s own way.

Influences/Inspirations: Well, when i started drawing again in high school, i went for anime. Tons and tons of DBZ and other stuff like that. So, the works of anime and manga artists such as Toryiama, Togoshi Yoshihiro, Hiroaki Samura, Oh!Great, or Miyura Kentaro – just to name a few, are the ones that inspired me to up my game when it comes to anatomy, facial expressions, shading,etc. Also, the years I’ve spent on deviantArt helped me to meet interesting artists from which i always tried to learn things. Last but not least, emptees.com is like a damn ocean filled with all sorts of artists, from huge sharks to tiny fish…all learning, all trying to constantly improve. If that doesn’t motivate you, nothing will.

How would you describe your Style: Constantly shifting from one thing I consider to look cool, to the other. You could say I’m in a soul search, trying to find my style. The thing I discovered while doing this is that I don’t have to stick to one thing, just do what seems right to me, and in time, certain elements that are recurring will be those that mark my style. It’s not always supposed to be a conscious effort, that’s my take on the matter. I know I’m avoiding the question, but I’m biased. See for yourselves, check my ‘folio.

Is this your full-time gig? For now, yes. And it’s the best job in the world. My next big step is getting to be an English teacher in a school. I love teaching people. I think it’s awesome to influence even one kid into doing the right things and help him learn from your mistakes, so he could have a better life. Also, I like being the center of attention. And I love people remembering me over the years. This doesn’t mean that i will stop designing, just gonna do both of them as part-time jobs, hehe.

One Piece of Advice: One Piece rules. Watch it. Design-wise…practice DOES make perfect. Also, try to have an objective, like..do at least X many artworks/ sketches/ etc. in a week. That helps keeping focused. Also, don’t neglect the ones that you love. Life is sometimes shorter than you would expect. Relationships need two people to work, being an artist is not an excuse.

Favorite Medium: Pencil and paper are my best friends, but i gotta say, digital art is just as close to my heart. After years of working without a tablet…i am amazed on how quick things get when you don’t have to use the pen tool for every freaking line;)

Favorite Website: Tough cookie. Those that allow me to read free scanlations of manga, my big family-meeting-place at emptees.com, cool blogs/zines such as the GO Media one, and last but not least, sites such as IATT, that allow me to have a big look at all that’s new on the scene.

Favorite Band at the Moment: Please, please don’t hate me for this, i am so clueless about music…i don’t even listen to music when i draw, for me it’s sort of like background noise, something to put me to sleep faster (joke). I do love me some occasional bands, but I am not into music, there I said it. I can appreciate each and every genre, if the mood strikes me…but, that’s all there is to it. people hatezz me for this, i am so clueless that they can’t have a normal conversation about some band/ singer with me.

Favorite Clothing Line: Those that are truly professional in their ways and offer pro products. I also loves me some teefury.com, DBH, Threadless, etc.

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