Location: Brooklyn, NY
Website: Mike Perry Studio

Mike Perry is one of those artists you wish you could distill and purify into a dangerously potent pill or elixir. The investment would return a thousandfold when people started jonesing for another hit of pure creative energy. Instead, Perry displays what that hypothetical drug does to him in his studio every day. After generating copious amounts of work for the likes of the New York Times Magazine, Dwell Magazine, Microsoft Zune, and Urban Outfitters, not to mention the book of hand-drawn type he edited, and another one of repeating patterns (coincidence? I think not!), it’s inevitable that someone will take notice. Like, perhaps, all the awards and recognition he has gotten from the Art Directors Club, Print Magazine, Computer Arts Projects Magazine, and more.

Mike shows his work all over the world, including this past summer’s Giant Zine show at Portland’s (and Bwana Spoons’) Grass Hut gallery, which I saw, in-person, and drooled upon. This is unlike the time, two years ago, when I was teaching at MCAD, Mike’s alma mater, and he returned to give a talk, and I was sick, so I didn’t see him or the talk (but my students were enthusiastic.) I did watch every episode of Design By the Book, however, and got a little insight into his process, which as far as I can tell is simply to draw with more awesome than the next guy.

Location: New York, NY
Website: Heather Ross Designs
Blog: Heather Ross Journal

Heather Ross is an illustrator, textile designer, and creative crafter working in New York. She has been working on a pile of children’s books recently, and a line of new girl’s surfboards will soon be graced with her drawings. Heather also runs sewing workshops related to her book, Weekend Sewing, during which you can make clothes and quilts out of one of her fabrics, or write a note to a friend on her stationery. Her patterns and drawings evoke the sea, childhood, and fairy tales for a variety of clients.

When I first saw one of Heather’s fabric designs, the only thing I could think about was being wrapped up in my favorite children’s stories. I grew up with a quilter for a mother, so the comfort of fabrics and patterns is instinctive for me. I also grew up on Lake Michigan, so her depictions of mermaids and boats make me long for the water from my land-locked home in Idaho. Wherever her work takes me, anyway, I’m happy to follow.

Location: Toledo, OH
Website: Dustin Amery Hostetler
Portfolio: UPSO
Blog: Think Faest!

Dustin Hostetler (a.k.a. UPSO) uses intricate drawings made up of simple lines and sharp bursts of color to set you up and then blow you over. He puts his pens and pixels to work for places like Motorola, Converse, American Eagle, and Verizon, all the way over to Upper Playground, Burton, Kid Robot, and so many more. He recently parted ways with Threadless, but not before curating some amazing shirts into their Select Series. Dustin is also the creator of the amazing art zine, Faesthetic, currently in it’s twelfth gorgeous issue.

Though I have been a fan and collector of Faesthetic for ages, it was his solo show at Carrboro, NC, gallery Wootini where I first saw Dustin’s amazing work collected in one place. His gray-toned illustrations mixed with explosions of color is like dropping chocolate into peanut butter. Filled with eyes and hands and skulls and color, and this one sparrow sitting on a pile of rainbow-colored jewels, I instantly fell in love with his art.

Location: Chatham, MA
Website: Bob Staake Studio

You’ve probably seen his children’s books. Maybe you’ve seen his cartoons. And I’m sure you’ve see Bob Staake’s New Yorker covers. Bob is notorious for insisting on using one of the earliest versions of Photoshop, and his feats of hardware maintenance must be epic to be able to run a Mac old enough to handle the program. But the art doesn’t lie! Photoshop, pencils, ink: all just tools. And in the hands of this master of illustration, who cares what he’s using to make his amazing work?

His clients certainly don’t care. While his website claims the list of those clients is too long to post, you can piece it together (or I have anyway…): American Express, Anheuser Busch, AOL Time Warner, AT&T, Barron’s, Blockbuster Video, Bloomsbury, Boston Globe, Cartoon Network, Chicago Tribune, Children’s Television Workshop, Christian Science Monitor, Coca-Cola, Coors, Disney, Fantagraphics, Foote Cone Belding, Forbes, General Mills, Hallmark Cards, HarperCollins, Hershey’s, Holiday Inn, Hostess, Kenner Toys, Klutz Press, Little Golden Books, Little, Brown, MAD Magazine, Mattel, McDonald’s, Miami Herald, MTV & Nickelodeon, National Football League, Nintendo, Parents, Penguin Putnam, Playboy, Ralston Purina, Random House, Scholastic, Simon + Schuster, Smart Money, Sony Music, Sports Illustrated For Kids, Sunkist, Target Stores, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, TIME, U.S. News + World Report, Viacom, Viking Children’s Books, Warner Books, and probably a lot more. Um, okay, that is a bit long to post.

I’ve been a fan of Bob’s work since I stumbled onto his website almost ten years ago. I always catch myself doing a giddy little double-take when I recognize another one of his books or illustrations. Not that I needed an excuse before, but now that I have a young daughter I don’t feel so guilty buying up a bunch of children’s books. My latest acquisition was a Little Golden Book Bob illustrated of the good old ABCs. While my my daughter’s library will certainly swell along with his “Bobliography”, I’m especially excited to grow my collection of prints with a 4″x6″ letterpressed Bob Staake to hang on the wall.

Location: Austin, TX
Website: Will Bryant

Will “Mr. Fancy Pants” Bryant is a freelance designer and member of the Austin based collective Public School. He makes all manner of fun drawings, collages, and designs with clients such as Polyphonic Spree, Kitsune Noir, and Nike.

I started to notice Will’s work through mentions by Edition 3 artist, Kate Bingaman-Burt, who was one of Will’s professors at Mississippi State University, and when I saw this design, I was hooked. I think of Will as part of a new generation of intelligent, happy, internet-savvy, bootstrapping young designers and illustrators who make work because they want to and love to and need to, regardless of commercial purpose. His energy and attitude is infectious and inspiring.

Location: Brooklyn, NY
Website: Julia Rothman
Blog: Book By Its Cover

Julia Rothman is a prolific illustrator and pattern designer with a list of clients you’ve probably heard of. Places like the New York Times, Urban Outfitters, Details Magazine, and Chronicle Books. And along with her partners at the design firm Also, Julia helped build the entire website for Cartoon Brew, from logo to blog to an online store for vintage animation, and they revamped the popular schmancy-looking-stuff blog Design*Sponge. Julia also recently participated in Design by the Book, a project with the New York Public Library and Design*Sponge to make works based on books from the library’s archives, which resulted in the fabric used on these great pillows.

I first became familiar with Julia through her fantastic blog, Book by its Cover, where she highlights books she’s discovered and collected. After watching the videos from the Design by the Book project, I sought out this great tutorial on creating your own pattern repeats by hand, which I have used for my own purposes as well as for lessons in the classes I teach. Now that I recognize her style, I see her work on everything from housewares to websites to wallpaper (and I don’t mean computer desktops – I mean the wall of your house!) It’s a special honor for me to have Julia in this set because it was her pattern tutorial that gave me the idea for this theme in the first place!