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: 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: Portland, OR
Website: Obsessive Consumption
Blog: What Did You Buy Today?

Kate Bingaman-Burt is best-known for the drawings she makes of the things she buys. Her painstaking scrutiny of her own purchases force you to take a few moments to consider your own. A simple idea that packs a whollop if you let it. That the drawings are so awesome helps ease the painful sting of self-recognition. But she doesn’t just draw her own purchases– she draws for things you can purchase as well! And if you want to make the argument more circular, in March of 2010, you can buy a whole book of the drawings of the things Kate has bought. (And you can buy them in zine form right now!)

In addition to all the great work she creates herself, Kate is a wildly popular educator. She is a wonderful advocate for her current and former students, first at Mississippi State University and now at Portland State University. Also, she and her husband (Clifton Burt) had to close the Public Design Center when they left Mississippi, but, and I quote, “plans are furiously being hatched for something new that is surely to involve the internet and all things rad.”

I’ve been a fan of Kate’s drawings for so long, I can’t ever remember not knowing about them. We’ve had a number of near-misses in Portland, but we’ll go out for a coffee or beer one of these days. Perhaps it will end up in one of her drawings?

Location: London, UK
Website: Linzie Hunter
Blog: Drawger
Flickr: Linzie

Linzie Hunter made a big splash recently with her series of illustrated spam email subject lines. While that project was a wonderful introduction to her work, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. In addition to all of her wonderful lettering work, she’s a fantastic illustrator, just out with her first children’s book, A Small Brown Dog with a Wet Pink Nose. She’s prolific, and if you get lost looking through all of her work, perhaps one of her maps will help.

Linzie gave me license to make up something about her for this bio, so I’m going to tell you two truths and a lie*:

1) Originally from Glasgow, Scotland, Linzie Hunter started her career as a scuba-adorned summer intern for the Loch Ness Monster, bringing Nessie lattes and cheeseburgers at her underwater lair. Despite the recent rumors that haggis was an English invention, Linzie’s former boss assures us through her latest intern that it’s just tripe.

2) As impressive as her work is, Linzie is just a puppet for the true artists, Milli and Vanilli. They can’t sing, but apparently they can draw.

3) Linzie gets a regular stipend form Hormel, the manufacturers of Spam Luncheon Meat.

* HINT: the lie is that any of this is true, though she was actually originally from Glasgow.

Location: Earlville, IL
Website: Ray Frenden
Art Collective: Stylus

Ray Frenden is a prolific draw-er of heads and faces in all manner of discomfort, anger, and menace. His portfolio is chock-full of zombies, monsters, demons, and other unseemly characters (not to mention the pinup ladies!), drawn for posters and t-shirts for clients such as Threadless, Van Halen, Burton Snowboards, Rome Snowboards, Faesthetic and others. Currently he’s working on some comic strips, and I shudder to imagine the subject matter.

I was first wowed by one of Ray’s videos of his drawing process. I love his crazy color combinations and his linework is so crisp and striking. Obviously, I am also a fan of his amazing lettering work, and all the better when he mixes his intricate illustrations with hand-lettering. I was floored to notice that he is completely self-taught! It just goes to show you, kids: don’t stop drawing, and you can save yourself a lot of art school bills!