Thinking for
a Living™

HunterGatherer

HunterGatherer is the studio and workshop of designer, animator and filmmaker Todd St. John. It was founded in New York in 2000 and works with a limited number of companies on a select range of outside projects.

In 1994, St. John co-founded the independent label Green Lady with designer Gary Benzel. Nylon Magazine described it as “to the designer T-shirt world what RunDMC is to hip-hop”. Benzel is a collaborator on various HunterGatherer projects, and also operates the Igloo store in San Diego.

This weekend, the 222gallery in Philadelphia will be presenting a selection of new works on paper and wooden sculptural work that St. John has been developing over the past 6 years.

Bad Babysitter

Mikael Alacoque’s ‘Bad Babysitter’ is part of a series of sculptures that are concerned with a playfully sinister bastardization of familiar objects. The pieces have an initial feeling of innocence and irreverence but on closer inspection seem more bizarre and unsettling.

Champion Don't Stop

The always inspiring Geoff McFetridge, an artist and designer based in Los Angeles, recently relaunched Champion Don’t Stop. Geoff was once the art director for the Beastie Boys’ Grand Royal Magazine and went on to launch Champion Graphics in Atwater Village where he has developed designs for posters, t-shirts, textiles, motion graphics, advertising and film production. Amongst his recent ventures; a wallpaper company called Pottok Prints and a skateboarding company by the name of The Solitary Arts. Geoff is also a member of The Directors Bureau.

A prolific designer, Geoff’s minimalism and playfulness is reminiscent of the of the work created at Push Pin Studios by Seymour Chwast and Milton Glaser. Clever concepts are communicated quickly through a refined graphic simplicity. Geoff probably puts it best when he explains his process as follows, “Invention must be countered by consistency, complexity with simplicity, decoration with purpose.”

Follow developments with his work though his blogs at Pottok Prints and The Solitary Arts.

Ronald Kurniawan

Ronald Kurniawan graduated with honors from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. Inspired by ideograms, syllables, letterforms, beasts and heroic landscapes, he slowly but surely continues to create a visual language where the wilderness and civilization could merge happily together. With the belief that the sublime and nuclear age could coexist, he paints romantic environments and breaks the quiet scene with juxtaposed imagery taking the shape of icons and letterforms. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles where he paints meticulously and happily accompanied by his pug Ruffles, an avid artist himself.

Houston, We Have a Problem

Seattle-based Houston is the brainchild of Matt Clark. Part artist, part designer – both fashion and graphic, Matt’s work is always original and highly creative. I don’t know all that much about him aside from the fact that he produced the cover for Modest Mouse’s Good News For People Who Love Bad News and that at one point in time, his site sold clothing and other original works of art by himself and many others.

Photography by Jeff Minton & Houston.