Zach Johnson
About: Zach is the art director and co-founder of the t-shirt company, Tank Theory, along with partner Andrew Silverman, which was started in 2001.
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October
Zach is the art director and cofounder of the t-shirt company, Tank Theory (www.tanktheory.com). He and partner Andrew Silverman started the company back in 2001, and Zach has been the general art man ever since.
"From creating the company logo, to website, to t-shirt designs, to hangtags, to catalogs, to hats, to embroideries and trims, I have had the opportunity to design for a whole slew of garment and print related stuff."
Essentially, Zach has been the creator and guardian of Tank Theory’s overall aesthetic and graphic direction from day one.
At the moment, Zach is underway with developing the Spring ‘08 line of Tank Theory threads, titled Spirit. He’s also working on a side project with his partner, starting a belt buckle company called Death Metal Buckles, which is set to launch early next year.
Zach’s Wacom experience goes like this:
"I am super experienced (or should I say adept) at using the Wacom, although I have no idea what the buttons on the sides are used for."
Well, we’ll just have to see if he figured out the side buttons for his 2008 calendar month.
In my design work recently, I have been spending a lot of time on the themes of religions throughout the world and ideas on energy, the earth, and spirituality and how it affects us. This piece is coming from that mindset. I really wanted to create a stained glass piece that somehow contradicted the norm. Instead of life being depicted, as in normal stained glass works that sit in churches around the world, I wanted to depict death… an equally important side of life and the other side of the coin. I wanted to almost commemorate or celebrate death, the way you would with life. Not to be morbid, but death is a fact of life and it will eventually claim us all. With that being said, for me, it’s time to come to grips with death and celebrate it just like you would living. And of course the month I designed for was October, so skulls fit right in with Halloween and the whole dying of one season and the beginning of another.
I created a rough of the artwork in photoshop using various references of stained glass. After the general compositional elements were set, I imported the image into Illustrustar and put the Wacom tablet to work. By hand, I traced all the shapes of the stained glass, essentially vectorizing it and composing the final work.
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Tell us what you think. The artist, their work. We want your input.
I think your artwork delivers a loud message to people and I love it. I hope they listen.
Especially the consistency in the details of the work, without getting boring & repetitive… standing ovation!
W
If you are into death as a celebration, you would love Mexico’s Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos) celebration in late Oct. early Nov. The festivities and candle lit graveside memorials that last all night long are very unique to its indigenous population.
There’s some info on my blog on this at www.TheThoughtDump.com.
Keep up the good work.
Marty
I just love your stained glass work.
“Mosaic of Death” When I look at your artwork I’m hypothesized.
It’s very interesting to take time to look for many details through your work.
Congrat!
Francois