Ken Taylor

Ken Taylor was born in Melbourne, Australia. He works primarily within the music industry and is predominantly well known for his striking rock posters. Ken started in Perth Western Australia doing posters and album artwork for local bands. In 2001 He moved to Melbourne and slowly started to create a name for himself within Melbourne’s music scene. In 2006 he went out on his own and started to work full time on music based artwork.

Ken has designed posters and album artwork for many Australian bands including You Am I & The Beasts of Bourbon & Crowded House. Internationally he has designed artwork for bands such Queens of the Stone Age, Metallica, Pearl Jam, Nine Inch Nails, Kings of Leon, Bob Dylan & The Rolling Stones. Over the past few years he has become very well known for his limited edition silkscreened movie posters, working through MONDO with some of the worlds biggest movie licences. Ken has won the Desktop Create Award for Best illustration in both 2007 & 2009 and was a Guest Speaker at the 2009 AGIDEAS design conference, the 2011 Semi Permanent Creative Conference in both Melbourne and Perth and the 2012 Look Hear Conference in Newcastle. In 2012 he exhibited in Los Angles and then 2013 in Austin and was also part of SXSW Flatsock. Ken continues to work with bands both locally and internationally and is represented by Drawing Book.

Michael Thompson "Freestylee"

Michael Thompson (aka Freestylee) was born in Kingston, Jamaica and is now based in the small city of Easton, Pennsylvania, United States. He studied graphic design in the early 1980s, at the Jamaica School of Art, now called the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts. Of the many artists that influenced Freestylee during the formative years, few did more than the Rastafarian artist Ras Daniel Hartman. Hartman’s prolific output of drawings in the 1970s represented for Freestylee a rich source of Rastafari references and traditions that were growing deep influences on the Jamaican popular culture. Freestylee’s influences were not, however, exclusively Jamaican, or the Rastafari movement. Like other young progressive artists in Jamaica at the time the anti-apartheid struggles and liberation movements in Southern Africa were very inspiring, so were the struggles in Latin America. The subjects were evident in his earlier personal designs, drawings and paintings (1970s – 80s). During that period, he won two successive poster competitions in Jamaica, which gave him the opportunity to participate with the Jamaican delegation in the 11th World Festival of Youth and Students in Havana, Cuba in 1978, and again in Moscow in 1985. He describes his visit to Cuba as “a transforming experience and a tremendous opportunity.” There, he was introduced to the Cuban poster art created by ICAIC, (Cuban Film Institute) OSPAAAL, (Organization for Solidarity with the People of Africa, Asia, and Latin America), and Casa de Las Américas. Freestylee’s visit to Cuba, and his exposure to Cuban posters created by designers at these organizations greatly inspired his poster design aesthetics.

Kilian Eng (1982)

Kilian Eng AKA DW Design was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1982 where he still lives and works. In 2010 Kilian Eng graduated from Konstfack, University of Arts Craft & Design in Stockholm from the master group in storytelling, graphic design & Illustration. A couple of years ago Kilian discovered the possibilities of working in a digital way with illustration. Without losing respect for the powers of pen and paper Kilian started to investigate this new medium. The computer proved to be the perfect tool and gave exactly the kind of workflow he was looking for. 

Today Kilian Eng AKA DW Design is working digitally with almost every visual project making illustrations rich in colour and often with a lot of environment presented. In recent years he has also started to work with animation for telling stories. Since he often thinks in terms of a longer sequence when illustrating the many possibilities with moving image connected to storytelling has proven to be a great addition.

A big interest in Kilians work is to create alternative worlds, they can become visible just by opening a kitchen drawer or listening to the sound of cars on the street. Imagination can take over everywhere and be the starting point to create something unexpected. Much Inspiration comes from the interest in both classic and futuristic architecture, surrealism, science fiction, theater scenography, different elements and shapes in the nature as well as in the urban landscape.

Some Kilian clients include: Miami Horror, Frite Nite, Tesla Boy, Digital Arts, Acclaim Magazine, Acne Production, Playboy US, Eight Magazine, Kulturskolan Södertälje, Tokyo Dawn, The Sound Of Arrows and Lazer Sword.

Rolando Cyril "AquaSixio" (1984)

Rolando Cyril Aka "AquaSixio" was born in France in 1984. He is a curious of life and admire the work of the time, the evolution of societies, the change of thoughts, the human revolutions….how drops after drops are born oceans. He choose the pseudo Aquasixio to put together his favorite element with his favorite digit. His characters are often lost children in quest for their truth (and not THE truth). Their stories are quite sad but the darkness of life is more inspiring than happy and safe people.

Tomer Hanuka (1974)

Tomer Hanuka was born in Israel in 1974. He is an award-winning illustrator and cartoonist. At age twenty-two, after completing three years of mandatory Israeli Army service, Hanuka moved to New York City. Following his graduation from the School of Visual Arts, he quickly became a regular contributor to many national magazines. His clients include Time Magazine, The New Yorker, Spin, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, MTV, and Saatchi & Saatchi. He is the winner of multiple medals from the Society of Illustrators and the Society of Publication Designers as well as American Illustration and Print magazine.

Tomer co-creates Bipolar with his identical twin brother Asaf for Alternative Comics. Bipolar is an experimental comic book series for which Tomer was nominated for the Eisner, Harvey and Ignatz awards. In 2006, Tomer published The Placebo Man (Alternative Comics), which compiles much of his work from Bipolar. He currently lives in New York City.

Donato Giancola (1967)

Donato Giancola was born in Colchester, Vermont, USA in 1967. Since beginning his professional career in 1993, Donato's list of clients has grown to include major book publishers and collectors in New York to concept design firms on the West Coast: notables include The United Nations, LucasFilm, National Geographic, CNN, DC Comics, Microsoft, The Village Voice, Playboy Magazine, US Postal Service, Wizards of the Coast , Scholastic, Simon&Schuster, Tor Books, Random House, Time/Warner, The Scifi Channel, Milton-Bradley, and Hasbro. Merits range from the prestigious Hamilton King Award from the Society of Illustrators to nineteen Chesley Awards from the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists, three Artist Hugo Awards for outstanding professional work from the World Science Fiction Society, notable awards from the Art Renewal Center, and multiple silver and gold medals from the juried annual Spectrum: The Best of Contemporary Fantastic Art.