Cartwheel Recap: Designer Con 2012 opens in Pasadena ~ Part Two

DesignerCon is a great way to get closer to your favorite artists, while discovering new and emerging artists.  I’ve been followingSave The Panduhs and Sket One for the past year and here they were at D-CON 2012 in Pasadena. These two artists are on different playing fields, but have one end goal, to make it and to  keep producing for their fans and soon-to-be fans. And while I was checking them out, I came across lots of other cool artists, as the photos below show.

Artist Rick Garcia started Save The Panduhs back in 2008 and has been pushing his brand all over Los Angeles. He created his rendition of a panda character as a piece in an art show, and it received great praise from patrons. From there, the image took off for him as passion for art and making living off something he loves, as well as helping to literally save the pandas. Ten percent of the proceeds from sales of t-shirts, original paintings, prints, stickers, handbags, and many more of unique items created by Rick are donated to the World Wildlife Fund and other organizations helping to prevent the extinction of his inspiration, Ailuropoda melanoleuca, the panda.  I had the chance to ask Rick–a self-taught artist with a background in traditional graffiti lettering and character based art-form–about D-CON and he said:

I love Designer Con! It puts all artists at the same level and give us a platform to meet our fans, supporters, and puts a face to the name. With such a great response from the audience and I will definitely be back at next year and it will be bigger and better. I’ll be there until it stops.

 

 

 

 

Sket-One is a painter, illustrator and designer and has been creating visual pleasures for over 24 years. In 2003 Sket began designing vinyls for companies such Kidrobot, Solid Industries, MINDStyle, Wheaty Wheat and many more. Sket’s latest venture is Bad JuJu, a new line of products ranging from apparel and toys to one-of-a-kind customs. At this year’s D-CON Bad JuJu debuted their company as well as a limited edition “Kickstarter Dripple,” a 6” clear blue Dripple resin in its swanky clear paint-can style packaging, designed by Sket-One.

Theses two talents are on different spectra in their careers and are using the Designer Con platform to engage an emerging audience of art and vinyl collectors to their products. Also what Rick Garcia and Sket One are doing helps support Designer Con by exposing their own audiences to the other artists at this event. Hope to see both of theses artists again next year at Designer Con 2013.