Meet Peter Karpick | Visual Designer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Peter Karpick and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Peter, have there been any changes in how you think about work-life balance?
Work-life balance has always been a bit tricky for me. I’ve consistently held creative jobs and taken great pride in my work. Problem-solving often keeps me awake at 3 in the morning. When I’m into a project it’s hard not to keep thinking about it outside of working hours. Creativity doesn’t come with an off switch, you know?  But I really hate it when non-creative work thoughts creep in. When that happens, I remind myself to put those issues into perspective. I’ve always made an effort to stick to set work hours – if it’s 9 to 5, I try to leave at 5. After that, it’s all about having fun, spending time with family, going skating, or grabbing a drink with a friend.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I’ve been creating art for as long as I can remember, I’ve always loved drawing monsters. Early on cereal boxes and Godzilla cartoons made a big impression on me, Count Chocula and Frankenberry were pretty great. Ever since I got into skateboarding in the early 80’s I’ve been heavily influenced by skateboard art and culture.

I majored in illustration at SCAD in Savannah. After graduation I moved up to Providence, RI.  It was tough – tons of snow that I wasn’t used to and I had a really hard time finding illustration work.  After a failed t-shirt company,  I worked a few random jobs, eventually landing at a place that did screenprinting on glassware; I didn’t know computers at the time but bullshitted my way through the interview and got the job! I spent the next 2 weeks sneaking into the RISD computer lab to teach myself adobe illustrator. 

It was there that i was first really exposed to screenprinting, and I fell in love with the process. I’d go in early so i could burn my own screens without anyone knowing. I met a really good friend at that job, James Quigley @quigleysmagicshop. We immediately clicked and fed off each other’s styles pushing both of us in new directions.

After that I worked at a t-shirt company creating shirts for Vans, wu-wear, Adidas and other similar brands, and then at a handful of creative agencies doing everything from print to digital design. After about 10 or 11 years my wife and I decided to move back down south.  We ended up in Decatur and after a few more years of agency work I eventually landed at Adult Swim where I was Creative Director for about 10 years. I loved working there, the freedom to be creative was pretty much unlimited, I had a ton of great, talented co-workers, and was able to work with a lot of other really good artists of all mediums.

One of my favorite projects there was “Adult Swim Comics” I was able to work with some really great folks including Paul Kirchner, Benjamin Marra, Jeroom, Liana Fink and a ton of other great artists.

We also created an extensive lineup of live streaming content, airing live shows daily from 10am to 10 or 11 pm. My responsibilities encompassed ideating show concepts, designing graphics, devising games, managing any graphical needs and social media, handling merchandise, as well as designing the network’s apps and website. One of our most successful live shows was called “Fishcenter” It was a variety show revolving around a fishtank, haha. We had a lot of fun with that show and were able to bring in a ton of live musical guest including Lil Baby, Mike Watt, Billy Eilish, George Clinton, Dinosaur Jr. and Open Mike Eagle. It was rad to be able to see so many bands perform up close and personal.

Lately, I’ve been staying busy with freelance work on a variety of projects, including film logos and branding, skateboard graphics, and websites for more traditional businesses.

Once in a while, I’ll hang a painting on the street around town.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I love to skateboard so if I have a buddy coming into town we are going to hit up a bunch of random skate spots starting with The Pantry DIY in Southwest Atlanta. It’s a fun little spot made by skaters on a vacant foundation over by the Oakland City Marta Station.

From there, we might head to the curbs off of Hosea in Kirkwood, known as “5 Guys” due to the row of five curbs. It’s my go-to spot for skating, and you can always find someone chilling there in the evenings.

Then we would jump on the train and head over to the High Museum, always interesting and I love taking Marta, years ago I had a pretty active Instagram of photos I took on my commute https://www.instagram.com/marta_is_beautiful/. I love meeting random folks on the train and enjoy the occasional chaos as long as everybody’s safe!

After that we would have to head out of town a bit to Mamak Vegan Kitchen in Chamblee, they have a Lotus root dish there that is probably my favorite meal around.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I’ve had a ton of help throughout the years, first of all, my mom and dad. They always supported my creativity, my mom always kept art supplies around the house, when i was 13 they let me paint skulls on the wall in my room.

Right after college I was living in the Providence, RI area and had a job working at a jewelry factory. I was drawing the sample jewelry with Rapidographs for use in their catalog, it would have been a pretty boring job but i met one of my best friends there, an older guy named Peter Vachon. We started collaborating on photocopy collages using old popular mechanics magazines, old books and anything else we could get our hands on. That really made the job a millon times more bearable and a lot of my aesthetic stems from that time.

Website: https://www.pkarpick.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/trustzabo/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karpick/