A Jefferson Park Forward Local Business Spotlight
Local designer builds successful studio working with bands and brands of all sizes
The Northwest Side of Chicago is home to a myriad of hidden treasures, including a wealth of local artists and creative small businesses. This is the first of Jefferson Park Forward’s new Local Business Spotlight where we’ll showcase our business members and local gems, both the ones you know and love and some new ones you may not know exist.
In mid-March, we had the pleasure of meeting neighbor, local business owner, and artist Nate Azark. Nate was JPF’s first Business Member and is the Founder/Creative Director of 12 Line Studios. 12 Line is a full-service design studio located at the 2112 arts, entertainment and tech incubator and shared work space near Cicero and Montrose on Knox Avenue.
Azark’s designs bring together stunning illustration, custom typography, and an expert eye for branding to create captivating visuals including posters, packaging and logos. His impressive portfolio includes posters for David Letterman’s musical acts, murals for international clients like Budweiser, labels for local brewers like Old Irving Brewing Co., packaging design for Taylor Street Soap Co., and concert posters for huge names like Dave Matthews Band, Alabama Shakes, Phish, Depeche Mode and Florence + The Machine.
In addition to creating brilliant designs for his clients, Nate still finds the time to give back to the community. He’s developed pins to fundraise for ACLU and Equality Illinois philanthropic work, mentored young designers, and donated designs, posters and pins to worthy causes like Olive’s Neighborhood Garden. “There’s another project we do with Daily Planet Productions downtown, which is Give a Shi*t,” Nate explained. “Usually about 16 different designers donate a design, they print them on t-shirts, and then they sell them during the holidays and donate 100% of the sales to Streetwise.” One of Nate’s designs is currently the shirt of the month and can be found at giveashirt.net.
Nate was gracious enough to give us a tour of his work space on Knox Avenue, show us some of his favorite design work, and talk about his hand-printing process for posters and some of the resources that inspire his brand and logo development work, including a book of ceramic marks used to brand pottery and porcelain across the globe. Check out this video of our visit.
Like what you see? 12 Line Studios offers a suite of design and branding services, but also offers poster prints at affordable prices. Check out what they have to offer at www.12Line.com and buy concert and event posters, art prints and pins at https://rockonpaper.com/.
Hi and what a great creative venture you have brought to JP!
We are members of the SRB Community Spirit Garden at Higgins and Central and are excited about you being in this
Area!!
Best of luck and love your work.