Chris Parks is a St. Pete based artist, designer, illustrator, gallery owner(Pale Horse) and all around nice guy. Mr. Parks is one of 14 artists showing at the Tampa Museums of Arts “Brand New Day” show on Saturday. Get to know him and his work a little better through this quick interview I did with him via the internet.

Tart: The “Brand New Day” show takes aim at how branding defines identity. Being a designer and one who creates logos, how do you feel branding good or bad effects a company or item in 2008?

Parks: Branding is hugely important these days. A great product or company with a poor identity will often be overlooked or viewed as inferior to a competitor who understands the power of strong a brand identity. With so many competing companies in every category, your brand is what separates you and makes you unique from the pack.

Fleet of Doom” Digital Print for Brand New Day

Tart: What is your art background?

Parks: I graduated from The Ringling College of Art & Design in 2002 with a major in Graphic and Interactive Communication. (AKA graphic design). Before college, I worked at a studio called Imprint, who designs and prints CD’s, record covers, posters etc. for independent record labels and bands. After Ringling, I was hired by an international product design firm in Sarasota called ROBRADY design. There I got to design vehicle and product graphics for companies like Segway, Polaris, Yamaha, Arctic Cat and GE as well as packaging for sporting goods & electronic products. During my four years at the product design studio, I was also working freelance, picking up various clients in the action sports market and apparel industries. Working with the more conservative corporations, I’ve always had to restrain my style and not get too crazy, but with the freelance gigs I had, I was free to explore my ideas and push my art to another level. In 2006 I decided to open my own design studio and gallery in downtown St. Pete, now called Pale Horse Design. It was a huge, scary step and one that I really can’t believe is actually working out. Since opening the studio, I’ve had the opportunity to create artwork for some great companies, like Nike, Vans, Etnies, Red Bull, Hurley, The Cartoon Network, Iron Fist Clothing and Steadfast Brand. In addition, incorporating the gallery exhibits that we host here has also been a great way to connect and work with some amazing artists and designers who’s work I really admire.

PaleHorse illustration for NIKE

Tart: Majority of your work that I have seen is computer based. Can you explain your process a little?

Parks: Yeah, my skills these days are mostly driven by mouse clicks. I create my vector illustrations in Adobe Illustrator from initial pencil sketches and Photoshop montages as reference. This allows me to mockup the layout and idea before getting to deep into a detailed drawing. Later, I bring the vector drawing into Photoshop to add texture and rough the piece up a bit to give it a worn, natural look. For my photo pieces, I work with texture scans, shots from my digital camera and stock imagery for models and such. I then create tons of various layers and blends to get the right look.

“You Think This Is Funny” Digital Print on Canvas

Tart: Do you keep a sketch book? All artist art different, I like to see how people collect their thoughts.

Parks: I generally try to complete 1-2 shirt designs or other works per day and speed is definitely a huge factor in the success of a freelance designer. Although, I do occasionally hand draw, scan in and color digitally my works, I usually get right to business, researching reference imagery from nature or whatever and start clicking away in Illustrator. For my more intense illustration pieces for gallery shows and clients I usually spend some time just listing ideas, picking the best one and taking a couple full days to complete the piece. My work is pretty straight forward and in you face. I’m not a fine artist and I don’t claim to be. I don’t over conceptualize, I want you to get it at first glance. I just do what I love and create pieces that I think look cool and I try to pimp them to companies that fit my style.

Tart: You create designs and illustrations under Pale Horse as well as creating personal work. Do you try to keep things separate or do you find they overlap?

Parks: A lot of my work starts as personal illustrations for gallery shows or just pieces I felt like doing, but mostly everything gets used in projects for clients. I use gallery shows to push my illustration skills and I like to come up with creative ways to present my work in the gallery setting. I use various methods like mounting my work to wood, printing on canvas, brushing over with acrylic gel mediums and drawing / painting on top of the prints. This is fun since I usually just send the digital file to a company and I may or may not see it on anything for a year or so when I happen across it in the mall or somewhere. Right now, since I am the one and only designer at the studio, Pale Horse and Chris Parks are synonymous.

Check out more of Chris work and up coming Palehorse Gallery shows at http://www.palehorsedesign.com/