STERLING
BARTLETT_
Creative director with over 15 years experience in freelance, corporate, and agency roles.
As art director at WILL I led the visual team on Galvanick’s identity refresh. We built a new wordmark and an accompanying visual language of schematic line illustrations overlaid with a signal yellow “Contextual Grid.” The system shipped as a full brand book and asset library which drove Galvanick’s decks, videos, print ads and merch.
(CD Isaac Simpson, Will Agency)
ABCs for Ten Seconds Ago is an abecedarium of graphite drawings turning a children’s primer into a deadpan portrait of the ever present now, from “A is for Authenticity” to “T is for Trigger Warnings.” Its letters slide down the page like a falling market ending in bankruptcy. Foreward by Andrew Berardini. Hardcover, 62 pages.
As creative director of VICTORS, the design house of NBA trophy designer Victor Solomon, I repositioned the brand identity and guidelines. I lead design from concept through production on product partnerships, collaborations and other aspirational objects.
As an editorial illustrator for The Pitchfork Review, I did a series of illustrations for “He Walks Among Us,” Jessica Hundley’s Glenn Danzig profile for the premiere print issue. It was a multilayered, full bleed graphite spread that set Danzig against a cave of bats, skeletons and the iconography of his bands. Spot illustrations included Rick Rubin, and John Darnielle. It remains my favorite job for Pitchfork.
As an illustrator for Wrangler off and on from 2020–2025, I created graphics for men’s, women’s and kids’ lines, collaborations with Fred Segal, Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza. Styles ranged from vintage cartoons and psychedelic fauna to airbrushed Americana and all manner of retro logo play rooted in the brand’s Western heritage.
As art director at WILL I led the visual team on the brand identity for Chariot, which builds deployable power infrastructure for military operations. We built a new badge-style logomark of overlapping waveforms set above a squared, rounded-corner CHARIOT wordmark, complete with accompanying brand colors and guidelines. The system rolled out across launch videos and collateral.
(CD Isaac Simpson, WILL Agency)
How Did We Get Here? is a full-color graphic novel I wrote, illustrated, colored and lettered myself throughout our most cursed year, 2020. A small blue entity guides the reader through chapters on recycling, disruptors, the abolition of boredom and the phone-glazed state of postmodern life, asking the same question at every stop. You met me at a very online time in my life.
(Published by First To Knock, 2021)
Charlie’s Lot is Tom Carroll’s short documentary about Charlie J. Fisher, whose antique car-collecting habit has become a problem. His neighbors are angry and his wife is sick of it. When Tom told me he was making it, I basically bugged him relentlessly until he let me do the poster because I actually live next door to Charlie. I painted him standing calmly in front of a precarious tower of his cars, holding a plastic grocery bag full of keys. The film went on to screen at San Francisco DocFest 2020.
As an illustrator for Red Star, I designed tour and event apparel for artists including Chris Stapleton, Dave Matthews Band, Old Crow Medicine Show, and Modest Mouse.
(CD Michael Carney, Redstar Merchandise)
I’m interested in making our lived world more beautiful, and I’m grateful to do that as a Creative Director. I work with clients to turn their beliefs into things people can see and hold: identities, brands, illustrations, and products. For over fifteen years I’ve drawn, designed and directed across physical and digital work, guided by a simple idea: things worth making are worth making well. I currently lead creative at VICTORS, building aspirational objects with artist Victor Solomon.
- Creative Direction
- Art Direction
- Strategy
- Brand Identity
- Development
- Web Design
- UI/UX
- Ecomm
- Content & Marketing
- Product Management
New project, collaboration or just sayin’ howdy. I read everything.