About Me

Hi, I'm Mathew Held, a designer and illustrator. I have over 17 years experience as a professional designer and illustrator for web and print. I have 10 years experience with animation and mobile applications. I have always naturally been drawn to helping empower others by sharing my passion of creating solutions through visual and technical communication. I have created work for such brands as Ferguson, Kaiser Permanente, Yosemite, Mariposa County, Looney Tunes, Spongebob, South Park, Batman, Superman, RiFF RAFF, Lil B, Technine, Sk8Mafia and more.

I started with graphic design and illustration when I was 12 years old. I would create cover art for my band and sell cassette tapes at school. In highschool I started creating band shirt designs and screen printing them with my friends. I would burn cds and create covers to sell along with my printed shirts and patches outside of concerts.

In my senior year of high school I entered a contest to make a logo for a local company and won. It was a chance to be on a team of about four kids and work together to make the logo. By the end I was the only kid left on the team as others lost interest. I knew this was what I wanted to do. Create designs and art.

I grew up skateboarding and playing music, so naturally I started making graphics for musicians and action sports companies. I created skateboard graphics and clothing for skate and snowboard companies such as Technine and Sk8Mafia. I started making album covers, shirts and animations for artists such as Lil B the BasedGod, Riff Raff and Soulja Boy.

I love to learn, so I earned a bachelor's degree in graphic design and later a master's degree in illustration. Later on my own I decided to read a ton of books and learn programming for iOS. With Lil B I created, programmed and designed an iOS app that reached the top 24 in the entire iOS app store.

Throughout my 17 year career I have ventured off to learn animation, programming, and have even been a cameraman on tour. Everything always comes back to design, art and illustration for me. I love creating things and I love a challenge.

Outside of work I like to hang out with my wife and two cats, exercise daily, explore the internet, work on projects, draw and make small little clay sculptures.