Today we’d like to introduce you to Stephan Dean.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Look around you; everything is printed, and you can print whatever the heck you want on whatever you want. It’s basically magic. My favorite printed product is a pin-back button; unlike a shirt, mug, or tote bag, a button (except for when a customer bought one to pin her broken dress together) is a relatively useless product on its own. But after it’s printed it can be something that makes you laugh, an expression of your interest, how you feel and what you think, it can be marketing or a memory or literally anything. I printed and made my first pin-back button in a high school printing class and immediately fell in love. I bought my firsthand press button-making machine the next day and haven’t stopped since. I now use a much faster automatic machine and have printed hundreds of thousands of pin-back buttons with both my own weird artwork and custom orders for just about any occasion you can imagine. It’s a small, wearable billboard, but its message can be big. I take great pride in being known as ‘the button guy’, I love when I see a stranger wearing my artwork and also knowing I’ve sold them all over the world. My business, Static Cat Studio, which got its name because my cat gets super staticky in the wintertime, started in Dallas a little over a year ago (though I’ve been in the print/design game for over 12 years) and was simply born because I geek-out on printing. The business is always expanding, and now, I print on much more than just buttons. I have exciting plans to keep growing in both sharing my own designs and helping others by printing theirs.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Haha smooth? Not quite! I’ve had printer issues right in the middle of a rush order, computer crashes while making designs, and products destroyed by storms at festivals. These struggles are just battle wounds that every artist/maker goes through, but they make us wiser and stronger. Another big challenge as an artist is balancing the creative art-making side and the business side of actually generating money with those creations, especially if you work solo. I’ve seen many amazingly talented artists that could make a living off their art if they only had help with the business side. A true artist/maker has deep desire for creating, and they don’t do for the money. I know for me, it felt icky at first to put a monetary value on my creations/services and to actually think of it as a business instead of just a passion. That’s were asking for help is important, as Steve Jobs said “Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people”. I know I’m immensely grateful for the help my partner gives me in both business and mental health by keeping morale high. The recipe for mixing art and business will look different for everyone, and there will likely be many obstacles and challenges in figuring out that recipe, but asking for help when needed will be an essential ingredient in your success.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m known as ‘the button guy,’ but what’s more important than the button product is having unique designs for people to connect with as a form of expression. One of my most popular designs has an intentionally simple illustration of a food server with the text “I HATE PEOPLE,” which was deeply inspired by my years in the food service industry. Even if you’ve never been a food server, if at any point in your life you’ve ever said, “I HATE PEOPLE”, you can now connect with this design and when it’s worn on your jacket or backpack it becomes a small billboard of self-expression. My unique comic designs can be blunt, sarcastic, and maybe even a little crass, but they are all in good humor, and I love making people laugh. My other popular category of designs is what I broadly brand as ‘pop culture’ and these often have a conceptual element. For example, I have a series titled “Rock N Roll Don’ts,” which references popular songs such as “Don’t Fear the Reaper” and “Don’t Stop Believing”. Another one of my series is fan art drawings inspired by the cult classic show Twin Peaks, and last month; I was proud to have the actual lodge featured in the show order my original Twin Peaks button packs for their gift shop. My artwork can be random, weird and (contrary to what every art professor has told me not to do) range immensely in style and art media, but that’s part of the fun of having creative freedom over my ever-growing catalog of designs. As with most artists, my content is born from personal experience; it’s an expression of my random thoughts, feelings, and interests. My intent is to bring amusement to other weirdos with similar humor and interest, or at the very least make them chuckle.
Who else deserves credit in your story?
My shoutout goes to my beautiful partner, Patrice. Thank you for always being super supportive, keeping my scattered brain on track, and for helping me get back up when I feel like everything is falling apart. Also, I’m so glad we started this cheesy tradition of making a magnet of us at every event we have ever worked. I love you very much.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.staticcat.net
- Instagram: @static_cat_studio
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/staticcatstudio
