Chris Hurtt, a freelance illustrator from Oakland, is pushing to bridge the gap between retro art and music culture with 8BitBrand, a sticker, art print, and poster company.
What started off as a side project while he was a design communication student at San Francisco State, his hobby quickly turned into his business where Hurtt turns your favorite music artists and figures of pop culture into 8-bit characters, which you can then purchase in stickable or hangable form.
Hurtt explained the creation of 8BitBrand started in 2015 from an infographic project when he was a student at San Francisco State University on a subject of his choice. He decided to do his project on the career of hip-hop artist Kanye West.
Hurtt’s currently operates out of his home in Oakland and he explained that working out of the house allows him to ignore distractions. While illustrating, he loves to blast his music, which he said helps with the creative process.
Hurtt is also a part-time instructor and continues to do freelance graphic design for musicians and companies including Cardi B, BJ the Chicago Kid, Harper’s Bazaar Magazine and many others.
But it wasn’t an easy start. Hurtt explained that the hardest part of establishing his business was realizing that he would put more money into it than he would get back in the beginning.
As his business continues to expand, Hurtt stated that he sells on average anywhere from 25-50 stickers on a release date. All of his products are designed by Hurtt and he uses a third party manufacturer for production.
He currently has one wholesale client in the Bay Area, which is Faze Apparel in the Mission District in San Francisco.