Jacob Bannon - Art

Art

Bannon's art and design career predominately involves doing design work for hardcore punk bands and releasing limited edition art prints. He has stated that his art and design work pays his bills. Since 1997, he has produced art for dozens of bands. Work for these bands has involved packaging, poster, web, apparel, and logo design. Some of his design work has been credited to his art company Atomic! ID. He designed a shirt for the online boutique of Hatebreed's Jamey Jasta, Hatewear. He also is responsible for the art direction, and often the design work, for all the releases on his Deathwish Inc. record label.

His work has been described as "heavily textured with a kinetic energy and unsettling feel". Tim Lambesis of As I Lay Dying praised Bannon's work on their Shadows Are Security album art and stated that it "is probably the biggest selling record that Jake has ever done artwork for ... his ethic and his whole approach to art isn’t really about sales and numbers." Bannon's style has been influential; as one magazine article put it, he "is often credited with inventing the so-called skull with wings aesthetic that became so popular in the punk underground and mixed martial arts scenes that today knockoffs are available in stores like Target and Marshalls."

In 2004, Bannon released a series of 4 "museum-quality" giclée prints, with a run limited to 100. He has worked with Burlesque Design to have limited series screenprints produced of some of his artwork, including two limited edition Converge tour posters and limited prints based on the album artwork for the Converge albums Jane Doe, No Heroes, and Axe to Fall. The Jane Doe cover art was featured on the cover of the sixth issue of Beautiful/Decay Magazine, which also contained an interview with Bannon. He also designed a limited-edition cover for the May/June 2005 issue of Punk Planet, which was their third Art & Design themed issue.

On August 15, 2004, he participated in Strhess Fest in Cleveland. In February 2008, he participated in the Public Domain group art show, and October 2008, his artwork was featured in a Halloween themed group show entitled Horror Business, both held at Tradition in Los Angeles. In October 2010, Bannon had work in the Scream With Me show at 111 Minna Gallery in San Francisco, which featured the artwork of selected musicians and tattoo artists.