Dayton-born rocker and graphic designer Brandon Rike has always been into art. “That is my number one thing,” says the erstwhile vocalist of the band Dead Poetic. “I was one of the kids who could draw… When I was little, all I ever wanted to be was an artist.”
He’s certainly accomplished that goal on a number of levels – all of them grassroots. Currently on hiatus with his former post-hardcore band, he understands the strength of referrals: Dead Poetic ultimately arrived on cable channels MTV2 and FuseTV because of years of brawny, word-of-mouth buzz.
Now a full-time designer, Rike is taking his love of music and graphic arts to a new level with his company, Dark Collar. His highly successful business revolves around designing the band merchandise you find at concert venues and retail lifestyle companies (such as Spencer’s) across the country.
We’ll go ahead and dispel the “He must just do black shirts with skulls” assumption for you. Rike has created many high profile apparel designs and merch campaigns for the likes of Bravado International Group USA and BandMerch, two of the premiere pop culture merchandising companies in the world.
The Big Ticket
Rike’s designs have graced concert tour t-shirts and apparel for artists as diverse as Slipknot, Billy Joel, Carrie Underwood, Killswitch Engage, the Fray, Jennifer Lopez and Metallica. Here’s the kicker: he runs the entire operation out of his three bedroom home in Westerville, near Columbus.
“I owe it all to my life in a band,” says Rike. “When we started playing out with Dead Poetic, out of necessity, I had to make fliers to advertise the shows. Next thing you know I’m making jackets for tapes and covers for CDs. Then it was on to T-shirts.
“When I was 18, [Dead Poetic] signed to Tooth & Nail Records, and we were touring a lot. We got a lot of, ‘You’ve got really cool shirts, who did them?’ from fans and industry types, and I had done them.”
One of Rike’s early design fans happened to be Jacoby Shaddix, lead singer of the band Papa Roach. “We were really lucky to tour with them,” Rike recalls. “They were the first band we encountered on the road that had big time merchandising connections. Jacoby asked me to do [Papa Roach's designs], and he brought them to their merch company.”
Those designs won over the brass at Bravado USA and before Rike knew it, he was branding and creating merchandise for a score of different artists, stand-up comedians and “even a NASCAR driver,” says Rike with a smile. “At first, this whole thing was relationships with other bands I knew. Now it’s all based on relationships with merchandising companies, and I’m busier than ever.”
Discipline and the Busy Season
Prior to his first two careers, Rike “sold shoes at Journeys, computers at Best Buy and had a paper route.” At some point, his marquee job of being in a successful rock band wasn’t sexy for him anymore. But Rike wasn’t ready to disengage from the rock scene altogether.
“After being in a van for so long, I really just wanted to stay home,” he says of his decision to stop touring with Dead Poetic. “But starting Dark Collar and doing what I do now was really an easy transition, because I don’t know what it’s like to go into an office. Never have.”
And yet, friends who think Rike lives the life of Riley don’t understand when he declines a lunch invitation or happy hour. “I don’t hang in my pajamas all day, it’s not like that at all,” he says. Rike will be the first to admit he’s a workaholic, and that it’s completely out of necessity.
"'What do you mean you’re busy and can’t go to lunch? You make your own schedule!’ I get that a lot," he says. "It’s up to me to make sure my schedule is strict enough to meet all my deadlines.
“It takes tremendous self-discipline to do this, and I have to put some formality around it all. Shower, breakfast, phone calls and email. It’s especially important to maintain that during this time of year. I’ll work all day, easily 12 to 13 hours or more, because so many bands are gearing up for summer tours.
“This is definitely the busy season,” he adds with a laugh, “and I completely work my butt off.”
What Makes a Brand Stand Out?
Rike gets asked the question a lot. So much so that the boilerplate statement on his Dark Collar site just about says it all: “I find that I get annoyed with long and wordy explanations about graphic design. I get even more annoyed by hearing so-called ‘professionals’ discuss and over talk elements of design. So much, so, that by the end of their spiel, you have no idea what they were talking about, and you’re pretty sure they didn’t either.”
Pressed to expound on how graphic designers and artists help brands stand out and get noticed, Rike is straightforward: “This job isn’t about being an expert in any one style,” he says. “It’s about being to be able to do everything and execute what the client wants. I want to know how Carrie Underwood wants her shirts to look, how she perceives herself as an artist and what her goals are.
“I know the importance of that because I’ve been on the other side, being the artist and wanting others to perceive and understand you in a certain way.”
One thing Rike doesn’t do inject his own personality or schema into his designs. He leaves that approach to the Pusheads and Ed Hardys of the world.
“To me, working on a Melissa Etheridge shirt and a Slipknot [shirt] is all the same job. I could care less if someone says, ‘Hey, that looks like a Brandon Rike design.’ My agenda is getting quality work to the merch table. Anyone can create an interesting graphic, but that’s not necessarily the whole job."
To wit, there’s a great deal of navigating creative goals and personalities to determine where an artist or band is coming from, which is as important as talent and aesthetics for Rike.
“Some bands will actually forgo what they think is cool, because they care about what their fans wanted. Sometimes, it’s all about image. Sometimes not. As a designer, you really have to figure that stuff out.”
Beyond all this, Rike has some words of advice for anyone pondering his path: Be diverse. He says that about 90 percent of his workload is creating band merchandise; he makes a concerted effort to work on other graphic design projects “just to stay sharp.”
“If your job is drawing skulls and gruesome art, you’re really limiting yourself,” he says. “But if you’re great at that too, then all the better. Be open to all the possibilities because, in my opinion, an amazing illustration doesn’t necessarily make a great shirt.”
Brandon Rike will participate in a “Merch Design Panel” with fellow designer Brandon Herbel at 1 p.m. Sunday, May 23 at the Weapons of Mass Creation Festival at Parish Hall & Church, 6205 Detroit Ave., Cleveland 44102. Check out www.wmcfest.com for details. Learn more about Rike’s Dark Collar here.
