John Engelman
heavynuggets is the abstract art and design home of John Engelman.
It’s also so much more.
In addition to years of work as an abstract artist, and doing graphic design for a variety of clients on a whole host of projects ranging from t-shirts to tour programs, he is also one of the co-founders of MIDWESTpeeps, a Midwestern America based, music focused streetwear brand, and is also the host of sodagiant, the Internet’s Soft Drink Review Show, now entering it’s 11th year of occasional production.
While I love working on all of the commission paintings, t-shirts, hoodies, music videos, lapel pins, band logos, banners, root beers, buttons, magazines, posters, album covers, postcards, stickers, company logos, restaurant menus, DVD covers, and anything else you can throw at me, I'm not much of a web design guy. I can do a lot of things, but web design from scratch is not one of them. Need a Squarespace (it's what this site is built on) site? No problem. Anything else? Let's just say I "may" or "may not" know "a guy" who can "take care" of this "problem" for you... Got that?
You may notice this site has a few sections listed (other than this about page) in the header. ABSTRACT ART is a collection of my abstract works. This collection will always be growing with both new works and old, as I dig through my personal archives. DESIGN is a collection of design projects I’ve worked on through the years, including t-shirts, tour programs, lapel pins, and LP covers. I love designing things that get made. It’s cool to see something you did on a shirt or as a pin. MIDWESTpeeps is a streetwear brand I started in the mid-2000's with some friends and kept alive here. It's got it's own long history, but that a story for another time.
“Designing merchandise has its own set of rules and challenges. When it’s an album cover, it has to be timeless. It is going to sit in someone’s collection for years and be available online forever. When it’s a t-shirt, you want it to be the coolest fucking shirt in someone’s closet. You want them to wear it to the bar or their next show – and when they do wear it to the show, you get to see that shirt, out in the wild, on a kid having the time of his life. Merchandise matters to me. It matters to fans. It holds a special place in someone’s heart, and in my heart. It’s their favorite shirt, their favorite album, their favorite moment. It represents the band in parts of the world I’ve never seen, on people I will never meet. That, my friends, is pretty fucking cool. That is why I design merchandise. That feeling, that knowledge. Knowing that somewhere, someone can’t wait to go to the bar on Friday in their favorite shirt”