• Is an illustrator, designer and educator based in Portland, Oregon. His distinctive style—an interplay of marks, signs, and symbols has been recognized internationally for its dynamic, visual exploration of life and culture.

    His work spans a diverse media context including postage stamps, street murals, album covers, picture books, visual essays, & animated commercials. Martin’s work has been commissioned by clients such as Apple, The Atlantic, The Discovery Channel, DreamWorks, ESPN, The Grammy Awards, Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Joffrey Ballet, The New York Times, The NFL, Sony Entertainment, and Stanford University. His images have consistently found a place in the exhibitions and juried shows of leading visual communication organizations such as American Illustration, Communication Arts, Graphis, Society of Illustrators, Spectrum, and 3x3, including gold medals from the Society of Illustrators in Los Angeles and New York. In 2019 and 2023 he received the Patrick Nagel Award for Excellence from The Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles. Martin’s poster designs are central to his body of work and are exhibited worldwide.

    Martin’s personal work reflects on issues of mass incarceration, homelessness, the history of jazz and dance, and the intersection of faith and culture.

    In 2006 Martin joined the faculty at the Pacific Northwest College of Art where he designed the BFA program in Illustration. PNCA Illustration is now the largest major in the college and ranks as one of the top programs in the country. Martin serves as Department Chair and Professor of Illustration. He teaches classes in professional practice, the intersection of design & illustration, advanced drawing for illustration, and visual thesis development.

    Martin is a native of California, and a graduate of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.

  • My professional practice has been focused on taking symbols from daily life and reworking them into images potent enough to strike passing audiences with an experience of aesthetic and intellectual encounter. I've been especially fascinated by how an individual artist's unique vision, when developed and honed, can be at once exclusively personal and yet widely transcendent. This fascination with the expressive and communal paradox inherent in artistic development is what led me away from a career as a creative director to start my own illustration and design practice. These contours and questions still energize my development and practice as a visual communicator.

    Thankfully, my disciplinary fascination happens to overlap with what has turned out to be vital professional practice—namely the need for the modern illustrator to find ways of distinguishing their images in a hyper-saturated visual market. That quest isn't, of course, something that ends with a degree or an award. On the contrary, its ongoing, evolving challenges form a large portion of what we refer to as professional practice. How does an illustrator remain savvy and able to read culture? How does an illustrator retain a vision robust enough to start or redirect zeitgeists rather than being conformed to them? My hope is to create images that could have worked in 1909, or work again in 2099—the point being that the appeal depends not on tapping the hype of contemporary culture, but almost the reverse, on stripping away the hype to offer up images conveying something timeless and new.

    As a professor, my desire for student development in and through cultural engagement is the pedagogical extension of my ambition for my own work. I am seeking to deepen the unity between my own professional practice, artistic voice, and cultural involvement. I am energized by seeking greater rigor, expression, risk-taking, and clarity in my work. Naturally, my general teaching philosophy reflects that kind of ethos: I want students to experience my classroom as a laboratory where processes, ideas, and historical/cultural backdrops are live-wires, highly-charged and dynamic elements through which we can better understand, better share, and better tell, our own stories. What's more—and this is core to my overarching goal for myself and my students—I want the classroom to be a place where we learn how to press ever deeper into that powerful personal/communal paradox that a well-developed vision and a highly-sensitive mind can come together and create.

  • AMERICAN ILLUSTRATION

    American Illustration 44 / Selected

    American Illustration 43 / Chosen (2)

    American Illustration 42 / Selected

    American Illustration 30 / Selected

    BOLIVIA POSTER BIENNIAL

    Award of Excellence 2025

    Award of Excellence 2020 (2)

    COMMUNICATION ARTS

    Communication Arts Illustration Annual 64 / Award of Excellence

    Communication Arts Illustration Annual 63 / Competition Judge

    Communication Arts Illustration Annual 57 / Award of Excellence

    Communication Arts Illustration Annual 48 / Award of Excellence

    Communication Arts Magazine Feature Article / March-April 2003

    Communication Arts Illustration Annual 44 / Award of Excellence (2)

    Communication Arts Illustration Annual 41 / Award of Excellence (4)

    Communication Arts Illustration Annual 40 / Award of Excellence

    Communication Arts Illustration Annual 38 / Award of Excellence

    CERVANTINO DESIGN FESTIVAL

    Poster Exhibition 2023 / Guanajuato, Mexico

    ECUADOR POSTER BIENNIAL

    Award of Excellence 2024 (3)

    Award of Excellence 2020

    GALLERIES AT CCBC

    There is No Design Button Exhibition 2020, Baltimore, Maryland

    GALERIE SAKURA

    Sneaker Generation Exhibition 2022 / Paris, France

    GOLDEN BEE GLOBAL BIENNALE OF GRAPHIC DESIGN (RUSSIA)

    Golden Bee 16 / Merit Award (2)

    Golden Bee 14 / Merit Award

    GRAPHIS

    Graphis Poster 2026 / Silver Award

    Graphis Poster 2026 / Honorable Mention

    Graphis Poster 2025 / Silver Award

    Graphis Poster 2025 / Silver Award

    Graphis Poster 2025 / Honorable Mention

    Graphis Poster 2024 / Silver Award

    Graphis Poster 2024 / Silver Award

    Graphis Poster 2023 / Silver Award

    Graphis Poster 2023 / Silver Award

    Graphis Poster 2023 / Silver Award

    Graphis Poster 2022 / Silver Award

    Graphis Poster 2022 / Silver Award

    Graphis Poster 2022 / Honorable Mention

    Graphis Poster 2022 / Honorable Mention

    Graphis Poster 2021 / Silver Award

    Graphis Poster 2021 / Silver Award

    Graphis Poster 2021 / Silver Award

    Graphis Poster 2021 / Silver Award

    Graphis Poster 2021 / Honorable Mention

    Graphis Poster 2020 / Silver Award

    Graphis Poster 2020 / Honorable Mention

    Graphis Poster 2020 / Honorable Mention

    Graphis Poster 2019 / Silver Award

    Graphis Poster 2019 / Merit

    Graphis Poster 2017 / Silver Award

    Graphis Poster 2017 / Merit

    Graphis Poster 2017 / Merit

    Graphis Social + Political Protest Posters / Merit

    IDEA DESIGN MAGAZINE (CHINA)

    Feature Article / February 2008

    LUERZER’S ARCHIVE

    200 Best Illustrators Worldwide 2018

    200 Best Illustrators Worldwide 2016

    200 Best Illustrators Worldwide 2014

    MEXICO POSTER BIENNIAL

    Award of Excellence 2024 (2)

    Award of Excellence 2022

    Award of Excellence 2020 (2)

    Award of Excellence 2018

    SOCIETY OF ILLUSTRATORS LA (SILA)

    Illustration West Annual Exhibition 2024 / Merit Award (2)

    Illustration West Annual Exhibition 2023 / Institutional Gold Award

    Illustration West Annual Exhibition 2023 / Merit Award

    Illustration West Annual Exhibition 2023 / Call for Entries Poster

    Illustration West Annual Exhibition 2022 / Patrick Nagel Award for Excellence

    Illustration West Annual Exhibition 2022 / Merit Award (3)

    Illustration West Annual Exhibition 2021 / Institutional Bronze Award

    Illustration West Annual Exhibition 2021 / Merit Award

    Illustration West Annual Exhibition 2020 / Advertising Honorable Mention

    Illustration West Annual Exhibition 2020 / Merit Award (3)

    Illustration West Annual Exhibition 2019 / Institutional Gold Award

    Illustration West Annual Exhibition 2019 / Merit Award (2)

    Illustration West Annual Exhibition 2018 / Patrick Nagel Award for Excellence

    Illustration West Annual Exhibition 2018 / Merit Award (3)

    Illustration West Annual Exhibition 2017 / Advertising Silver Award

    Illustration West Annual Exhibition 2017 / Institutional Bronze Award

    Illustration West Annual Exhibition 2017 / Un-Published Bronze Award

    Illustration West Annual Exhibition 2017 / Merit Award (2)

    Illustration West Annual Exhibition 2015 / Institutional Silver Award

    Illustration West Annual Exhibition 2015 / Institutional Bronze Award

    Illustration West Annual Exhibition 2015 / Advertising Bronze Award

    Illustration West Annual Exhibition 2015 / Merit Award

    Illustration West Annual Exhibition 2013 / Merit Award

    Illustration West Annual Exhibition 2012 / Merit Award (2)

    Illustration West Annual Exhibition 2012 / Institutional Honorable Mention (2)

    Illustration West Annual Exhibition 2011 / Merit Award

    Illustration West Annual Exhibition 2010 / Advertising Gold Award

    Illustration West Annual Exhibition 2010 / Advertising Honorable Mention

    Illustration West Annual Exhibition 2008 / Merit Award

    Illustration West Annual Exhibition 1998 / Merit Award (3)

    Illustration West Annual Exhibition 1997 / Call for Entries Poster

    Illustration West Annual Exhibition 1997 / Merit Award (3)

    SOCIETY OF ILLUSTRATORS (NYC)

    Society of Illustrators New York Annual Exhibition 2023 / Merit Award

    Earth: Fragile Planet Exhibit / Society of Illustrators Museum of American Illustration, NYC

    Icons & Images: 50 Years of Illustration / Society of Illustrators 2008

    Society of Illustrators New York Annual Exhibition 2007 / Merit Award (4)

    Society of Illustrators New York Annual Exhibition 2002 / Merit Award

    Society of Illustrators New York Annual Exhibition 2000 / Merit Award (2)

    Society of Illustrators New York Annual Exhibition 1999 / Institutional Gold Medal

    Society of Illustrators New York Annual Exhibition 1999 / Merit Award (6)

    Society of Illustrators New York Annual Exhibition 1998 / Merit Award (3)

    SPECTRUM

    Spectrum Annual Exhibition 13

    PERU DESIGN CONFERENCE

    Best Advertising Poster Award 2024

    Finalist for Best Artistic Poster and Best Advertising Poster 2024

    Best Artistic Poster Award 2022

    Finalist for Best Artistic Poster and Best Advertising Poster 2022

    Best Artistic Poster Award 2021

    REVISTA ILUSTRAR (BRAZIL)

    Issue 48, Feature Article / July 2024

    Issue 02, Feature Article / December 2007

    STEP BY STEP MAGAZINE

    Illustration Annual 2 / May-June 2001

    Illustration Annual 1 / Feature Article / May-June 2000

    UNITED STATES POSTER BIENNALE

    Award of Merit 2025

    Award of Merit 2023 (2)

    WARSAW POSTER BIENNALE

    Award of Excellence 2021

    WOODSTOCK 50 POSTER EXHIBITION

    Museo Franz Mayer, Mexico City, Mexico 2020

    3X3 MAGAZINE

    Illustration Annual 2023 / Merit Award

    Illustration Annual 2017 / Merit Award