Rider’s Lens: Champagne Rodman – BIKEPACKING.com

By Casey Robertson

Guest Contributor

@champagne_rodman

In today’s installment of Rider’s Lens, we showcase a selection of work from illustrator and designer Casey Robertson, better known as Champagne Rodman. See a broad sampling of his distinctive creations, learn about what motivates and inspires him, and find some of his insights from decades of making art here…

I’m Casey Robertson, better known as Champagne Rodman. I began life as the third Duke Boy, followed by a short stint as a silent member of the A-Team (B.A. Baracus’s son). I’m an artist turned bicycle mechanic turned graphic designer/illustrator/creative director. These days, I’m living in Central North Carolina, the 13th state I’ve legally received mail in, where I’m well-bonded with the creeks, rivers, rollers, headlands, pastures, hot dog stands, ice cream shacks, and disenfranchised hillbillies of the ancestral Occoneechee/Saponi lands on which I reside. I’m radical both on and off a bike and am absolutely fed up with standard-issue shit.

I’ve been creating visual art since my fingers started working. When I was really getting my pencils about me, a lot of kids who drew were referencing comic books, but I never quite latched onto replicating hyperreal physiques. Just, like, could there be more to art than pecs, hair parts, and perfect teeth? Toward the end of elementary school, I found skateboarding, which was a world of visual input, music, and culture that absolutely captured me.

I found the outsider art of Thrasher, train car hobos, and underpass scrawlers intensely consuming. I began replicating the bold and provocative stylings of Pushead, VC Johnson, Jim Phillips, and Rick Griffin. Outsider and pop art spoke to me at a really young age.

At the beginning of high school, my folks banned me from skateboarding and most of the music I liked, which kind of killed art for me for several years. The absence of skateboarding made room for bicycling, and I found a deep interest in the iconography and visual lexicon of cycling, particularly European (mostly Italian) brands. I had a small spiral-bound notebook that I covered and filled with faithfully duplicated logos of such brands. I have a sort of brain video memory of duplicating the Sidi logo at the time—each spike in the logo and their relationship to the next spike over, the way the letters nest and where they touch, the negative space between them all.

In retrospect, that notebook was the beginning of my career. It was a chronicle of my devotion to enjoying and understanding the symbols of my world, while perpetually wondering how the fuck “Ciöcc” was pronounced. I think my biggest design asset is the attention I pay to things around me, and I remember the details. I call all of this my “catalog,” and I am very proud of it. Life carried on, and I’ve just kept at it. I’ve pushed in different directions at different times, but I’ve always come back to bikes and music.

I most enjoy projects that aim to provoke thought, projects that allow for quirk, projects funded by people with solid humanitarian values, and projects that align with where I am in life. I’m inspired by the mundane just as much as the fantastic. If there’s a janky design out there, I want to see it. I love work that is ubiquitous, hiding in plain sight, and ready for celebration. I’m inspired by people who don’t care a bit about graphic design. I’m inspired to improve things without making them pretentious. I like to imagine designs at peak efficacy, engaging with their surroundings, creating a lasting impression, and providing joy, maybe a little smirk or chuckle.

Semi trucks, system fonts, billboards, and garbage vinyl signs are just as informative to me as a 100% custom logotype. I’m inspired by experts and novices alike. I often imagine them clashing on the stage of their assigned theaters, the novices informing the experts of their trivialities, and the experts educating the novices. There’s a cyclical culling of bullshit that happens this way. I love to find it, immerse myself in the energy (conflict, often), and create a path that eases tension/promotes participation.

When I’m not working on design projects, I dabble in everything. Bicycles, automobiles, cooking, crystal healing, banjo playing, bait casting, looking at things, staring at stuff, yard work, and I also really enjoy the roles I fill within my family unit. I love being present and available for partying or consoling—either one. My passion is living. We don’t have much time here, so I’m trying to max mine out.

Bicycles have broadly impacted both my work and life beyond it. Like I said with the logos, that’s very concrete. But the time on the bike and with the bike is really where it’s at. If I’m repairing or maintaining a bike (or van, or weed-eater, or whatever), I’m entering a medicinal train of thought related to problem-solving. The beneficial mental exercise that comes along with improving the operational quality of a mechanical assembly can’t be overstated. That ties into observation and how important it is to me. On a bike ride, it’s just: meditation, time-travel, astral projection, processing, healing… I’m like a happy balloon out there, cutting ties to shitty thoughts and connecting to good ones.

At the moment, I’m focused on growing and elevating my vibrational frequency. I’m also working on a body of physical art for an opening this summer. I’m looking for a design shop outside my living room. Maintaining my belongings. Watching my children grow into their futures. Learning forgiveness. Staring at things. Dipping my toes into cool waters. Trying to outdo myself.

Looking toward the future, I’ll mention that there’s a lot that I don’t like about living in these times, which is mostly culture-related, but I cherish the land that surrounds me. I know I’d like even more creeks and water in my life, so watch out if you’re one of those. And with my future work, I’m really careful with my perspective on things. As in, I will always want be in the crowd observing the spectacle from that side, rather than, say, working on the other side of a “line” set up by a bullshit capitalist structure. I guess that’s to say: I want my effort to reflect the involved communities, not the presiding industries around which the communities form.

Casey’s Illustration Tools

I use pocket sketchbooks like Field Notes-sized ones. Tons of those. They’re all over the house, in my bags, in the shop, etc. I use them to journal and try to capture my thoughts and inspiration, then kind of mine them later on. As for mark-making, I like a Ticonderoga the best, but lately have been sipping on Blackwing pencils a little. I honestly don’t care too much about what. Mitsubishi pencils kick ass.

Oh, man, a Sakura paint stick/pen: there’s nothing more satisfying than the way one of those consumes the medium beneath it while laying down pure color. I don’t do much with those anymore. When I’m digital, it’s a high-power tablet screen-mirrored to the desktop mothership. I use the ubiquitous design software on the machines made by the ubiquitous computer company.

Featured Illustration

I like this one of Jarrod Bunk below. I drew it as a part of the portrait series that I did during the pandemic, but on the later side, I think. In any case, I will, from time to time, dive harder into details and push myself a little bit. I was really drawn to the expression on Jarrod’s face and what it contributed to the scene. I identified with that sort of slack-jawed focus where your eyes are already through the corner, your legs are just absolutely glowing, and you give no fucks about what your jaw is doing because it knows its job; it’s like a time-trial photo from a stage race without the slug of drool hanging out of a racer’s mouth.

It was like Jarrod was existing in a tunnel of ascension, totally propelled and protected by himself at that very moment. There was even that little buckle in the sidewalls where, as a rider, I just knew there was a sound coming from that level of corner engagement: the torque of the drivetrain pushing the unified human-machine through the maneuver, shoulder dropped a little, mind’s eye formulating a little temporary exemption from the laws of physics… I was really sucked into that one, and I still feel tons of energy when I look at it.

You can find much more from Casey at Robertson-Designs.com and on Instagram.

Further Reading

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