My name is Matt Tice… I’m the owner/lead designer
for ARCHON Creative Design and Darkside Studios. I’m a graphic/web
designer, a painter, a sculptor, an illustrator, and a bit of a game
geek. I was born in New York, NY and have geographically migrated
further and further South over the last few years, currently residing
in Ellenboro, NC. I aspired to be an artist since my grandmother
brought me a stack of old comic books when I was in third grade. I’ve
been surrounded by art my whole life; my uncle was a designer, my aunt
is an illustrator and my great aunt is an art teacher.
I graduated from Virginia Polytechnic Institute in
1998 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Fine Arts, and I have been
working as an Art Coordinator, Graphic Designer and Computer Artist on
a professional level since 1995, currently on a freelance basis.
I began my career with a small game publisher,
Chameleon Eclectic Entertainment, as Art Coordinator, Sales Manager
and Production Assistant. From there, I moved to Pinnacle Entertainment
Group in the capacity of Sales Manager, and quickly advanced to
Production Assistant, Web Master and finally a member of the art staff
while finishing my education. After Pinnacle, I became the Assistant
Art Director responsible for the Internet Graphics team at Another
Universe.com/Fandom, Inc. in Manassas, VA and further broadened my
experience at Data Search/S&J Printing, a print shop and mail
house. After moving to the Baltimore, MD area, I worked with United
Communications Group and held the position of Print/Web designer.
Subsequently, I contracted with Aquent, doing website work for the
City of Rockville, MD and Yellow-Pages ads for Verizon prior to moving
to North Carolina.
When I arrived in North Carolina, I quickly discovered
that jobs in my line of work were scarce in Rutherford County. After
several unsuccessful months of job searching I decided to focus on
freelance work to supplement my family’s income, and in doing so ran
into another major issue… lack of high-speed access. I lost several
jobs solely on the fact that I couldn’t get large files back and forth
in a timely manner. Lucky for me, the folks at Blue Ridge Internet put
me in touch with the Tim Will and Foothills Connect. I rented one of
the incubator offices and I’m happy to say that business is going very
well.
ARCHON Creative Design handles the majority of the
print and web design work while Darkside Studios is for the game
design and comic book coloring. You can visit on the web at: www.archoncreative.com or www.darksidestudios.biz for more on what services we have to offer, or just give me a call at 828-748-9044