Rick Draws Things

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West Salem, OH
Rick Draws Things

The online home of artist Rick Martin. Instagram: When not creating you can find me playing or laughing about farts with my daughter and wife.

My name is Rick Martin and I’m a passionate, creative, and optimistic right-brainer constantly being inspired by the world around me. I can honestly say, there is no better feeling than using my skills to make an impact on an individual, business, or for the greater good. Check out my work at RickDrawsThings.com and follow me on Instagram,

06/27/2025

🚗👴🏻This one was extremely special for me. My gift to my father —and my favorite man in the universe— Gary, for his 75th birthday last year. I spent a lot of time on this, including as many easter eggs as possible, representing key moments and memories from his life. If you know me, you know how important my dad is to me; he’s the most supportive, positive, loving, and eternally joyful man you’ll meet. My role model since day one, I follow his blueprint daily on how to father my daughter (I even started rocking a mustache 🥸).

From his ’97 Pontiac Grand Prix to his signature flannel, every element was drawn with love in hopes of honoring the unfathomable impact he’s had on not only me, but everyone’s life he’s been a part of. I secretly worked with family members to make sure every “sponsor” sticker on his car represented something special, from his frequented local hangout spots as a young’n, to the racer he worked in the pit crew for, Rodney Combs.

🖼️ I worked with to get the art printed, and I cannot recommend them enough for your printing needs. I will never print anything special anywhere else! Thanks again, Monochrome Canva! The quality of the print was absolutely exceptional, and you can see a photo of the extreme crispiness in the last slide!

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06/11/2025

😝 One of my favorite projects in recent years was the Save The Date I designed and illustrated for our wedding. It’s always fun to play with lettering styles and work on something that can be lively and fun! All of the elements on the card were hand-drawn digitally in . The photo is —to this day— one of our favorite photos taken of our daughter.

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05/30/2025

🥜👰🏻‍♀️🤵🏻‍♂️To commemorate one year as a married couple of nuts, I wanted to share some of my artistic contributions to our wedding, including the peanut portrait of Sam and I that we put on our peanut butter favors, the hand-lettered logo from the invitation, and our favorite quote that we turned into magnets for our guests (scroll to see on last slide). 😊

Our wedding was an intimate family-centric event and we thought of the kiddo attendees every step of the way, including some and themed toons of Sam and I that we turned into coloring book sheets (scroll to see!) 😊🖍️

It was the most unforgettable day filled with unlimited laughter and happy tears, and we are so eternally grateful for and her incredible talent of capturing genuine candid joy every step of the way! 📷 🙏

And a very special thank you to for being the one to make us “soopa official!!” 😎

Since Sam came into my life, I’ve become a better artist—and a better man—every single day. The support she gives me is something I wish everyone on earth could experience, even just for a single day. 💚

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05/14/2025

👹🦖Commissioned custom 4th birthday toon for my nephew, the monster (and monster-truck) loving Dax! He’s wearing his werewolf costume gloves, dinosaur tail and stomping his way through his favorite toys.

It’s always so fun making custom cartoons of toddlers because when they are into something they are SO INTO IT 😁! So that means drawing their favorite toys and clothes always help make the toons that much more custom, and exciting for them to see! 🚗

Need a unique gift for a special little one in your life? Hit me up!

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05/07/2025

🚃🐯One of my biggest role models throughout my life has always been the late great Fred Rogers. I grew up watching and learning from him and one of the biggest joys of becoming a father has been sharing his lessons and love with my daughter.

In this parody piece, I reimagined the classic 🗣️PBS logo to be Mr Rogers himself. Fun fact…the logo is actually called “The Everyman” and was designed to represent community and inclusivity, reflecting PBS’s mission to serve all viewers, which is so ridiculously on brand for that incredible organization it’s just silly. So major kudos to every person involved with that brand identity and messaging back in the 70s. 👏

I’ve always felt Fred’s teachings are what has been missing from our society as of late. We should all try to be more like Fred.🧶🫶

The idea for this piece came to me while watching Mr Rogers with my daughter and brainstorming a birthday gift for my brother-from-another-mother, who also has a very soft spot for both Mr Rogers and PBS.

Swipe to see the post-it note doodle from the moment this idea hit me in the brain, as well as a photo I took of the beautiful Fred Rogers Memorial!

Drop a heart in the comments if you grew up on Fred’s —or Daniel Tiger’s lessons.

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04/30/2025

Custom greeting card illustration for a very special 16 year old’s birthday (heyyy Bub 👋)! It’s always fun making these collage type doodles because it takes me back to that feeling of filling a notebook page —during any class other than art— back in my school days.

Need a custom illustation for a card or gift? Hit me up, let’s make something fun!

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04/23/2025

🧘🏻‍♂️🪄During downtime at Hogwarts, do you think Harry practices moves like Downward Dumbledore and Voldemort Vinyasa Flow? I’d like to think he does.

This was a commissioned piece for a friend, , a yogi and avid Harry Potter fan.

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04/16/2025

🐠🎣 When my father-in-law, Mick, started crafting his own fishing jigs during retirement, my wife and I wanted to surprise him with stickers for his tackle box. The punny name of Mick Jigger (as opposed to Jagger) channeled the idea to parody the iconic Rolling Stones tongue logo and one thing led to another! I scribbled the quick sketch (displayed on the third slide) during dinner one night and we were off to the races… or the lakes(😜).

The color palette is a nod to the very bright, colorful feathers and beads he uses on the jigs themselves, while also channeling the bright psychedelic colors of the 1970s when the Stones really made their mark. 👅

Hope you enjoy even slightly as much as I enjoyed working on this one!

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04/10/2025

✅ Brand refresh complete!

I wanted to present my entire branding system (or at least the fun stuff) as a bit of a checkpoint at the end of a long road. Within this post, you’ll see all sorts of design goodies, including wordmarks, lockups, patterns, and color palettes!

What you’ll see in this system is a strategic approach of balancing two somewhat juxtaposed concepts (design vs illustration) meeting in the middle at a point of duality. You’ll see meticulously defined design elements married with whimsical fun drawings. While some stuff screams “I’m a designer!”, other stuff screams “I’m an illustrator!”… And that’s exactly where I wanted to land. 😎

There’s always been a perception of designers as far-too-serious know-it-alls, and that’s a stereotype I’ve worked hard to break when someone works with me, so I wanted my branding system to highlight that. I don’t care if my work is award-winning or worthy of being in a museum; I simply want my work to help others —whether that’s with their business or by bringing a smile to their face.

I’m deeply grateful if you actually spent the time to read my ramblings and please let me know you did so by tossing an emoji at me in the comments because every interaction matters these days in this silly social media algorithm matrix we live in. I want to help as many as possible with my skills and as much as I hate to admit it, playing this social media game is a necessary evil these days. 🤠

Thanks for being here!! ✌️💙✏️

04/09/2025

What good is a new personal branding system without a new avatar?! 🤓

When taking on the task of a new toon for my branding system, I initially planned to do something more refined and stylized, intending for it to land heavier in the logo realm. However, the more I got into it, the more I started reminiscing about self-portraits I’ve drawn over the years and it brought back memories of my senior year at Design School when I crafted an entire personal identity system based on a cartoon self-portrait. It also got me thinking about my early influences with art and what got me on this path to begin with, which was silly cartoons and a much less “refined” thought process. This all gave me the urge to return to that “innocence” and try to channel that easygoing energy that I drew with as a younger Rick.

What I noticed along the way is that it allowed me to return to drawing patterns that evoked my original “style” of drawing as well, which was fun because when you’ve been drawing your whole life, it’s common to sometimes lose sight of what you felt was your go-to style years ago.

Ultimately, what began as a simple exercise turned into a very interesting self-(re)discovery, and that’s what I love most about the creative world; you never know what a simple prompt can evoke!

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Address

9161 Rainbow Hwy
West Salem, OH
44287-9303

Website

https://rickdrawsthings.com/

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