Couch Wolf is a small business I own that sells locally inspired shirts, stickers, pins, and art prints inspired by life in Chicago and the Region (where I grew up). If you don’t know, The Region is Northwest Indiana, a unique part of the state with 45 miles of Lake Michigan beaches, state and national parks, steel mills, and multiple universities, boasting its own culture and values that differentiate it from much of the rest of the state. People from the Region proudly refer to themselves as “Region Rats”, a term derived from the area’s history of steel making and steel workers being called “Mill Rats.”

These designs are love letters to the places I’ve called home, and they are often designed using mediums I don’t get to utilize in my corporate design work, like film photography and pencil/pen drawings. A lot of the influence is drawn from my childhood love of local legends and lore, Mad Magazine, trading cards, 3D glasses, and classic sci-fi/horror films.

The business started by accident when a friend pushed me to list some Chicago Rat Hole designs I made on Etsy, and they sold. It snowballed, and next thing I knew I had stuff in a few local shops, was vending at local music festivals, building an e-commerce site, and talking about it all on Art On The Air, a podcast on the Region’s NPR affiliate, Lakeshore Public Media.