Fantom Artist Spotlight – Binary Punks
What can you tell us about your background? What would you like people to know about you?
I studied Typographic Design and LCP in London, before spending 30 (cough cough) years as a Graphic Designer. I’m just a regular degen with a wonderful family of five children and a beautiful and forgiving wife!!!
Do you work in other media?
After plying my trade as a graphic designer in various studios, I went out on my own and have designed for 25 of those years for my own clients.
Typography was a love from an early age, I used to get Letraset catalogues and practice drawing different typefaces, I also loved the album cover artwork of my favorite bands, so music and art were intrinsically linked for me.
I think my love of typography stemmed back to my grandad being a sign writer. I used to go into his studio and watch him paint sign boards by hand, it was incredible to watch, and the whole experience captivated me, the smell of the paint, the terps, the racks and racks of boards, my grandad and his Mahl stick. I was hooked on typography.
How did you get into crypto/NFTs?
I got into crypto by chance, I was always anti establishment, I was a tinfoil hat wearer (physical silver fan), and I read an article in a newsletter I received in the post on Bitcoin. I was intrigued.
This was 2011, Bitcoin was at $1, I remember thinking I was late to the party!!! Eventually I started mining it on my laptop and burnt out the motherboard. Should have just bought it!!! I lost touch due to work and life commitments, came back into crypto 2015 and stayed.
I came to NFTs on Fantom, I initially helped a few projects by creating mint pages for their collections, like 8bitNostalgia and DegenerApes, and decided to create my first collection, Binary Punks.
What is Binary Punks?
Binary Punks are the full Crypto Punks collection manually converted one by one into Binary Form.
They were launched in October 2021 and when I got to 5000, I stopped the mint and airdropped the last 5000 on Christmas Day. They come with a physical version of the Punks, a specially boxed acrylic desktop piece with hand signed and numbered certificates.
The first 5000 included the physical, the airdropped Punks need their acrylics purchased. Each acrylic is a 1/1 of that specific Punk, only orderable by the holder.
Where did the idea of Binary Punks come from?
They came from a test version I created of a DegenerApes in Binary.
Vcc, the artist of DegenerApes, laughing said I should recreate Crypto Punks in Binary. I said that’s a great idea, he back tracked, ‘no no no, I was only joking that’s a massive amount of work’. So 6 weeks later of 18-20 hour days, creating each Binary Punk, manually converted one by one, I launched.
How did the community receive Binary Punks?
It went really well, it was a large collection to launch on Fantom, so it was fantastic to mint so many.
I found out afterwards that Binary Punks were the first NFT a lot of people bought and it got them into collecting!!! An incredible honour.
Tell us about your forthcoming collections/what you’re working on now.
My current launch is a collab between myself and vcc. It’s our completion of the circle bringing my Punks and his Apes together to create Punk’d Apes and Binary Punk’d Apes, a 2 NFT mint.
Within the collection there are 100 Fantom NFT Artist Rare Backgrounds. These original pieces will be auctioned off, with the proceeds split evenly to the artists, and the originals will then become a genesis IRL Fantom NFT Art Collection to showcase the incredible artistic talent on our chain.
I want the art to be seen far wider than the Fantom Community and crypto in general, as I believe our artists are just too good. It will probably be a travelling collection initially until I find a permanent home somewhere in the UK.
Alongside the main collection I have a limited edition Mutant Binary Punk’d Apes collection of 100 1/1 artist rares which come with physical acrylics.
How did you discover Fantom?
I discovered Fantom whilst being part of the team of a project now on Fantom called Kanpeki.
We were originally on Ethereum, but the gas fees made Borrowing and Lending too costly, so we planned to move onto Fantom. Due to third party aspects, it took a while for us to move across. Whilst waiting a group of the team decided to test out Fantom in advance. We never left, it was a breath of fresh air!
How is your experience launching collections on Fantom?
I’ve loved Fantom from the day I made the jump. Launching has been a breeze, thanks to having an incredible dev by my side in CryptoTester. We do everything together and continue to build.
What’s the key to building a successful NFT community?
I’m still learning! I’ve been so loaded with trying to fulfill the physical side of the Binary Punks that I want and need to do more in my Discord channel.
It’s just tricky when you’re on your own trying to cover all bases. But I love to talk to holders and hugely appreciate their support and enthusiasm for what I’m doing.
I think honesty and integrity in what you do is crucial. I’ve made loads of mistakes along the way.
How do you see NFTs evolving?
The potential of NFTs is immense. I think the Gamify element of NFTs will be a huge growth area.
I also think Music and NFTs will become more and more integral in so many ways, be it ticketing, rare music releases, demos, access to sound checks, studio tours, meet and greets etc. I have something coming in the near future in this area.
