About Me

Hi, my name is Martin Defatte.

My creative endeavors have always been deeply influenced by my lifelong love of music and skateboarding and their respective subcultures.

I grew up absorbing DIY zines, Thrasher magazines and punk rock records. I was particularly fascinated by album artwork. I eventually formed a band with high school friends. After a few years, I chose to take a more “behind the scenes” role in the local hardcore punk scene, designing fliers for shows and laying-out demos for my friends’ bands. Some of those bands went on tour and got noticed, which in turn, gave me opportunity to work for a variety of indie labels.

After graduating from college with an Art degree, I turned an internship into a gig as a graphic designer at a small package design firm in my hometown. I cut my teeth developing package concepts for household names like: Windex, Edge Shave Gel, Skintimate Shave Gel and Ziploc.

Concurrent to my career as a print designer, I continued to pursue my personal studies in web design and development. After devouring the first of many books and blog articles on front end development, I knew I wanted to transition front print to web design and development as a career.

After moving to Milwaukee and a couple long stints at a few area agencies, you can now find me currently working for Jigsaw as a Front End Developer in downtown Milwaukee, WI. In an agency setting, I have worked on a range of web accounts including: Door County Visitor Bureau, American Transmission Co., ManpowerGroup, Noah’s Ark Waterpark, Hunger Task Force, Visit Milwaukee, Planned Parenthood of WI and Milwaukee Art Museum.

I currently live in the Bay View neighborhood of Milwaukee with my wife and my dog. In my spare time, two friends of mine and I run Triple Eye Industries, a boutique indie record label that releases a wide variety of music, in both genre and format.

My latest musical endeavor is beatmaker and producer for Guerrilla Ghost, an industrial noise-rap project. Prior to that, I played bass in a few different flavors of post-punk bands including Volunteer, Stock Options and  7 Seconds cover band, Red & Black. I have produced a few solo studio releases using my beatmaker moniker, Tron Jovi, to pass time during the cold Wisconsin winters. It’s a blend of my history as an electronic producer and the heavy bands I’ve played in.

My Experience

Career

  • C.O.nxt
    Hartland, WI. – Front End Web Developer (March 2023 – current)
  • Jigsaw
    Milwaukee, WI. – Front End Web Developer (2015 – current)
  • Platypus Advertising + Design
    Pewaukee, WI. – Director of Web Development 2008 – 2015)
  • ADX Creative
    Milwaukee, WI. – Web Developer, Print and Package Designer (2006 – 2008)
  • Uprising Records
    Laguna Beach, CA – Art Director, Web, Print and Package Designer (1999 – 2009)
  • The Weber Group, Inc.
    Racine, WI – Designer, Print and Package Designer (1999 – 2006)

Musician

Community

Martin was the in-house designer for Uprising Records from 1999 to 2009 – and was instrumental in developing Uprising’s branding, as well as designing individual release layouts for many of our artists. In addition, Martin oversaw all design related aspects of our product production. At a time of unprecedented growth for our company, we quite simply could not have done it without him.

Sean Muttaqi, Uprising Records