I’ve worn many different creative hats throughout my career: a faux-finish artist, an art handler, a presentation specialist, a web designer, an A/V technician, a patent-holding inventor, a licensed sports apparel maker, a ticket broker, and now a baseball card artist. So, it’s quite fitting that I also love to design my own custom Kangol caps!
![Headshot of artist & designer Matthew Lee Rosen](/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Rosen-Headshot-3.png)
The career of Matthew Lee Rosen begins at the University of Central Florida. The school now boasts the largest student body in the country. I graduated in 1999 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Advertising and Public Relations… although I spent most of my time on campus inside the art studio.
I’ve always been independent, filing a 1099 for almost the entirety of my professional career. It first began as an art handler and preparator for galleries and museums. Then, after a brief stint at a boutique design firm named Quicksilver, I found a niche for myself as a presentation specialist… doing pre-production for big meetings and conferences. It was sort of a deep dive into the freelance world at a young age.
While taking on new design jobs, I was still doing work for the Rhona Hoffman Gallery in the West Loop and the Block Museum at Northwestern. I needed to send out invoices, so I decided to conduct my business as fortheartofit.
I knew very little about the corporate event world outside of my presentation design work. Then, one day a client asked me to come on-site to one of their events. They needed me to make last minute PowerPoint updates. That afternoon in a dark ballroom altered the course of my career.
I’ve spent the last 14+ years traveling across the globe to help produce corporate events for America’s Fortune 500… always dressed in black with my A/V crew. Over this time, I’ve provided key speaker support for some of the top C-level executives, world leaders, and motivational speakers on the planet.
As if sitting in meeting war rooms with CEO’s and providing stage confidence for former presidents isn’t exciting enough… I decided to throw a few more feathers in my cap over the years.
![](/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Screen-Shot-2019-11-03-at-10.39.35-PM-1024x479.png)
The career of Matthew Lee Rosen took on a new chapter. I invented a product called Beertag®, and received trademarks and patents for my design work. It was a sleeve that fits over the bottle neck as a solution to the common problem of “Which beer is mine?” I marketed them B2B to beer distributors as an on-premise promotional tool at sports bars. Unfortunately, it never really took off after getting close to a deal with a major beer company. However, my friends always kept asking for more Beertags!
In my efforts to help market Beertag toward a sports-bar crowd, I started designing sports apparel. It ultimately outperformed the Beertag by leaps and bounds. I branched off my t-shirts into a brand named Fantag®. Within 12 months, I had a new a business partner equipped with a license from the NFLPA, and suddenly I was designing and selling the world’s first officially licensed Fantasy Sports apparel.
My shirt designs were on a great run, and I was an apparel pioneer! Nobody had done what Fantag was doing and we were accepted with open arms by the Fantasy Sports Trade Association. But, the copycats soon arrived. Within a couple of years, after the 2014 season, we got muscled out of the business.
I quickly turned my attention to the ticket resale market. I was a brand new Cubs season ticket holder. Seeing the name Matthew Lee Rosen attached to a Cubs season ticket account number was a glorious day!
The club was trending in the right direction, and the winning would come soon. But, with my constant travels, I couldn’t attend as many games as I would have liked. So, I started to learn the ropes of reselling on Stubhub and Vivid Seats. It became quite lucrative, especially when the Cubs finally won the World Series a couple years later:)
However, I always enjoyed making the apparel. For years I’d been creating my own homemade t-shirts, because I always wanted to wear things that nobody else was making. So, after a little break from the apparel business, I eventually started designing my own custom Kangols at home. You can accomplish a lot with a Cricut machine!
![Continuing to further his design career, Matthew Lee Rosen opened an Etsy shop.](/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Rosen-customs-on-Etsy-1024x256.jpg)
My Kangols always invite conversation from strangers, so listed them for sale on Etsy, opening my own shop named Rosen Customs. Shortly after, I used the shop to sell my new baseball card artwork. The hustle never ends!