Working on it
Odd Hackwelder, also known as Hack, is a multi-talented artist and designer with a diverse range of experiences and achievements. He was born in Syracuse, NY, and had a tumultuous childhood, attending 13 different schools and being expelled from 3 of them. He was also institutionalized and jailed at the age of 14-15, and few people expected him to graduate high school.
Despite these challenges, Hack persevered and went on to earn his BFA in Graphic Design from Fredonia and was on Dean's list 6 times. He then became the youngest person ever accepted into the Yale School of Design in Switzerland. He worked for WRAL TV in Raleigh, NC as a graphic designer for news and then moved to Sydney, Australia with his wife for a year before returning to the states to work on a golf course in Atlantic City.
After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Hack took off to Taiwan and spent years traveling around the world, visiting 39 countries and dreaming of many more. He has been an artist and graphic designer for 30 years and began teaching on the side 19 years ago, spending 10 years teaching kindergarten. He got married to a Taiwanese designer and has 2 children. He also experienced a serious illness that caused him to vomit 40 times a day for 3 years.
In addition to his design career, Hack has been an active board game designer for 9 years, designing over 50 games, and 5 years ago he was hired as an international sales representative at a game manufacturer. He also became involved in playing Survivor ORGS online, playing in over 100 games and even being discovered by Survivor's Russell Hantz, who encouraged him to apply.
More recently, Hack has become involved in designing in a virtual metaverse called Earth2, where he became a leader and started Oz, City of Islands located in Western Fiji, and he owns virtual land where Survivor is played. He also started his own institution called Discontinued, where he continues to make an impact in several areas of design, such as television, corporate identity, and advertising, using his innovative and uniquely creative style.
