Digital artist and marketing whiz Jack Butcher has been called a "crossover" success story. He's carved out a unique identity that blends personal branding, cultural commentary, and many memes. But these aren’t just memes; they simplify complex ideas about creativity, currency, and value using minimalist artwork that delivers high-brow messages.

Butcher calls his catapult into web3 success the perfect overlap between freedom and fun. This was a relief for him, as his long career in advertising — first at a Fortune 100 company and later opening up his own agency — never fully gave him the lifestyle and platform he was after. But in 2019, the tides changed. Butcher founded the media platform Visualize Value (VV) and has cultivated a loyal community that appreciates his unique takes on entrepreneurship, simplicity, and creativity in a world that craves clarity.

“Now I spend all of my time making things that make it easier to learn, teach, build, and sell," he once wrote on his company website. 

In 2023 alone, that mission resulted in coveted NFT collections and partnerships with notable generative artists in the web3 space. His viral Checks collection — inspired by Elon Musk’s Twitter verification decision that stirred up debate for over a year about who can and cannot qualify for free blue checks that confirm user identity — turned the notion of authenticity on its head and commented on how arbitrary internet street cred can be. Then came Opepen, a 16,000-piece NFT collection that combines meme culture (specifically Pepe the Frog) with community-driven artwork, where collectors can opt-in to different drops and decide how their NFTs are revealed.

If you’re curious about the man behind the streamlined visuals taking over NFT culture, here’s what you need to know about Jack Butcher and his meteoric rise.

Jack Butcher is an artist and designer 

Butcher used his background as a creative director and all he learned in advertising to create products with his trademark style. Once he founded Visualize Value and built his social media community, he narrowed his creative style down by sticking to a black-and-white color palette and a specific font for all of his designs. His trademark style was known for its simplicity, creativity, and straightforwardness — three elements that he later baked into his dynamic NFT collections. 

Jack Butcher rose to prominence in 2023 

Checks VV Original is Butcher’s first full collection in the NFT world. He was inspired by the cultural moment that Elon Musk ignited when he created Twitter Verified in November 2022, which sparked a debate on the value of verification. Mints cost $8, after the price of Twitter’s monthly subscription at the time that qualified users for a blue checkmark.

Checks VV Original is an open edition collection, originally released on January 3, 2023. The check marks resembled the X (formerly known as Twitter) verification check. Since an open edition collection allows for an unlimited number of NFTs to be minted and typically over a given amount of time (for VV Checks, it was a 24-hour period), the entire collection was minted 16,031 times.

The collection’s success prompted Butcher to unveil a second layer to the project — a burn dynamic. The burn dynamic allowed users to create new NFTs by burning (destroying) their original NFT to gain either a new NFT or in other cases a physical item.

Jack Butcher partnered with Christie’s to auction 152 print pieces

Butcher is an example of an artist who has risen to fame in the web3 world while simultaneously being embraced by the traditional art world. 

In 2023, Christie’s auctioned 152 pieces of Butcher’s Checks Elements collection that offered collectors a digital and physical version of the artwork. The collection was broken into three themes — ”Earth,” “Air,” and “Water.” Each subset had its unique colorway. The print run was also noteworthy because Butcher partnered with renowned printmaker Jean Robert Milant (of Cirrus Gallery, a Los Angeles-based gallery and print studio) to bring the prints to life.

Butcher once said to Artnet News:

“In translating Checks to the physical world, there’s nothing interesting to me in a one-click process. It’s not conceptually exciting. Checks is about authentication and there are parallels in how we create generative algorithms and the printing process. You have constraints and you add variables to create unique outputs—it’s a very handmade process.”

Jack Butcher ended 2023 better than he started

Butcher wrapped up 2023 on a strong note, which is saying a lot since his VV Originals collection was the talk of the NFT world for months after it first dropped in January 2023. 

However, Checks was quickly followed by Opepen, which minted just days later. The two projects set Butcher on a momentous path that turned him into one of the most prolific NFT creators of 2023. The Opepen collection is divided into sets that only release if enough users opt in to mint them. Butcher has always prioritized community collaboration over rarity in his NFTs, letting collectors help determine which sets are the most desirable. By opting in, the NFT community essentially "votes" on which sets get minted and go live, making the process more engaging and participatory for everyone involved.

In October 2023, Butcher partnered with generative artist Erick Calderon, aka “Snowfro,” for the Opepen x Chromie Squiggles collaboration. We covered this news in a November 2023 edition of This Week in Web3, but the TLDR is that Calderon is known as one of the most influential generative artists in the NFT world. He’s the original creator behind the colorful Chromie Squiggle NFT collection. Calderon built on Butcher’s generative art collection, Opepen, which was also released in 2023 and played off the Pepe the Frog meme in a 16,000 open-edition collection. 

Finally, Butcher dropped Trademarks in November 2023. This 10,000-piece NFT collection explores the concept of branding and intellectual property through Butcher’s signature minimalist designs that comment on ownership, identity, and the value of symbols in the digital age. Each piece delivers a powerful message about the cultural weight of trademarks in both traditional and web3 spaces.

Some would say that 2023 was the year of Jack Butcher. It also feels like only the tip of the iceberg for how dynamic and generative art NFTs will continue to make waves in the web3 space.