Nathan Spainhour is a designer, artist, writer, and an Upstate South Carolina native. His work explores how we remember the places we've been, and the things we make to keep them around.

Much of that work is a kind of cataloging: photographing, writing about, and printing what’s there before it’s gone. His first book, The South Carolina BBQ Project: Signs, Symbols, and Stories from the Pit, documents the visual culture of the state's barbecue. Its hand-painted signs, roadside architecture, and everyday ephemera. Other projects look elsewhere, but the idea of how we remember is always at the core.

He works in printed matter. Think photographs, screen prints, and self-published zines. He led creative teams for national brands before turning to teaching graphic design. His favorite tool is an X-Acto knife.