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Designer

Matt Swaim

The architectural illustrator who drew a pitcher in mid-throw onto a U.S. silver dollar.

For more than twenty years, Matt Swaim made buildings look real before they were built. Then the U.S. Mint asked him to draw a baseball — and his pitcher, frozen mid-throw, became the face of the 2022 Negro Leagues Baseball silver dollar.

Who he is

Most coin designers come up through sculpture or engraving. Matt Swaim came up drawing buildings that did not exist yet.

He is an architectural illustrator — the person an architect hires to paint a finished tower, museum, or stadium before a single beam is set. It is exacting, unforgiving work: light, perspective, and material all have to read as true, or a client will not believe the building. Swaim has done it for decades from his studio in Jacksonville, Florida, turning out, by his own count, well over a thousand renderings for clients across the United States and abroad.

He trained for it formally. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in illustration from the Savannah College of Art and Design and a Master of Fine Arts in visual art from Jacksonville University, and he spent eight years learning the craft under the Jacksonville renderer Robert C. Winters. His peers have noticed: the American Society of Architectural Illustrators has handed him its juried Award of Excellence more than once, and he has taken home Jacksonville's AIA Lynda Mack award.

In 2019, the U.S. Mint invited him into its Artistic Infusion Program — the pool of outside artists the Mint pulls into national coin and medal design. It is a sharp turn for a career, and a small one all at once: the discipline that makes a rendering convincing is the same discipline a coin needs in a space the size of a thumbnail.

The craft

A coin is the hardest illustration assignment there is. You get a circle smaller than a poker chip, no color, and one shot at the light — the relief, the raised-and-lowered metal that catches a lamp, has to do all the work color and shading do on paper. The Artistic Infusion Program (AIP) is the Mint's way of bringing fresh eyes to that problem: AIP artists submit designs, which the Mint's own staff sculptors then translate into the three-dimensional models the dies are cut from.

Swaim's instincts as a renderer show up in what he draws. His Negro Leagues silver dollar is built on a single arrested moment — a pitcher caught at the top of his delivery — the kind of frozen, believable instant an architectural illustrator spends a career chasing. His U.S. Mint biography lists the same range you would expect from someone fluent in both traditional and digital technique: a baseball player, a tour bus, a Tennessee farm strung with new power lines, a wartime ship.

That last detail points at the breadth of the work. In a few short years his designs have landed on circulating dollars, a commemorative half dollar, and a Congressional Gold Medal — three different scales of object, each with its own rules, all drawn by the same hand.

Key facts

Nationality
American
Based in
Jacksonville, Florida
Day job
Architectural illustrator; founder of Studio-Swaim
Education
BFA Illustration, Savannah College of Art and Design; MFA Visual Art, Jacksonville University
Joined the U.S. Mint
Artistic Infusion Program, 2019
Best-known coin
2022 Negro Leagues Baseball silver dollar — obverse
Other coin designs
American Innovation $1 — Virginia (2021) and Tennessee (2022) reverses; Greatest Generation half dollar reverse
Medal
USS Indianapolis Congressional Gold Medal — obverse

Career

  1. 2019Selected for the U.S. Mint's Artistic Infusion Program.
  2. 2021Designs the reverse of the American Innovation $1 coin for Virginia.
  3. 2022Designs the obverse of the Negro Leagues Baseball commemorative silver dollar — a pitcher in mid-throw.
  4. 2022Designs the reverse of the American Innovation $1 coin for Tennessee — a farm with newly strung power lines.

Questions collectors ask

What did Matt Swaim design on the Negro Leagues Baseball silver dollar?

The obverse — the heads side. It shows a pitcher in mid-throw, the baseball pushed to the foreground, with a border of baseball stitching running around the edge. Swaim created the design; U.S. Mint medallic artist Eric David Custer sculpted it into relief.

Did he design the whole Negro Leagues coin program?

No. The 2022 program had three coins — a $5 gold piece, the silver dollar, and a clad half dollar — and several artists each handled a single side. Swaim's contribution is the silver dollar's obverse; other AIP designers and Mint sculptors did the rest.

Is Matt Swaim a full-time Mint engraver?

No. He is an Artistic Infusion Program artist — an outside designer the Mint commissions. His main career is architectural illustration in Jacksonville, Florida. AIP artists submit designs; the Mint's own staff sculptors model them for striking.

What else has he designed for the U.S. Mint?

His designs appear on the American Innovation dollars for Virginia (2021) and Tennessee (2022), on the reverse of the Greatest Generation commemorative half dollar, and on the obverse of the USS Indianapolis Congressional Gold Medal.

Sources