Drawing has been a constant since his childhood, but graffiti culture became appealing after reading street art magazines in seventh grade, Ziegler said. Unlike the general American population, he does not view graffiti as a criminal act, but as a valid form of artwork that aesthetically enhances deteriorating property.

Ziegler has practiced graffiti in and around San Francisco, where he lives, but he also visits locations in Venice Beach and San Diego where graffiti art can be executed legally.

“I think serious graffiti is like public beautification,” Ziegler said. “Some of the tags that you see out there are terrible, but when you notice a mural that someone put their effort and time into, it looks a lot better than a monotonous subway wall.”

In his freshman year of high school, he invented Live Loyal, his own clothing brand. His designs incorporate Buddhist images, underground hip-hop and graffiti culture, and many ideas inspired by historical literature such as John Milton’s Paradise Lost and Dante Alighieri’s Inferno.

“A lot of my art revolves around things that I feel are important and I put messages in my clothing based on things like literature, respect and dignity, and eastern philosophies,” Ziegler said. “There’s not one piece I do that doesn’t have multiple layers of meaning.”

Through advertising online and word of mouth through friends, Ziegler has sold his products to many students at other universities including the University of California in Santa Barbara, California State Polytechnic University in Pomona, and even Brown University in Rhode Island. As an advertising major, Ziegler has come up with many ideas to publicize Live Loyal, including putting stickers that read “Loyal” on every stop sign on a line from San Francisco to Panama.

“At one point there was a sticker on every dorm room door in my hall,” Ziegler said. “A lot of people just got curious and came knocking.”