Oh snap, Jungle Book reference!
1.06.2008
Holy bajera this has been a sweet week! My Epic tee won Tee of the Day yesterday on Emptees and this morning in my inbox I had 3 cool emails: two were from apparel companies emailing me about some possible contract work. One's a Georgia motocross clothing line and the other is some NY-based thingy so that's cool beans! The third email (and probably the one I'm most excited about) was from Woot.com, a trendspotting/consumer reports type site that will be featuring me on their homepage tomorrow!
I asked how they found me and they responded: "We were looking." Ok then.
So '08 is starting off on a good foot I'd say! And I plan on really kicking things into high gear. I've got the next designs off to the printers as of this afternoon and once that comes in I'm going to load up my mom's van and camp out in some parking lots that get concert traffic. I always spot kids in threadless and the like, so I'm hoping they'll have it in them to support their local underdog. ;)
Anyhow, I've been getting lots of great advice from the other merchants and designers on Emptees and have even set up a trade with the guys that run Seibei and Carraway. I think that's been one of the coolest parts of running LF: networking. It's so inspiring to hear the stories of these small-time designers that found their niche, started a little following, and ended up making a living out of it.
See, I don't see myself as a fine artist by any means - I know I abandoned that path long ago by dropping out of my art major. But honestly, it wouldn't have suited me. Working for days or weeks on a single piece... ack. I'm way too impatient for that kind of long-haul discipline. But the process of being a small-time merchant/designer is so satisfying to me. The design aspect is awesome because I'm not answering to anyone but myself. No clients to make senseless comments and inconsistent decisions, no deadlines, no set standard of colors or styles. It's just whatever I feel like. And then the actual vending is super rewarding too. It's not the monetary thing at all really. Honestly, my profits this year are so low because of all my dead end LF projects, but still, it was a blast for me. Every time I get an order it's like the coolest thing - the fact that someone is willing to part with their hard earned cash for a chance to sport one of my designs is just the coolest thing to me.
Well that was quite a rant. So to contrast with all this upbeat crap, I have to announce some sad news - I totally ruined my Ponys tonight! I wasn't happy with the markers so I painted over them with acrylics. That was stupid because acrylics are basically liquid plastic, so once they dry, they only stick to things that soak them up. And my shoes didn't. So it's all peely and ugly now. My final plan is to spray paint them, but that could be even more disastrous. And this was totally a business write off, so there goes $25 in profits for '08... Lol.
I need to be more like corporate cat.
Labels: commissions, designs, emptees, printing, trades, tshirt info
posted by Mr. Linty @ 1:06 AM,
