April 1st! Goodness has arrived!

At 12:00 AM, April 1st, the following items will go on sale: (I'm excluding the tees from this because I've posted them here before)

Frank N. Stein BeltSwirly Belt

Lucha AzulLucha Rosa

Plus all the old belts are now restocked. If this is anything like March, there should be a nice little rush for the first day or so. I'm gonna stay up a bit and see how it goes. I think I'll grab some cookies first though.

Labels: , ,

posted by Mr. Linty @ 10:38 PM, ,


Hoodie Collab (don't expect this anytime soon...)

Fun times! Jared (of J3Concetps) contacted me last week interested in a collaborative piece. I told him I was interested but didn't have a lot of time at the moment. Well on Friday night he sent over an illustrator file with some little characters he wasn't sure what to do with:




Well, as it turned out I had some time last night that I'd set aside for other design work, but that got held up by the client, so I decided to play around a bit with Jared's little dudes. Changed the colors, added a bunch of little details, and made some new characters based on the style he had going. Here's the final:



Would be a lovely addition to LF, but there's no way I can afford a batch of all-over prints. It requires the actual fabric to be printed and then sewn into the garment, so it's pretty pricey. Down the line I'd love to get into these, but it's too much too soon. I emailed him back and we're gonna figure out what to do with it. If nothing else, it was a fun experience!

Labels: , ,

posted by Mr. Linty @ 10:55 PM, ,


Win some LF swag!

I just launched a contest over on Emptees called the 1,000 posts contest. It's a simple concept: every person who comments on the thread must add the number of their post to the end. No posting 2 times in a row, either. The winner will get 2 free shirts and a belt. So go join the fun!

:D

Labels:

posted by Mr. Linty @ 12:01 AM, ,


Onwards and Upwards

Sweetness!

I just got a sneak peek at my new belts! They look fabulous! I'm super stoked about these. In total, I'll be getting in over 70 new belts this week. About 45 of those are of new designs (4 new designs in total), and the rest are restock of the old styles from last month. Crazy how well these have done - 18 so far. An hour or so ago I sold my last Woodie belt. So yeah, this restock isn't coming a moment too soon.

Meanwhile, in Florida, my Epidemic tees are getting printed tonight. Jimmy should be sending me a photo proof of the first one off the belt. Hopefully the colors (all 6! geez) will look ok and we can get the rest done tonight or tomorrow. He's said all along that they should get here in plenty of time, but I'm getting nervous. April 1st is just around the bend! At least the UPC one will be quick enough.

Oh, and ever since the last print I've been getting one-offs of each design for myself. They'll be totally unique and 1 of a kind. I'm getting epidemic as one-color on AA's stripe tee:



Also, LF postcards are on the way, so I'll get those hopefully tomorrow. Bags should be coming soon too (these are for the show only). So yeh, 72 belts, 150 tees, 250 postcards, and 250 printed bags in the next week... Running out of space here...

I talked to the boss about my tentative plans to leave in '09. I explained that it wasn't a guarantee but since I've been mentioning this plan to people, I figured he'd hear it one way or another and I'd rather it come directly from me. He agreed that C2i wasn't a career path for anyone, but thanked me for being a part of the team thus far. It's been a great job, really, there's just better stuff on the horizon. With that extra time (25 hours a week) dedicated to coming up with new designs and ideas and networking with printers and manufacturers, I could really increase efficiency. It's tough working the printer at C2i all day and then coming home and running around processing orders and making phone calls to make sure things are up to snuff on the production end of LF...

'09, baby...

Labels: , , ,

posted by Mr. Linty @ 9:15 PM, ,


Ramblings

I think the real catalyst for getting Linty Fresh out there locally is going to have to be in-person sales. I'm going to be selling at ICE for sure in June, but I don't think it'd be a bad idea at all to think about doing some smaller shows to. ICE is great but it's only twice a year, which seems a little hit-and-miss. Either way, local recognition will be a huge step for me, especially if I'm ever going to think about opening a shop... which I am.

I know, I know, it's a LONG shot from where I'm at now, but it'd be just too awesome to run a little Linty Fresh storefront and maybe even employ some of my friends. I'd have a little gallery section showing off local young Atlanta artists' work, a "work-in-progress" bulletin board where people could check out my preliminary designs, and of course all kinds of LF goodies from tees and hoodies to skate decks, shoes, snowboards, and art prints. And at that point I might even consider doing collaborations with other guys (I've got dozens in mind from Flickr and Emptees alone)

...But on the other hand, the one thing I've been ultra stubborn about is doing all the design myself up to this point. Everything. Every piece of packaging, every character, every graphic on the site, every image shown on a product page, and especially every tee. It's tempting to hire other artists; from a profits standpoint, it makes complete sense. I'd be getting all kinds of new flavors and styles which would certainly bring new customers to the site, all for a couple hundred more than I'm currently spending per print. But I refuse! This probably sounds like megalomania, but I guess what I'm trying to get across is that LF isn't just there to make me as much money as possible. If it were I'd pick a theme and start hunting for other artists instead of tackling it all myself.

A few sites I frequent have done this. Coincidentally, a few of them started around the time LF did, but their ranges of styles and designs surpassed me ages ago. It can be a little discouraging, to be honest. But what I try to focus on is that fact that LF has always been (and will hopefully always be) more about me as a person and an artist than just a site with cool designs. Not that I'm in any way ragging on those other guys - I keep in contact with a lot of them and buy their stuff, even - it's just not my gig.

In a way, I almost approach LF as a portfolio or a photo album, a documentation of my progression and development. The cool thing is that this seems to be appreciated and respected by a lot of guys in the industry. And that's one thing that blows me away in all of this - the support from the competition! I recently found out that I was getting traffic from Seibei, the owner of whom I know and have chatted with a few times. How cool is that? Despite being competitors, he's totally plugging me on his links page.

Just one of many things that make me love this - it's just one awesome experience after another.

Labels: , , , , ,

posted by Mr. Linty @ 9:53 PM, ,


Busy busy busy...

I think I mentioned a couple months ago that one of my goals for 2008 was to get Linty Fresh to a point where I could quit my day job. It seemed like a pretty lofty and unreasonable goal at the time, but it looks like it may not be so unattainable after all! This month has been a landmark in LF history, already bringing in more sales than any other month in its history, which is super exciting for me. For the first time I'm getting a steady flow of sales every day, and that consistency is key in determining whether or not I can live off this.

So I just gotta say: thank you guys! The support you've shown in your input, your blogging, and your purchases is just wonderful! When I started LF a couple years ago it was my dream to make it my living, but I never thought things would progress so smoothly and with such awesome experiences and people along the way!

So that means more new stuff more often! April 1st is going to be a big day for the site, so be sure to check it as soon as the month rolls over. Here's the lineup:

For starters, I'll be releasing two tshirts: the first is a reprint of UPC, but I've made a few adjustments - the design is going to be 25% larger (12 inches wide) and I'm also printing a little running zebra on the back hip. Here's what it'll look like!

The new UPC

The second tee, which I've named "Epidemic", is based on the drawings I recently did for my snowboard. It'll be white as well:

Epidemic

You can't tell too well from the pic, but this print is a whopping 6 colors! It'll be the first time ever and I'm super stoked about getting them in!

Apart from tees, April 1st will also bring the release of 4 new belts! I've also reordered all the ones from the first series since they're selling fast. So yeah, be sure to check in on the first of the new month to get your hands on all these goodies!

And again, thanks. Thanks so much. :D

Labels: , , , , ,

posted by Mr. Linty @ 4:59 PM, ,


Coupon ending soon!

The "sofresh" coupon will be deactivated tonight at 12:00 AM Eastern. It's at 16% right now which is pretty sweet, so act within the next three hours or... be sorry.

posted by Mr. Linty @ 8:58 PM, ,


UPC all gone!

Well as you may have noticed, over the weekend I sold out of my first tee ever: UPC! Crazy. It's the 2nd most-viewed shirt on my site which is so weird to me. I really never thought it was all that spectacular, and as other designers have eagerly pointed out, it's been done before. So do I reprint it? Hm. On the one hand I've gotten at least half a dozen emails asking me to do it, but on the other hand I want to get new stuff in the store...

Help me out guys! To reprint or no? Another thing to consider is that I've got 2 more white tees in the queue, and one that's black on white just like this. I just don't know if it's a good idea to take a step back like this, even if it's a seller...

Labels: , , , , ,

posted by Mr. Linty @ 8:35 PM, ,


SURPRISE!

They're here! Linty Fresh belts! This was just a test run to see how they sell, so I've only made 5 in each style (and I'm snagging the Smile one for myself I think!)... So uh, get one!


Smile! Canvas Belt


Woodie Canvas Belt!


Fantastic Rabbit Canvas Belt


Sally the Pirate Canvas Belt


Hans the Monkey Canvas Belt

Labels: , , , ,

posted by Mr. Linty @ 10:11 PM, ,


March 1st goodies!

See! I kept my word!



This one turned out specTACular. The colors are a perfect match and I'm just nuts about my new custom tags printed on the inside! Anyhoo, this design is on sale now at Linty Fresh and I've even got a discount code for you guys: "SOFRESH". If you use it now you'll get 10% off your order, but every day it'll go up by 1% more. I'm not gonna say when I'm deactivating it, so either buy now and get a guaranteed 10% or wait a little bit and see what happens... ;D

Oh, and my board worked great! Despite the breaking it in pretty rough with bails, ice, tree-crashes, and other wear-and-tear, it looks fantastic. And the slopes were great, too. One of the employees there told us it was one of their best days there at Cataloochee. We had a blast!

Labels: , , , ,

posted by Mr. Linty @ 3:34 PM, ,