March 1st!
2.17.2008
So in keeping with my goal to release new goods on the 1st of every month, the beginning of March will bring a new tee, "Fish, Etc." and some other goods. The new tee design looks like this:
It'll be the same colorway for guys and girls on chocolate American Apparel jersey tees, as always. This design is actually pretty old - a couple of years now. I submitted an earlier version of it to Threadless (which never won) and a second altered version (which lost as well). But both submissions scored highly and I received a lot of helpful feedback. The problem with the initial concept was that the objects weren't arranged in this shape - it was just all in a giant circle, which was pretty boring. The second version introduced the whale shape but it wasn't clear enough (in fact, most people thought it looked like a brain...).
Still, about half a year ago I got an email from a tshirt company asking to buy the design (version 2). I turned them down though, knowing that I wanted to release it myself. So here we are, in 2008, and it's finally getting printed! It's always exciting to see ideas go from paper to digital form to printed tee. It's a long and sometimes grueling process of sizing, color matching, and close communication with the printers, but in the end, when I see folks buying the tees and sporting them around proudly, it's totally worth it!
Now, as for the "other goods" mentioned... Well, you'll just have to wait and see. I imagined I've established a bit of a reputation for starting things without finishing them, so I'm gonna keep my mouth shut until they're in stock and ready to sell... But I will say that from the designs that have been submitted, I'm very excited with how it's turning out! :P
Labels: design, designs, Eric info, graphic, linty fresh, new products, tshirt info
posted by Mr. Linty @ 11:04 AM,
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Does this guy even do tshirts anymore?!
1.04.2008
Of course I do! Just having some fun experimenting with other stuff, yanno? Here's the latest projects from the LF workshop:
Basically my day went like this:
9:00 AM - Had a whim to do some custom kicks.
12:00 PM - Ate lunch while further contemplating the kicks.
3:30 PM - Entered a Marshalls and purchased some Pony's.
8:00 PM - Fulfilled my whim. Not 100% happy with these as the colors seemed to vary depending on what surface I was using the markers on, but in the end I'm cool with it. I'll still wear em, I mean.
Anyways since uploading these shots to my flickr, I've gotten 4 requests to design custom pairs! So who knows, maybe this is the future of LF! Either way, if you're interested, hit me up and I'll see if I can't figure a way to get one to you. :D
Also, it's 2008!!! And what better way to go into the new year than doing what I love: sitting for hours in front of a computer screen tugging at pixel points. Yeah, yet another tshirt design to add to the shelf. As in, the digital shelf. I'm still waiting on the info to come through for my loan application, so until then things are at a bit of a standstill tangible-goods wise. Here it is:
This is actually for a competition over at Emptees, which I've been perusing a lot lately. It's a nice little community of other tshirt vendors and designers, which means, unlike Threadless, you can actually get some useful information out of the other members. I've already got some A+ advice on what kind of business structuring works best for the industry, plus other stuff on shirt brands and what not. Oh, and I managed to hook up with one of the printer guys on there and he'll be handling my next batch. It's super affordable and his screens are 20"x25"! (Most are 16" x 13", so they can't do full front prints like he can!) Anyhow, the theme of the contest is "In Dreams". Which is open-ended enough to afford space for some of my newly lovable toothy characters (now as bunnies). I'm happy with the design, and whatever happens with the contest, I'm planning on printing this soon. As in, '08. Ha.
Labels: design, Eric info, graphic, linty fresh, shoes, site info, sneakers, tshirt info
posted by Mr. Linty @ 8:34 PM,
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Consolation for finished sale
12.19.2007
These were made entirely in-house, from the initial design to the cutting of the paper to the pressing of the buttons to the packaging. And I gotta say, I'm pretty happy with these little fellas. There's something especially fresh about them. Anywho, you can get them on the site for just 3$ (for a 4-pack).
The sale is finally over, though. I let it go for a week longer than I'd planned because it was really moving some of the older designs. I've said it before, but it never ceases to intrigue me that designs seem to sell much better once a newer one comes out. I don't understand how it works at all, but that seems to be the trend with every new batch... Huh.
On a slightly different note, here's a preview of a little project I'm working on that may be available for purchase soon on Linty Fresh. It's a toy made out of paper (110 lb) and designed after one of the sailor buttons. This was largely experimental since I'd never done anything like it before, but I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out, minus a few details that I plan to work out. Anyway, more on that later.
Speaking of side projects, if you're wondering what happened to the other toys, well... unfortunately I scrapped that project. It had been ages since I'd worked with polymer clay and my skills (and the materials) just weren't up to the task of the clean lines and sharp angles needed in the design. It sucks, but I'm constantly learning stuff with this little venture of mine, so I'm not too bummed about it. Ideally, one day I'll get a factory to do a little line of full fledged vinyl toys with my designs. That would be entirely too awesome. For now though, I'm sticking to the small stuff. ;)
Labels: buttons, designs, Eric info, new products, site info, toys
posted by Mr. Linty @ 10:30 PM,
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A plethora of blah
6.05.2007
So the sale's going well with an average of 2 shirts selling per day! I know that must not sound like a whole lot, but when you're used to that many selling in a month (the way it was about a year ago), it's a MAJOR deal!
Does it mean I can quit my day job any time soon? No. Not that I mind it a whole lot; the job I have is at a print shop and the skills that I've learned there-be it designing, doing layout, packaging, etc-have already proven invaluable to LF. Plus I'm only there part-time through the week and I enjoy the work (I get the warehouse to myself since we're a small company). So I'm not griping.
But the idea of running LF as my sole source of income is SUPER alluring. It's funny, I fantasize a lot about opening up an actual shop in Atlanta all the time. Whenever I'm down there and I see a vacant storefront I get all antsy and excited picturing a giant clothespin on the awning and "Linty Fresh" scrawled on the window. A good friend of mine even pitched a bunch of ideas to me about how the inside could be set up, complete with washing-machine window panels for shirt displays and a dry-cleaner type conveyor system constantly going with shirts... Seriously, how cool would that be?
In the meantime, though, I'm happy with just running this as a little venture from my closet. There's a certain appeal to the smallness of the operation at this point. Shirts are litterally designed, stocked, and shipped from one room-the same one I'm sitting in now, typing away.
ANYWAYS, my real reason for posting was to share some pics of these tags I printed up last week. I bought a fastener online for a few bucks and it just came in last night, so I was busy fastening tags to all the shirts. They look really cool! (Click the pic for more)
Also, new stickers are coming in mid-June. I never thought I'd see the end of the last batch (from September), but after these 40 or so, that'll be it. The new ones should be a lot better than the old. I designed them with bleeds (no white borders) and it's a completely new design, too.
Finally, there's a massive batch of new shirts currently being worked on by the good folks at CustomInk. It's the biggest order I've done so far, so I'm a little nervous about it... You'll see them in probably about 3 weeks. It should be interesting to see how they go over.
This is such a learning process...
Labels: designs, Eric info, site info, tshirt info
posted by Mr. Linty @ 10:57 PM,
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New site up
5.25.2007
This really has nothing whatsoever to do with Linty Fresh (or even Tshirts), but seeing as I'm the sole author of this blog, I see no reason not to use a little leverage to plug my new website:
Basically it's a social network for artists looking to collaborate on sketchbooks. It's nothing too fancy, but it's a load of fun to be a part of, especially as the book moves on an evolves into something else. This concept is actually somewhat of an evolution in itself, as it springs from a game some friends and I used to play, each taking turns doodling in different sketchbooks and passing them around every few minutes. These days, though, it's tougher and tougher to find time to all hang out together and do this sort of thing, so organizing it online and allotting time for each artist makes sense.
Check it out!
Labels: Eric info
posted by Mr. Linty @ 11:25 PM,
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Schedule... yeah right.
4.30.2007
Well that schedule seemed great on paper and all-everything with a designated timeslot and precise starting and ending time. But then I got one of these and things went downhill...
The local target had them in stock and someone offered to half/half it with me, so I was all over it. They were selling like crazy when I got there and probably sold out within a few minutes after my leaving! I felt especially cool when I sauntered back to my car and some kids in the parking lot started raising a ruckus when they saw the box. :)
So tonight, instead of corresponding with the shirt people like I should've and telling them to quit screwing up the pantones on my proofs, I vented my anxiety in a sweaty tennis match that's left me sticky and out of breath. I feel pretty pathetic admitting this, but my arms were actually pretty sore today from my Wii antics last night.
So at least I'm getting excercise... Right?
Labels: Eric info
posted by Mr. Linty @ 10:53 PM,
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It takes discipline
4.25.2007
I've started scheduling my life. I think it's time. It's weird because stuff piles up on me so quickly and yet it's not like I don't have any free time. It's just that when I do have some time, I end up wandering around like a nomad looking for stuff to do/eat/hunt, unable to remember any of the things on my mental to-do list. I've tried making actual to-do lists, but I inevitabl stuff them in a pocket where they later emerge as reincarnated pulp. This has only made my free time marginally more interesting as I'm now forced to decipher these notes, or else I'm trying to get the stains out of my pockets.
So finally I came up with an idea better than this, and possibly one that no one prior to myself has devised: I call it a "schedule"!
Here's how it works: I wrote down each day of the week accross the top of a piece of paper and then the time slots of those days along the left-hand column of the paper. (I made a grid to keep it all straight) Next I put all my weekly obligations into the corresponding timeslots. This gave me an idea of where my blocks of free time would be, and approximately how much time I had in those blocks. Then I gathered all my rescued to-do notes and designated different time slots for those tasks.
Anyways, on Monday night I checked my handy little schedule and saw that it was my bi-weekly Linty Fresh! timeslot. So I sent off the next design in my qeue to the printers and things are moving along quickly! I feel very in charge of my life right now. But I also feel like a dork.
It's good though, I need to force myself to be this way sometimes, especially with LF. I don't want shirt printings to be 3 and 4 months apart. That's just too long. Dude, this microwaved pizza is the bomb.
posted by Mr. Linty @ 10:16 AM,
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Life-changing, people.
4.14.2007
Well I'm back from Asia (specifically, Kyoto/Tokyo/Beijing/Xi'an/Guilin/Guangzhuo/Hong Kong) and I miss it terribly! Everything from the kind and hospitable people to the bizzare Engrish translations, oh man... It's like I left home.
And I'm not just saying that to seem in touch with my Asian half. If anything, this trip reminded me just how un-Asian I really am. It hurt a little. Like when they asked why I couldn't speak Japanese or Chinese, since aparently my looks are ambiguous enough to fit either category.
In Hong Kong, our tour guide, "Maffew", asked:
"Soah Eric, you speak-a Chinese?"
"I wish. Full-blooded unilingual American, I'm afraid."
"Oh, I see. You not Chinese?"
"Nope. Actually half-white half-Japanese."
"Japanese? Oh, no, you look... ah... I say, 82% Chinese. Yes, yes."
Coolest people I've ever met. If you're interested in browsing my photos from the trip, you can check out my flickr here. (Only uploaded to Beijing so far!)
So in the entry before I left, I surmised that Asia would be an inspiration on an artistic level. Understatement! It was just so different there that literally everything I saw was inspiration, whether it translated into music or art or writing or... I dunno, interpretive dance? Seriously, every sight, smell, and taste was new and exciting. I think my brain is still digesting it all. I know I haven't shut up about it since I got back anyway, which was two weeks ago. Oh right, sorry about that delay there. I was sad and stuff.
So yes! Design! Art! Tshirts! Asia! Give me some time on this, but I definitely want to create a wearable memoir of my experiences...
posted by Mr. Linty @ 10:43 PM,
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Beijing or Bust
2.26.2007
So in two weeks I'm headed to China, Hong Kong, and Japan. Dude. I'm going with a group of friends-we've been planning it for a year now, actually. It's weird to think that for months it's just been this distant thing that equated to little more than periodic chores: sending in my passport application, getting my visa, putting down the payment with the travel agency, etc. It's like I'd begun to think I was just running these little errands for nothing. And then last week I get a packet in the mail with all my travel documentation and I'm just standing there in the rain like an idiot at my mailbox thinking
HOLY CRAP IM GOING TO CHINA AND MORE.
It was eerie. But before actually getting on that plane, of course, it means yet more chores, but these have been significantly more enjoyable: shopping for the perfect messenger bag (I've recently come to hate backpacks due to their mobile inaccessability), some novels for the 13-hour flights, a nice digital camera, and a travel watercolor set and pad. Typically I'm more of a sketcher than a painter, but I figured that with all the colors around me, I'll be inspired to replicate it in my art, and my dad was able to reccommend a good set since he did the same on his trip to China last year. (Yes, virtually everyone in my family owns at least 3 blogs.)
ANYWAYS, the reason I was posting all of this here is because I got to thinking about how inspiring it will be to travel. To see, smell, taste, and experience all of these new things in a totally foreign place: to just step into someone else's reality for once. Of course, I'll be documenting the whole thing. I've kept a daily journal for a little over a decade now, so it will be covered in writing. And of course I mentioned the watercolors and sketching I'll be doing there too. But I got to thinking: why not document the trip on a shirt? I have no idea how I'll go about it, whether I'll litterally make a collage of a bunch of places I see or whether it'll just be a thing or two that really stands out, but I definitely want to do it. Just to bring a little bit of my travels home for everyone else to enjoy, ya know?
Labels: Eric info
posted by Mr. Linty @ 10:15 PM,
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What pays for LF
2.16.2007
Cuz it aint the shirt sales, hear you me.
If you thought LF was paying the bills, you thought wrong! Although things have really been picking up recently, I've only been out in the marketplace for seven months (I think I officially opened on July 19th), and these things take time! In the meantime, I've been living in a soggy cardboard box under a bridge in a park, peddling shirts on street corners and grabbing precious moments of wi-fi at the nearest Starbucks.
Sort of. Actually I'm working part time at a design & print shop in Atlanta. It's work to be thankful for; I dropped out of college to "chase my dreams" and was fortunate enough to still wind up with a job in the field I intended to pursue. Plus I'm learning the ins and outs of the business side of things, experience that has already proven invaluable. But it's actually not this income that's paying for my shirts. I try to set that aside for the essentials, like food and bills, and I meticulously save the rest of it. What actually funds the threads I print up is my freelance design, specifically, t-shirt designs (OH SURPRISES!).
You may have seen the one I'd blogged earlier-it was a commission from a parkour-enthusiast website based in the Southeast, Overflux. Well recently I got a couple more...
Design Concrete Commission
Best commission I've had, hands down. It was smooth from the initial consulting on. The client gave me clear direction on what he wanted and even referenced some artists he wanted me to check out. From the beginning the aim was to have a street art feel, something I've really been into recently. He maintained that clear vision from the beginning, although I was allowed to push the boundaries as I pleased. A fun project all around!!
Golson Family Reunion Commission
When I first got this commission I was shown an image of another Family Reunion/Tree shirt design that my client had found. It was a typical clipart + text design, the kind that could've been made by a robot. I dunno, it made my stomach uneasy. I told him immediately that while I'd maintain the theme, the style would get a major makeover and that I'd be re-doing the art to make it original. He agreed. Fortunately the result has broken from the wholesale stock image feel and even (I hope) hints at a bit of sentimentality... or hope... or familial pride, or something like that. Anyways, he was happy with it, so that was good.
In other news, confirmation went in today on the Beethoven shirts, so they should be in at the end of February or so! Oh, and I'm still open to submissions for the naming contest, although I'm very happy with the photoshoot idea: Congrats Vania! (Send me your size!)
posted by Mr. Linty @ 11:05 PM,
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Overflux commission
12.22.2006
Hellooo there.
So there's this "hot-off-the-press-trepidity" phenomenon that I've been experiencing for awhile now. It's the strangest thing: new tshirt designs always sell slow until the next design comes out. It's like people are wary of the shirts being... I dunno, poisonous or something. Very odd. Any ideas?
The traffic always picks up for the new shirts, though, so that's fun to observe. A good percent of that traffic comes from blog sites like this one that will review and feature tees that are sent to them for free. It's a rather clever business model. Virtually no overhead and they get free merchandise. Plus they've got ads, so that's probably generating some income. I've thought of putting ads on my site, but I doubt I'll ever do it. It might make a little extra cash, but even with targeted advertising like Google Adsense, it just looks like clutter to me. Of course, maybe I'll regret it when I'm on the street in the dead of winter trying to peddle my shirts from a carboard box shelter.
I guess I shouldn't be so much of an idealist.
In addition to shipping shirts out, I occasionally recieve shirts. A couple of days ago I got this one in the mail from a southeast-based parkour site, Overflux. Although I'm not as avid a practicioner of the sport as in times past, I try to keep active as a designer in the parkour world, doing illustrations, graphics, animations, and, obviously, tshirts. Anyhow, several months ago I was commissioned to do this one. I would've liked to have been a little more daring with the art and the colors, but so it goes with clients.
Labels: Eric info
posted by Mr. Linty @ 9:57 PM,
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