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Two tees from<br />
the Paint the<br />
Stars winter line<br />
Carve Out Your Own Style<br />
Figure out what it is that you do best and really focus on carving out your own<br />
style. All of the best designers out there can be identified by their work. You can<br />
always spot a Finley, a Lenjer, a Sandlin, a Godmachine, a Henson, or a Shantz<br />
from a mile away, and I think that the fact that they each have their own style is<br />
what makes these guys successful. So I would say find your style, do a ton of<br />
work and pick the best of it, set up an online portfolio and start networking and<br />
make yourself known.<br />
Emptees is a great tool for designers and a lot of people owe a large chunk of<br />
their success to that website, I know that I probably wouldn’t have been hired<br />
half as many times as a designer as I have without having a presence on that<br />
site. Also, do some research and some reading – make sure you know what the<br />
industry standards are in terms of artwork specifications, client relations and<br />
business practices. It’s <strong>not</strong> all about being great at drawing; you need to know<br />
how to run your business, because that is what you are, a business.<br />
You need to know what companies expect from a designer, how much to charge<br />
and how to produce the goods and above all how you put each of those factors<br />
together as a professional service, because that’s what your clients will remember<br />
when they’ve finished working with you.<br />
Nobody wants to work with some cowboy who doesn’t know what they’re doing.<br />
It’s up to you to make sure you come across the right way and at least seem to<br />
know what you’re talking about.<br />
THREAD’S NOT DEAD • Jeff Finley<br />
Trends<br />
There have been some pretty cool trends that have passed and some horrendously<br />
bad ones. Trends are something that I don’t think anyone likes to admit<br />
that they actively follow, but in this industry it’s difficult to avoid. You always<br />
find yourself as a designer being asked to draw a certain way or a certain subject<br />
matter, and as a brand you find yourself seeing something you like and feel<br />
you can improve, so by all accounts you are following trends, even if you’re <strong>not</strong><br />
consciously aware of it.<br />
When we started there were a lot of guns, diamonds, knuckle dusters, broken<br />
hearts and splatters around. Bleeding Star Clothing were pioneers of that and<br />
could well have been the catalyst for it. Devin from Bleeding Star has always<br />
been an impressive designer, and kids loved it and a lot of brands went with<br />
similar themes when they saw how much he was killing it. Darkside Clothing<br />
from the UK are still plugging that particular trend, so there must still be people<br />
out there wanting it.<br />
After that I seem to remember the “Nu Rave” trend hitting, everyone was doing<br />
those Wham!-style “Choose Life” capital letter text tees. I’m proud to say we<br />
never did any of those (although Martin wanted to do one that said “Butts &<br />
Dicks since 86” for a joke, but we didn’t think anyone would get it). There was a<br />
“100% hand drawn” (heh) revolution a couple of years ago – that was all childish<br />
scribbled designs and it was super popular for a while and a lot of brands<br />
and bands were going down that route.<br />
It hasn’t aged too well though, we had a couple of those kinds of designs and<br />
now they look like my 3 year old niece drew them. There have been a lot of<br />
subject matters that have been popular over the years too. I’ve seen dinosaurs,<br />
unicorns, skulls (lots of skulls), boomboxes, sharks, all sorts of stuff. Some of it<br />
is embarrassing, but ask your parents and they’ll tell you that the 80’s was embarrassing,<br />
hell, the 90’s was embarrassing. My mum made me and my brothers<br />
wear matching shellsuits once. The point is anything you look back on can<br />
be embarrassing in one way or a<strong>not</strong>her, but everyone will say the same thing<br />
about it, “That’s what we did back then.”<br />
Trends come and go. That’s fashion. I don’t think anyone should worry too much<br />
about the timelessness of their work. If you ever want to know what trend has<br />
just been in just take a look at what Criminal Damage are pushing at the time.<br />
They usually have whatever was popular a couple of months after the ball has<br />
dropped! Haha. Just kidding. They’re a solid brand though.. huge brand.<br />
Case Studies & Interviews 93
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