One Small Tee - One Giant Cause

Around two years ago, I was looking for freelance work and went through my regular search engines to find some gigs.
This time, I jumped on Craigslist. Craigslist isn't just a place to find old BMX bikes for sale or find winter tires for cheap (I will be selling mine on there soon-stay tuned haha). It' s a great place to find people in need of your help. Sure there's some sketchy people out there ie the Craigslist killer, but with a little bit of intelligence and common sense, you can figure out if a certain person on there is legit or, heaven forbid, crazy. One posting I found was somewhere along the lines of "Designer needed for New T-Shirt company".
New companies are a gamble sometimes. When I was really desperate for money and some design work, I allowed this one kid in California to pay me $400 for 8 designs and 4 logos for his new t-shirt company. I'm not even sure if it even got off the ground at this point. It was the longest project I ever had and the most frustrating. I had to explain ever detail of copyright laws to him to explaining to him that he was getting a huge deal out of everything. At one point he even wanted me to copy another company’s logo. This experience did however teach me a valuable lesson on trusting clients, trusting your gut and working hard for something you believe in. This client was the Bizarro World version of the next client that I will be speaking of.

Now moving back to this posting I saw on Craigslist, I initially couldn’t read into the client at all. It was a bland posting but there wasn’t any information like “$10 an hour for design work” or “Will pay you once I get paid” attached to the posting. It was straight forward and to the point. I need a designer to help me with my new t-shirt line.

After a few email transactions, we set up a meeting downtown in Toronto,
doors away from my old school bar that recently got turned into a sushi restaurant.
Sitting there waiting for him to show up I called my cousin and he got me laughing saying that it was like hooking up for a date with an axe murderer. I told him he sounded normal on the phone so I wasn’t scared.

So I finally get to meet him. He didn’t have an axe. He was really nice and relaxed and seemed very excited. He also came very prepared. He had examples of what direction he wanted to go into. He told me about trade shows he was planning on attending in New York and in Vegas to research other lines and network. This guy oozed excitement and dedication.

I mentioned to him that I’ve always been someone who loved to dive into a project head first and get as much information, inspiration as I can.

The subject matter of his clothing line was AFRICA. Him being a native of Kenya, he explained to me that the clothing lines out there really don’t push any type of African themed clothing. That it would be a fresh idea that would put a positive change into the fashion world.
Now me being the Irish Catholic red head from Northern Ontario, I reassured him that I would research the hell of the subject so that he can honestly be proud of what I designed for him. I did that and we got into some great conversations about his homeland and the culture in general that I never really knew about.

At first, I treated him (the client) as a client. You pay me for what you want. You get what you want. We’re both happy. But with his contagious excitement and watching him go the distance to get the name and look out there, I started to work without asking for money and a great partnership began to grow.

He is a networking genius and he’s still just in his infancy when it comes to the fashion world.
A number of months ago he told me of this organization called MetoWe.
“This company was founded by Oliver Madison and works closely with world renowned social activists and advisors Craig and Marc Kielburger. Craig and Marc Kielburger, through their work with Free The Children and Leaders Today, have led more than one million young people, schools and corporations to take action on issues across the globe. Over the years, thousands of these individuals have asked Craig and Marc where to find products that meet their environmental and social standards. Me to We: [Responsible Style] was created in response to this demand.”
-Notice the quotation marks and the proper spelling structure and lack of typos. haha
Either way, Anthony, my client/partner/friend got into talking with these folks at MetoWe and we now have two of our designs being sold on their site. One isn’t up just yet (new arrival).

In the past couple of weeks Vancouver, Toronto (and in November Hamilton) have hosted WeDay. A day to create awareness for the organization called Free the Children, as well as motivate children to take action with whatever they feel would help the world and their communities. Our designs were sold at these events and sold out!
Both Toronto and Vancouver’s WeDay were broadcasted on CTV.
Just seeing Anthony and I’s work on a National Television show was so rewarding but the most rewarding part was knowing that 50% of the sales were going towards Free the Children.
I unfortunately could not make the Toronto date but Anthony did. That night he told me all about it over the phone. You could actually sense the smiles on our face knowing that we just sold over a thousand units at $35 and that 50% of that was going to this amazing cause. He told me how he would try and see where the shirts were being sold and the desks were swarmed with kids eager to buy for a good cause. "I couldn't believe how crazy it was down there!" were his exact words.



I’m so proud of Anthony’s persistence on getting our name out there and to have found such a great way to show it off through charity. I know that my designs are in good hands when he's out there pounding the pavement, volunteering and networking with big names to get our stuff out there.
It's just amazing how passion pushes success. I just hope we can keep it up and infect others with this passion.

If you’re reading this please look up this great organization and have a look at some other styles they have on their MetoWeStyle site as well as look up Free the Children. Heck Oprah is affiliated with this organization and even had Craig Kielburger on her show!
Cheers and thanks for reading

Pauly


Here's Anthony's Twitter if you were interested http://twitter.com/Thread4Humanity

The lazy man's design inspirations.

Hey blogosphere,
Every once in a while, there's dry spells when it comes to work. Freelancing and office work.
It seems that one day you'll be sitting at home on the couch thinking :"God I wish I had some projects to do" and then 10 of them land in your email. Most of the time these jobs land in my lap when I really need them. Like after buying a new car, or trying to save money for a new fence for the house. At work it's the same. The days are longer when you're not busy, but when you are busy the days are literally longer because you're staying late at work or comin' in early but go by much quicker. It's an amazing feeling to just get stuff done and when you've got down time you need to obviously keep yourself busy, motivated and inspired.

On my down time, I tend to look up design sites that post new and old design images , to keep my mind open to new ideas out there and to keep up with on-going trends. Like how lens flairs keep popping in and out of style. haha

These are two great examples of inspirational design sites.
http://designyoutrust.com

http://ffffound.com

FFFFOUND is a site you can completely lose yourself in. Once you click on one item, it delivers a number of related design ideas all ranging from architecture to photography to graphic design to just helarious animated gifs .

I also like to keep on top of current events. 1- so that I know what's happening in the world and communities around me or 2- so that my retired parents and I can have some interesting things to talk about when I visit.

But the one thing that never changes is music. I once worked at a job where the VPs and Managers wanted the designers to not have our earphones in at work. I can understand taking one ear bud out so that you can hear what going on around you, and to hear if there's someone running up to you ready to hit you with a bag of pennies but managers thought we shouldn't have any type of earphones because it made the office look juvenile and unprofessional. What the non-creative population miss sometimes is that music is another art form that aids the development of ideas. If a director didn't have any music in any of their films, how interesting would it be? Music moves people. It creates their sense of environment and puts people in their "Happy Place". Even Cannibal Corpse puts some people I know in their "Happy Places". I explained my thoughts to this certain manager who wanted that rule implemented and it was a huge eye opener. He said he never thought about it in that light. The one ear in one ear out was then put into fruition.
I myself am a big fan of punk rock, rock, or anything that gets the adrenaline going, but when it comes to designing with music akimbo, I go with anything that keeps the mind at ease. I have found in the past that high octane music gets my blood flowing and I want to finish things faster which then results into mistakes. I find ambient music to help design flow easier.
Music like Cinematic Orchestra. Some of their work just puts you in a spot that you don't want to get out of. I find myself hitting repeat a lot at my desk with their music.
One song by another group called Orbital puts me in my happy place. The song is called "Halcyon and On and On". Some might recognize it from the movie Hackers. This song get the creative juices going big time. Apart from some songs I have on my ipod from a while ago. This song is the top song played on it. It brings the heart rate down, and centers your mind properly.
It's like Enya, just without making you cry or feel like your flying over green hills in Ireland.
The last type of music I love listening to are soundtracks from movies that I love. I'm a big movie buff, having around 300 DVDs at home. I think soundtracks are really underrated by people. And I'm not talking about soundtracks that have your little one-offs like my friend's band Cauterize who were featured on Eurotrip's soundtrack. I'm talking about the background music by great composers. One great example is the soundtrack to Last Samurai by Hans Zimmer. Beautifully put together and really gives you a sense of time and space.
So these are examples of stuff that allows me to keep my mind in Design mode.
Now, when I'm on my way to hockey, that's a different story.

Anyways, this are a few things on how I stay inspired while designing.
Boy ! that went on for a while. If you read through it all fantastic, I just hope I didn't bore you too much.
Either way, it's raining and looks like it's going to be a miserable weekend but I love the rainy weekends personally. Gives me yet another reason not to finish my fence or to cut the grass. Then again it's fall now and the grass isn't growing anymore.

Pauly