GOST

Randy Spizer and I have a lot of history.  Our time together at Senate has been pretty well documented in the annals of rollerblading.  But in the years since those freewheelin’ days of world tours, fat (phat!) paychecks and Ultra-Wide™ jeans Randy and I have continued to forge memories together.

It was Randy who told me about the opening at Paul Frank (where he was working at the time) and suggested that I apply, thus steering me into my first “real” job post-rollerblading.  And so it went a few weeks ago when Randy asked if I would be interested in taking on some freelance work for his current employer, Fuse Interactive.

As fate would have it, the lease on my car expired the very weekend before I was to start the new freelance job at Fuse, so I was without a mode of transportation at the very moment that I was suddenly in need of one.  After years of commuting from my bedroom across the hall to my “home-office” (while my Volkswagon GTI sat dejectedly in the driveway), I was suddenly faced with a commute from Santa Ana to Laguna Beach and had no car to get there.

I leaned on my girlfriend for rides (thanks Nikki!) and imposed a lot on Randy.  One of the nice perks about having a fledgling clothing company is that I have a garage full of T-shirts that can be used when negotiating small favors.  GOST clothing started to become more prominent around the Fuse offices and I found a way to get to and from work everyday.

I am primarily an illustrator I suppose, or at least that is what I have done the most over the past few years between Paul Frank, Franco Shade and GOST.  But I consider myself a pretty well rounded designer and I know enough Photoshop to get by.  At Fuse I got a crash course in Photoshop and color correction however as my work consisted primarily of transforming mundane shots of Kawasaki motorcycles into high-powered, high-glossed, super-kick-ass photo composites!  I learned a lot from the designers there in a short amount of time and owe a huge debt (which I tried to cover with T-shirts, of course!) to Erick and Jake in particular for their guidance.

Needless to say the GOST blog suffered a little in my absence.  There is plenty that has happened over the past couple of weeks for sure and I will attempt to catch up over the next few days.

Arlo

GOST