Tag Archive for ‘fuse interactive’ at GOST

I mentioned the tiny window I was working with trying to get these “Unwanted” tees printed in time for the “No.76 Special Edition” show at We Are 1976 in Dallas, Texas. There was only one week (not counting the two weeks prior that my sister spent calling me everyday to ask if I’d started yet), just one week to come up with an idea and get it printed and shipped to Dallas.

On top of everything else, I just started a free lance job that requires me to go to Laguna Beach everyday, so the time I had to work with kept getting smaller and smaller. Fortunately I was able to hatch an idea (“Unwanted!”) and get it drawn and illustrated and ready for print over the weekend. That was well over half the battle. With my art done and at least a few more days to work with I knew I had a fighting chance.

I got up early on Monday morning and put in an order for 24 blank T-shirts (thanks Jeremy!). After I went to work I had Nikki drive to Anaheim and pick them up for me (thanks Nikki!!). Nervous about the prospect of distressing all the tees by myself I said to Nikki, “Hey I know! Tonight we can watch a movie while we grind the shirts!”

“Um…no,” she said. So, I grinded and bleached all 24 shirts myself until about 2AM (thanks Nikki!).

Grinding is easy by the way, since a few people have asked. Just take sand paper and sand the edges: around the collar, on the sleeves and around the bottom. You don’t have to sand all the way around, just pick a few spots. The nice thing about distressing a shirt is that you can’t really mess it up because, well, you are trying to make it look messed up. As for bleaching, I just diluted some liquid bleach with water and sprayed it from an old spray bottle onto the shirt.

Since I’ve been going into work everyday at an office in Laguna Beach (Fuse Interactive), most of the production on “Unwanted” had to happen early in the mornings before work. Fortunately there is a great printer (Lucky Relabel) right around the corner from my house in Santa Ana.

I packed up all of the distressed shirts and took them to the printer on Tuesday morning.

I had a mad scientist moment and grabbed some old GOST V-neck tees on my way to the printer to have the new “Unwanted” graphic printed on them.

They actually came out really neat, but I don’t have a great photo as of this writing. I’ll include one with the wrap-up.

After some minor snafus trying to get the films (for the screens) right, my production was completely finished by Wednesday morning in time for me to pack it up and ship it out 2 Day Air to Dallas.

Here is a close up look at one of the distress details.

And here is the final shirt (modeled by Randy Spizer!). It came out great, and in record time! Each “Unwanted” shirt was hand treated by me (no thanks to my girlfriend) and will be available exclusively at WeAre1976 in Dallas, Texas. The opening reception will be this Friday, Feb. 11th starting at 7PM. Hope you can make it!

Visit WeAre1976.com for more info.

Arlo

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