I've always had a grá (love) for T-shirt
art, especially when we go to try it out in Secondary school in art class. I
thought it cool, and would be a great thing to do every day but had no clue
about how to get started, was a bit naive in the world and was just floating
along. Then in my last year of college in 2005/06 I stumbled across a site
called Threadless and I was hooked. I loved going on the site and seeing the
different designs and dreamed about entering the competitions but didn't know
where to start, how would I know what to put on a t-shirt that would win. It
was like that for years, some days I would take down the info of the various
competitions and start thinking about it but usually they went nowhere. For a
few years I just forgot about it, occasionally checking out the site and
dreaming. The at the start of this year I decided I needed to do something
about it and worked on a few submissions. First one got turned down and I
forgot about it for a few weeks, but back I came and tried a design for the Sesame
Street comp, again I got the needs more work. (Funny thing is I seen a design
very similar to mine in a local music shop later in the summer). Anyway I sort
of gave up hope and forgot about it, but then I had a life changing experience,
my girlfriend of two and a half years broke up with me and I was just lost…I
gave up on everything in life, pushing away design and other things, cleared
any reference to design from my life, I read books, looked for inspiration, why
had this happened, something told me when it happened it was for a good reason.
Eventually I stumbled across a site The Minimalists with essays by Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus, two guys who had left their six figure corporate jobs at 30 to follow
their passion. The next few weeks I had every different type of idea with what
I wanted to do with my life flash up. Become a medical designer, maybe move to
San Francisco to work for IDEO, forget design altogether and go work for a
charity or a group working to make people’s lives better. I think at the end of
the day I want to be able to say I’m doing something worthwhile with my life to
make others better. T-shirts may not be the final part of the journey but a set
in that direction, they may not help make people’s lives better like a
well-designed medical device or a water pump in Africa or by working with
people from disadvantaged area’s but when you see a great cool design it brings
a smile to your face and makes you want to share it with the world, if you can
make someone smile and be happy even if just for a moment then maybe it’s worth
it. So I've made a decision, It may not become a full time job but always be a
hobby but it will bring happiness to a lot of people’s lives I hope. I’m
starting at the bottom, and have another design in for submission, fingers
crossed it gets picks, I've plan’s to get my own screen printing frame made up
by myself and have some fun printing t-shirt. But most importantly I know that
it’s the journey that makes life worthwhile, not necessarily the end product and I've got to make every second count to get to where I want to be:)
