Interview with the 3rd place winner of Derby 80
GeekFactor12 is one of the few Woot old-timers that is still around -- she has been participating since derby number one and still is. This is her 8th shirt but her first interview -- even though she is the artist of one of the
best selling Woot shirts of all time, she still has never finished first in a derby (for the longest time I only interviewed the first place winners). Here's a few more interesting facts about her.
Shirt.Woot Stats? (first derby / shirts bought / shirts printed)
1 (One) / 50+ / 8. My first derby was the first derby. Haha. I made a charming cyclops on a unicycle, that I think a grand total of three people voted for. Despite the massive failure, I was hooked on the derby from there on out -- and I'm still thinking about revising that cyclops. I just counted and I have bought over 50 Woot t-shirts. Which is, of course, terrifying. I've had 8 shirts printed, with two of those being collaborations.
What are your tools of choice?
I sketch with blue pencil, then ink with pen (I usually favor Uniball signo bit .18, but I've been giving fine point Sharpie pens a go lately too and they're not bad). From there I scan and color in
Photoshop. Sometimes I go back in and use a tablet to add or adjust detail at this stage (
Wacom Intuos 12x19 -- I found an older model cheap). I've been thinking about streamlining my process by getting a Cintiq, but can't quite mentally justify the cost yet.
What is your typical process for going about a design?
The most important part of the design is the idea, and that's something that can't really be forced. I'm lucky in that I have some good people to brainstorm with who stop me when I get too far off-track and steer me back towards more wearable concepts. It's not at all uncommon for me to spend a few hours just thinking about what I want to do (usually while doing other, more productive things) before I even put pen to paper. The next step is determining how to express the idea on a shirt, taking into consideration how it will actually sit on the human frame. If both of those pan out, chances are it will result in a great shirt.
What design or art experience do you have outside the derby?
I went to school for Graphic Design and in my day job I do a lot of page layout and things of that nature. Presentation materials, brochures, logos and direct mail are some of the main focuses. Part of the reason I got into doing t-shirts is because I wanted to gain some illustration skills, something I hadn't had much experience with in either school or the workforce.
Which artists or designers inspire you?
I wanted to be a writer until I saw some Magritte prints in an art museum gift shop while on a middle school class trip. It was my first exposure to surrealism, and it was literally life changing. Seeing those images was a closer approximation of how my imagination worked than anything I had ever seen before, and it made me hungry for more.
Would you like to do art/design full-time? If so, what is your dream job?
Tough question. I think I'd love to do art and design full time, but I'm hoping to move more into a position where I'm setting my own schedule. I'm balancing freelancing and tee design with a part time design gig right now, so I think I'm headed in the right direction. Hopefully at some point I'll be fully independent.
Any plans to ever sell your designs using a print-to-order shop like SpreadShirt or CafePress?
I don't think print-to-order sites are a good long-term solution for me -- the costs per piece are so high it makes it difficult to sell a quality product at a price you can still make a profit on without hurting customers. I'm looking into doing some screenprinting myself, which I think would be a great hobby and useful skill to have.
What advice do you have for new derby artists?
I think the most important thing for any derby artist is to learn the medium. Check out shirts at other sites (
Threadless,
Design By Humans, and
TeeFury are great places to start) and really think about what works and what doesn't. Another thing to keep in mind is that there's no reason to limit yourself to Woot. Each shirt contest site has its own house style, and by expanding your horizons you might find out that while Wooters aren't voting for your masterpieces, Design By Humans is a great fit for your art. You never know unless you try, and unless you're willing to experiment.
