L.E.Tees: Diary of a Mad Brand
I thought it might be fun to take FU off-line somehow, in a different but relevant way for each issue. The theme this month is Inspiration – so what better way to start, I thought, than with wearable art?
Due to lack of both funds and knowledge regarding the professional manufacture of fashionable apparel, I accepted the realization that whatever we made would be “Limited Edition”, at least at first. A close friend who also happens to be a gadget geek (ahem) wanted to make shirts with ‘FU’ in flashing LED lights, “because they’re from the future and immediately show you mean business.” I decided against the lights but liked the concept. Thus our brand was born and christened L.E.Tees.
I also considered the pros and cons of our location. The New York tee shirt scene is a veritable Milky Way. But an established (albeit niche) demographic of street sartorial hounds actually pay attention to what adorns laid back chests south of 14th street. So getting team members to wear FU designs about town wouldn’t be the most futile endeavor in the name of spreading our word.
Sufficiently confident in the worthiness of the idea, I got to work. I sent an email.
Two weeks (and several more emails) later I had 3 designs, 36 tee-shirts (4 each of 3 sizes per design) and a gang of professional silk-screeners, on a roof in downtown Brooklyn. I am renowned on 3 continents for my lack of hand-eye coordination and tendency to flail in a dangerous manner when called upon for manual tasks. So I hung back from the action and took pictures:
The brief to the designers was very simple: "relate it to FU and relate it to inspiration. Oh and it’ll be black ink on white tee-shirts, so no funky rainbow business". Here are the designs, each with a few words from their creators, below:
Maria makes tee shirts of her own on a regular basis, so she was the first to send hers in. I knew this but it still came as a surprise to learn that I was working with bona fide professionals (no offense intended obviously but I never think of myself or my friends that way).
I don't like to add words to my designs - so basically, the shirt speaks for itself in that the heart displays my inspiration for me.
Next to deliver was Joshua. I like Josh, partly because his final thesis for graduating from the SVA was a website providing medical assistance for stoner videogame enthusiasts. But mainly because he’s from Virginia and his accent makes it sound like a distant, exotic land.
For a while I’ve been thinking that the arcane instructional icons for proper clothing care, forever hidden and tucked away on our shirt tags, deserved to get a bit more exposure. For if these instructions (which kind of form a game-plan) are to be believed, all we have to do is wash our shirts at low temperatures, don’t iron, and tumble-dry on low - then our shirts may very well last forever.
I could feel Katharina’s excitement about this project, all the way from Berlin: “I have a new computer, so I can do something good and do it fast too!” And sure enough, within 48 hours of this exclamation, a wonderful piece of randomness appeared in my inbox.
I was thinking of a few things when I read the brief. 1. The definition of "inspiration" on Wikipedia sounds funnily complicated to me - like a disease explanation (maybe it’s a language thing). 2. I often see things within other things, which is very entertaining and inspiring. For example, while doing a boring graphic I’ll suddenly see a face staring at me, or the splashes of my tee can look like a dog and so on. The good thing is that this source of inspiration never runs dry - if these extra images were to disappear, I’d need a holiday. So by mixing all these visuals, I tried to portray a part of the associational image range in my mind. And 3. I have a feeling that the two guys in the drawing live in my apartment while I'm at work, but they’re very good at hiding.
L.E.Tees are available for 20 USD (inclusive of P&P to anywhere in the world), while stocks last. To place an order simply send an email to FUprints@gmail.com, indicating the design and size (S,M,L) you want - and don't forget to leave a full mailing address.
comments
Cool.
P.S. Virginia IS a distant and exotic land. Maybe FU should airlift some t-shirts down there.
Amazing!