Portfolio: Jesse and The Rippers T-Shirt

A closer look at the vintage detailing - Screen Version.

A mockup of the teal color I wanted the tee to be printed with.

Not too long ago I was asked at work to come up with a few ideas for some t-shirt designs. The night before I was at a radio station event with my friend and had run into some fellow industry people and one of them happened to be wearing a vintage Jesse and the Rippers tee (If you don’t know who Jesse and The Rippers are double shame!)  I thought it was an amazing t-shirt and asked him where he had found it; he said he got it on eBay and that it was most likely either limited edition or one-of-a-kind. I made a mental note and when the prospect of some new t-shirt ideas for the wholesale line came up, I knew exactly what I wanted to do!

The guys at work were a little (lot) skeptical as they’re all a lot older than me and have no idea how much impact Full House had on my generation. I became a bit one-minded and knew that I just HAD to do this t-shirt design! So, I went to the drawing board, found a good Uncle Jesse Mullet and started from there.  I also wanted to make sure that the trumpet guy was in there, I always remember the random dude with the trumpet sitting on the couch whenever Uncle Jesse and his band were practicing in the living room. He always had the coolest (lamest) sweaters!-- But how about that mullet, huh? Hehehehe. The overall effect turned out pretty good and I like the idea of doing it in that washed out discharge style with lots of vintage effects, after all, the shirt should technically be about 20 years old. And thus, the Jesse and The Rippers Tee was born! Ta-da!

Want to buy this tee? Visit http://www.resourcerags.com if you're a store and http://www.orangeshag.com if you want to buy one piece! (not available until Dec.2008)

Portfolio: L.Ron is My Homeboy!

This one is for all of the scientologists / scientology haters out there. That’s right! It works BOTH ways!

Following the basic concept of the Jesus is My Homeboy / Mary is my Homegirl fad of the early 2000’s I thought it’d be pretty funny to do an L.Ron Hubbard (the founder of Scientology) t-shirt in the same vein. I was right and it ended up being pretty hysterical.  It’s a pretty basic design, but I thought some one would find it enjoyable! Hehe.

Want to buy this tee? Visit http://www.orangeshag.com to make your order now! 

Indie Week Sponsor

Mrchgrl is proud to announce our official sponsorship of Indie Week Canada 2008 from October 7^th – 11^th. Not only will there be a valuable Mrchgrl prize being entered into the pot for the Grand Prize Winner of the festival, but we are also contributing on many levels, including something very near and dear to our heart: Merch!

Mrchgrl will be working in conjunction with Indie Week for a Merch Fair on the day of the finals (October 11^th) at The Reverb (Queen St. W & Bathurst St.).

More information to come, and make sure you go check out Indie Week Canada online at www.indieweek.com! Or else!  

Merch 101: Friends vs. Merch Girls

Lesson 3: Why you should hire a merch girl instead of a friend.

One of the most significant details that most bands seem to skip over is who is selling their merch. This is someone you are not only entrusting with your money and your inventory, but someone who you trust will do the job to the best of their abilities. Sure, in most cases whichever friend or girlfriend ends up doing it will work as hard as they can and are trustworthy, but is that all that matters?

You wouldn’t trust a friend who didn’t know anything about Pro-tools to record your album, you wouldn’t trust a record label without any artists on its roster to put out your album, so why would you enlist the help of someone who is unprofessional and knows nothing about merchandising to sell your merch? It seems like an easy way to save money, but in reality you could be using something as minute as that to give off an air of professionalism.

When a record executive or prospective manager is at a show scoping out new bands there are several things that are always on their checklist. How well does the band interact with the audience? How is the audience receiving the music? Do the performers have “star quality”? And what does their merch table look like?

Merch is a clear indication as to whether or not a band takes their music seriously and wants to pursue it professionally. If there are a couple of shirts strewn across the table, printed badly and nobody is at the table ready to sell some to prospective buyers it says that you aren’t thinking the whole “professional band” thing through. Something as simple as hiring a merch person promotes the notion that as a band you are willing to commit to being professional and taking major steps toward forwarding your career.

A merch person should be eloquent, know as much as they can about the band that they are working for, be helpful with fans and excited about the music. If you hire someone who is apathetic about these things, generally your sales will be lackluster, too. Fans want to know about the band, they want to ask questions and have an intimate band experience. Sometimes they aren’t able to get that at a show and often they are too shy to directly talk to a member of the band. This attention is often redirected toward the merch person, who, depending on their connection with the band and the type of person that they are, will either be helpful and friendly or shrug off the fans’ interest. Even the minutest details about a band or their music can make someone who was kind of a fan into a die-hard fan. It is an opportunity for fans to learn more about the bands that they see and potentially even buy more things than they would have otherwise.

Merch people need to be able to handle a rush of situations coming at them at once. When a band begins to make their mark and fans begin to line up at the merch table, there is often very little way of organizing the chaos. Being able to handle that type of situation with a calm demeanor and a smile is more difficult than it would seem. Security and Attention are of the utmost importance.

So please, before you ask your buddy to sell your merch for free, please consider hiring a professional.

Your Homework: Think about concerts that you have been to in the past where a) you spent time at the merch booth and felt connected with the band, and b) you felt brushed off or ignored by the merch person and didn’t end up buying any merch at all. 

Design Portfolio: Retouching and Restoring

(click to enlarge)

Since I was just a little girl I remember seeing this picture of my Grandma all over our house. It’s something that she loved to talk about as it was the first portrait she ever had done, she was only 16 years old and it was the first time she’d ever worn make-up. I’m sure sometime in the early 1950’s she cut it and put it into its oval frame and never left it. To me it always represented a time when my Grandma was young and beautiful and every time I saw it it reminded me of how much alike we could be. When I started really getting into tattoo culture I knew right away that I wanted to pay tribute to my Grandmother by having that image tattooed on me. I told her about it a couple years ago and although she’s always been resistant to the idea, I know that she is a little bit excited about it. I finally got her to lend me the picture so that I could take it home and give it to my tattoo artist, but I wanted to fix it up a little bit as it has faded over the last 60 years due to sun damage.

The first scan is of the original photo. As you can see there is a dark ring around the photo which is the original colouring, this part was covered up by the frame and never had the sun touch it. I wanted to return the photo to its natural state so I used Photoshop to restore it back to what I think is a pretty close match to its original loveliness. The idea for my tattoo is going to be a portrait with a baroque design style framing it, but I wanted to add a bit of colour into the face when tattooing, not too much and very subtle, just to bring it to life. I thought it’d be interesting to see what colour would do to the photo, so I did a bit of work on it and the version on the far right is how it came out.

Personally I like the colour version the best, it has a very misty but lifelike quality about it. I tried to use subtle colours and really punch out certain aspects like the fact that my Grandma has blue eyes and that her lips were probably a pretty dark red as this was shot in the 1940’s. Over all, I think it turned out pretty amazingly and I can’t wait for her to see the finished result.