Cryface Interview

Next in our series of interviews with super talented artists across the net we caught up Cryface. The Jacksonville based artist has worked with massive clothing brands like Iron Fist. With large prints featuring artistic illustrated designs becoming the trend Cryface's amazing drawing ability has seen his artwork become much in demand. We caught up with Cryface to ask him just about everything we could think of, thankfully he was cool enough to answer everyone of them.

TFS - Hi Stephen, thanks for doing this. Firstly tell us how you got into graphic design and designing shirts?

CF - Well I have always been interested in art and drawing. Growing up I always wanted to be a comic book artist. When my son was born (2001) I needed to get a real job and gave up every hope on making a living as an artist. I enrolled into collage to get my degree in information technology. While in school and working full time I came across emptees.com. Just for fun I started putting up t-shirt designs. After a few months I was contacted by we are the ocean to do a design for them. Over time more and more bands and clothing lines contacted me and I dropped my day job to part time to focus on my designing. So in a nut shell, I started by accident.

TFS - What inspires your work? (Music, an artist, another designer, etc.)

CF - Everything does. It may be a song, a movie, a cartoon, a toy or just an odd shaped tree. Inspiration comes from everywhere. You just have to keep your eyes open and you will fine inspiration in almost anything.

TFS - What is your entire process when designing a shirt?

CF - I generally start with a digital or pencil sketch. I then ink the sketch in Manga Studio. Front there I will take it to Photoshop t add any effects (splats, textures, etc). Then I take it to adobe illustrator and turn it into vector art. Then I will take it back to Photoshop to do the color separations and halftones.

TFS - How did you first become noticed as a designer?

CF - Emptees, nuff said.

TFS - What is the most important thing to remember when designing a shirt?

CF - There are 3 things really. 1. Remember it is a shirt so there are very specific size constraints. 2. Know how many colors you can work with. Screen printing limits the amount of colors you can use and most clients want 4-6 colors only. 3. COMPOSITION!!!

TFS - How is being a freelance graphic designer different from working under a company

CF - I have no idea, I have only free lanced, although I can only speculate. I guess working for a company limits the amount of control on what jobs you take. I take work that I am excited about and turn down what I don't want to do. I would think that you don’t have that option working for a design company.

TFS - Do you differentiate styles when working with different clients or do you just have one general style you stick with? If so, how do you change it?

CF - Yes and no. All of my work can be spotted as my work but I will give the art a different feel or look depending on what the job is. Some projects require a more cartoony look and some need to be more realistic. In shot I try to keep a style that is mine and yet still try to be diverse.

TFS - How do you relate music to clothing?

CF - I have always been a fan of band shirts. I am a huge metal and hard core punk fan. I would go to a lot of shows and always bring home at least one t-shirt. To me the shirt is art and a way for you to say “hey I love this band”. Besides bands still need merch to make money.

THS - Due to the decline in the music industry bands are beginning to rely more on merchandise sales than record sales. Do you believe that this is causing bands to care more about their merchandise than their music?

CF - No. Bands are made up of musicians. Most of the time these musicians are not visual artists. Bands will generally higher an artist or get a friend to do their merch for them. The band does this so they don't have to worry about their merch so much and focus on the music. Besides, I don’t care how cool a bands shirt is, if the music sucks, the band sucks.

TFS - Do you believe that being in a band helps designers get noticed faster?

CF - No, being a good artist helps you get noticed as a designer and being in a band helps you get noticed as a musician. Horsebites is a good musician and is in some great bands, but I did not become a fan of his art because I like his bands, I became a fan of his art because it is great art.

TFS - Do you believe that the music industry uses the clothing industry as a crutch more than the clothing industry uses the music industry, or visa verse?

CF - Neither, they work in tandem with each other. The music industry and the clothing industry are working together to create the different styles that we see today.

Thanks Stephen, check out the Cryface website to see his artwork or contact details at http://www.cryface.com/

Atomic Child Interview

Its been a while, but finally TFS has returned. We're kicking this come back off with a series of artist interviews. We've been hooking up with artists online to ask them what inspires them, what drives them, what made them start and what made them get noticed.

Our first artist up is Denver based Atomic Child, who has worked with bands like All American Rejects and Forever The Sickest Kids, and online clothing companies like 8 bit Zombie. With his client list getting longer and his free time shorter, we managed to catch up with AC and asked him a few quick questions about whats driving him to success.

TFS - Hi Jimmy, thanks for doing this interview. Firstly tell us a bit about your self and what made you get into drawing and creating artwork, and what or who inspired you to first pick up a pencil and draw?

AC - Thank you for the interview. I would say I have no idea how it all started as like many other artists I have been drawing my whole life. I would say the difference with me was that I never stopped. I live in Denver Colorado and I do Graphic apparel design fulltime for my job.

TFS - You’ve worked with some really cool companies and bands, who have been you’re favourite to work with and who have challenged you the most?

AC - My favorite companies so far have been Randrtees and 8bitzombie. The reason I choose these two companies is that they let me do whatever I wanted to pretty much and well that rules.

TFS - You’ve worked with some large bands like All American Rejects and Forever the Sickest Kids, how did you build up a reputation which has lead you to gaining work with these types of bands

AC - In all honesty you just have to email people and let them see your work that I started with a few small bands and do some killer work then email everyone you can. It just takes off after that.

TFS - Would you say you have your own style of design? And how did you go about building your style and making sure it different to the other artists out there. With there being so many other artists online how important is it that you stand out?

AC - I would say when it comes to my illustrations I have my own style. I have often wondered how a style comes about. I for one never made a decision to draw the way I do it is just the way I draw. I would say standing out in todays everyone has a copy of photoshop times is really important.

TFS - What type of things do you take influence from when creating artwork? Do you take influence from other current or past artists?

AC - I really try to not look at other artwork before I start working on something. I want to just let my mind wonder and create what comes out. I would say in college though I loved Keith Harings work and it influenced how I think about line work and its impact.

TFS - Have you got any exciting projects on just now or coming up that you can talk about?

AC - Other than continually staying busy and loving what I do…… nope

TFS - What advice would you give to anyone wanting to start out as an artist?

AC - Well if you want to be and artist and make a career out of it you have to know it is one of the hardest things to do. You have to be a business man and a creative person everyday all day and never stop creating. I would say just go for it work hard and show your artwork to everyone.

TFS - Finally what music are you listening to right now and what music should we be looking out for this year?

AC - I am listening to Flatfoot 56 right now while a write this. You should be looking for a lot more atomic child artwork to be put out. THANK YOU

Thanks Jimmy! If you want to check out Atomic child's artwork or contact him you can at http://www.atomicchild.com/

Chris from INK interview

With so many clothing companies appearing from around the country, its not easy for any of them to make a name for themselves. Glasgow based company INK clothing have had as hard a time as any, being one of the first DIY companies to appear online back in 2005, its been a long journey that now seems to be paying off. With a new range just released and work with EMI records coming up, INK finally seems ready to get some of the attention it deserves. We first met the boys from INK when they redesigned the TFS blog a few months ago. Since then we've witnessed first hand just how much hard work the guy behind the company put in, we managed to catch up with creative director Chris to find out whats going down.

TFS - Hi Chris, thanks for doing this, firstly tell us a bit about your self and what you do in INK.

Chris - Well I am currently employed as a graphic designer, and have recently made the jump into the digital world I.E web design etc. The rest of my time is spent doing freelance work and designing INK stuff. The hope is, to one day be self sufficient, when this new range does well who knows what will happen! And with the work we are doing with EMI Records, there are certainly lots of doors slowly opening for us. It’s really an exciting time at the moment!

TFS - Tell us a bit about how INK started and what you’ve been up to over the last couple of years

Chris - If I’m being honest, I’d have to give my brother credit for starting this company and coming up with the whole idea. I can only speculate on why it all began, but I’d say it was a combination of seeing what was on offer from other clothing companies, deciding we could compete(maybe) and just the exciting nature of the whole thing! It certainly has been quite an adventure – and with this new range you can really see how we have developed as individuals (who accept their responsibilities) and as a company! I’d say my tasks are visualising concepts that we come up with – granted I do go off on my own from time to time – but it usually starts with us sitting down and saying ‘we need a new range... what do you want to do?’ then it just stems from there. Plenty of discussion, plenty of ‘debates’. Then I will do some sketches, fire up illustrator and so on... so yeah I do the designing or something like that. I also designed and built our website (and styled this blog).

TFS - Tell us a bit about the new range.

Chris - Developed, mature, exciting, colourful, magnificent, perfect, crisp, clean, fresh, zingy, fruity, delicious, focused, organised and our absolute best work to date! Maybe that’s down to the help we got or our new focus and drive (certainly mine). We actually finished it ahead of schedule! And it was the least stressful ‘range creation’ to date... we got it right this time! Let’s just hope it gets the acclaim and publicity (I think) it deserves!

TFS - have you got any other projects your working on

Chris - Well we just released our new range so we’ll mostly be working on promoting that, that’s the main project just now. As I said before though we’ve been working with EMI records on a range of tshirts for them, using lyrics from songs they own, we’ve got some great designs for Nirvana, Calvin Harris and others on the way, so that’s a big project that we’re looking forward to continuing with. What else will I be doing…. Trying to grow a decent beard. Playing with Fruity Loops and tending to the website.

TFS - being a ‘music inspired clothing company’ what roll has the music scene played in the growth of INK

Chris - Yeah we are a music inspired clothing company, and we take a lot of inspiration from the music scene when we’re designing our clothing. Music and fashion have always been linked so we try to let the music we’re into at the time influence the clothing we’re designing. INK does try to work with bands as well, promoting them so they promote us. We’ve ran a couple of gig nights, to be honest though I cant say we’ve had to many great experiences working with bands. To many of them don’t support you back well enough, and come with egos that they just haven’t earned and shouldn’t have.

TFS - INK promotes itself as an eco friendly company, what does ink do to help the environment.

Chris - We promote and donate to the World Land Trust, and print all our designs on eco friendly materials, like bamboo (not friendly for pandas) and 100% organic cotton. And we never ever print designs out on paper when we review them.

TFS - With so many DIY clothing companies starting in the last few years, how do you make ink stand out from the rest and what advice would you give anyone wanting to stat a clothing company

Chris - I think the trick is to stay true to your believes! Before any designing, in fact before anything is done I think it is important to create an ethos for yourself, for your ‘company’ and never deviate from that! Decide on a target market, decide on how you want your company to be perceived, decide on a style and do as much bloody research as you can!! Then do some more. Then decide how you can improve on what is already out there. Set your standards high and don’t let them drop! It’s taken me a long time to realise this! Oh and work hard.

TFS - finally what music are you listening to right now.

Chris - Well I’m in a bit of transitional period at the moment! I really love a good bit of heavy metal, Pantera, Metallica, Slayer... and so on, the usual suspects y’know, great to play and great to watch! But the stuff is just too hard to work to! So I have really got into electro, none of your ‘trancy’ crap though, just good beats, good bass lines and plenty of elektribe vibes splashed over the top – that’s’ where it’s at for me at the moment. For example ‘Hadouken’, ‘Does It Offend You, Yeah?’, ‘Danger’, ‘Yuksek’, ‘Moderat’, ‘In Flagranti’, ‘Vitalic’ and plenty of good stuff I don’t know the name of. Also, album artwork is far more interesting in the electro scene! Who wants black all the time – let’s see some vibrant colours! Definitely and influence on my INK work anyway.

Thanks Chris, check out INK's new range at their website http://www.inkclothing.co.uk/

INK IV - Coming Soon

So our friends over at INK have been jumping up and down and getting very excited about INK IV. We're not really sure what INK IV is, but we're guessing its their new range which we've heard is due out some time in March. They have released a small INK IV ad which is above. Keep checking their site www.inkclothing.co.uk for more news.