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Unique boutique City Kid Style wotto tees

Occasionally I am blessed with the opportunity to work with a brand who gives me a good amount of creative freedom. City Kid Style is one such brand. This unique boutique store offers printed “basics” and unique one of a kind hand made kids clothing. The brain child of a Washington mom with a local, sustainable and American made message, this brand has a great products.

I was commissioned to create a tee centered around a well know Oscar Wilde quote. The brief was loose and afforded me the luxury of letting the design unfold organically. I tried to represent the young kids who would wear this tee with characters, words and positive energy that reflected the spirit of the brand. A mass of characters and doodles developed into a unique slightly heart shaped composition. Happiness, Education, Home and Friendship were all represented in a fun and unique way.

My work allows me to work with giant brands and smaller boutique companies like City Kid Style. One thing is for sure it always feels good to support a small business lead by people with passion and a dream. We should all support our local, creative and sustainable businesses, it’s in all of our interests. Take the time to support this brand and pick up one of  their tees here.

It has been said that opposites attract. Well let’s hope so because BrewLink Brewing Co. have just released two stouts in one amazing 4pack. BrewLink Stout Cans consist of a dark oatmeal stout and a lighter white stout. Two cans of each unique stout flavors make up the mixed four pack. A genius idea with Ebony & Ivory literally living side by side.

I have worked with BrewLink on their branding and this is the second 4 pack of beer I have worked on for them, the first being a delicious Pale Ale.  The brand is still in it’s early years but so far has been well received. For this beer the owners had a very strong upfront idea. Black and white opposing cans. They had also commented on my doodle art and how much they liked it, so I combined the two ideas.  The result was a four pack of striking cans with lots of hidden details and weirdness. Enough to get the attention of a consumer in a sea of over populated craft beer cans. Job done. I cannot wait to taste this stuff…if the last one was anything to go by these will be delicious.

If you are in the Plainfield, IN area you should try and get some of this stuff and pour it into your mouth hole. The Brewery now also has a Tap House location for exclusive tastings and all things BrewLife.

wotto’s  ‘Calavera V’ design launches DBH Subscription Boxes 

Design By Humans launched a subscription box in December 2015. The first box was art directed by Sage Hagan, who invited me to be the very first featured artist in a DBH subscription box. The box comprised of two limited edition T-shirts only available by subscribing to the box. The theme was Birth and Death, thankfully I got Death. It seemed fitting to submit a Calavera Day of the Dead skull, as that’s a style I am very well known for at DBH.

I created ‘Calavera V’ in vector form using a limited grayscale color pallet. The final tee was printed on a super soft heather charcoal tee using discharge inks for a quality finish. The box, when assembled consisted of two tees, mine and a ‘Birth’ themed Phoenix design by the very talented Studio8worx.  Packed with the tees were sticker sets, postcards and a card describing the theme and artist bio. This was an interesting challenge and something different for me, an honor to be placed next to such a talented artists. I’m told it was received very well by the fans too.

Famebit launches promotional t-shirts and shoes with doodle art by wotto.

I recently had the opportunity to work with Famebit, a company that matches influential social people with products and opportunities. I was asked to create a promotional design that could be used on t-shirts  and shoes, maybe other items too. After a short discussion they were drawn to my doodle style. It fit the job well and they gave me a long list of items, words and stuff that they felt visually represented their brand.

I created a fun vector design that encompassed all of the elements mentioned, everything from ceiling cat memes to a selfie stick stick man! The color palette reflected their core branding and the final tee was printed really well. They gave away several pairs of converse shoes as part of the promotion, you can see them here. Famebit also sent me a nice care package to see the tee first hand, always a sign of a great client. The quality was good and another cool client was added to my list.

Billabong t-shirt design by wotto

I worked with Billabong’s Art Director for 3 years between 2010 – 2013 designing tees for their apparel lines. After many concepts and back and forthings my first design was selected. The design was called ‘La Playa’ which featured a very detailed illustrative surfing Day of the Dead character. This design was very successful and Billabong printed the artwork beautifully. It went on to feature on several colors and crossed the globe in several forms, ending in Australia as a kids seasonal tee in 2012. Most of the other pieces I created were in a similar style, on the back of the first one being such a success.

Eventually the company took a different graphic direction with a trend change and I moved on to other projects. This experience while painfully slow taught me a lot and put me in front of many other clients. La Playa is still a T-shirt I see around and definitely the one that people reference years later. It was worn by a few people on TV shows and Kevin from The Kevin & Bean Show wore it several times.

Legion Headwear Release wotto Beanie Design

Legion Headwear and Apparel  are a new company specializing in some very cool headwear. To launch their brand they held an art contest to select one beanie and one cap to add to their existing line of headwear. I entered the fray and came out on top in the beanie category. My design ‘Chalk Doodles’ was selected as the winner and went into immediate production. A few months later the company released the final product.

The good people at Legion sent me some samples of the winning design and made it available online. The quality is really nice and my son immediately wanted to wear it for the rest of the day. A nice fresh mint color with a doodled pattern, this hat is ideal for the slopes. I’m really happy with the final product and can’t recommend it enough. It’s selling fast so if you want one go grab one.

StarWars x wotto Apparel. How often can you cross something off your bucket list? Not very is the answer. Well recently I crossed off working with Lucas Films & Disney on StarWars merchandise! Pretty amazing. It was an opportunity that arose through Design By Humans. One design led to several and here we are. Having my art approved by these industry giants was mind-blowing. A lengthy process but worth every nail-biting moment of it. I completed and had five designs approved, each featuring iconic characters from the movie franchise.

I designed a really mixed bunch; a cute Boba Fett, if you’re going to restyle an iconic Starwars character best to start with Boba.  Next I did a piece called ‘Sketched Empire’. I wanted to do a very hand drawn looking piece. I drew several of my favorite elements and composed them together, probably the least ‘wotto’ piece but the best seller of the bunch. A vector design of my favorite villain, a portrait of Darth Maul.  A Tie Fighter pilot with day of the dead style was my fourth tee. Finally I wanted to tackle the Ewoks, one of my favorite sets of characters. I wanted to make them ridiculously cute but also kind naughty. I came up with the idea that these cheeky little critters were graffiti-ing up a tree in the forest with the rebel symbol.

You can read a lot more about it here and get links to the products too.

The New Internationalist is a multi-award winning, independent, non-profit media co-operative. For over 40 years, they have specialized in investigative reporting and publishing on human rights, politics, social and environmental justice.  Each year they release a diary/planner and for the 2016 edition I was asked to contribute three pieces of my art.

The 2016 Planner features Resilience, The Infinite Struggle and The Eternal Struggle; all three pieces center around the constant struggle the planet experiences with human pollution. I was flattered to be featured alongside some cool artists. It was also nice to be featured in a publication that is attempting to change attitudes globally. If you are interested the planner can be picked up here.