dann matthews

welcome back, wooters!

2010-08-02T23:03:00.000-07:00

i have a 3rd design up for sale at shirt.woot today:

if you have a moment to poke around, please do. i always appreciate it. i have a couple items for sale through my big cartel, society6 and red bubble stores.

i also have a couple designs up for vote over at threadless if you have a moment to flex your mouse clicking finger(s):

july updates.

2010-07-13T09:12:00.000-07:00

rather than attempt a cutesy title for this post, i think july updates will suffice.

i have been paying much more attention to my tweets and facebook than i have this poor blog, so i'll place a creative dump of everything i have worked on for the last month.

some of these will be up for voting at threadless soon:

this one is already in the running at threadless:

and a bit of good news, shirt.woot will be featuring one of my designs sometime soon. good news for me, as i needed to pay for a window i broke, repair some plumbing and get caught up on some bills.

holiday weekend bonanza!

2010-06-01T19:25:00.000-07:00

every holiday weekend i design more than usual. this weekend i put 2 new designs up on threadless.

this first one is titled, "everyday."

and the second is more of my character art, this one is titled "ptero pteam."

please vote and let me know what you think of the designs!

make your walls awesome!

2010-05-26T18:22:00.000-07:00

i have 2 poster prints available at society6.

the first is a design that was recently featured as "side art" during my recent teefury sale, and a lot of people seemed to dig it:

click here to buy.

the second is one of my favorites (because it's my wife's favorite):

click here to buy.

society6 came to my attention when threadless put out a call to all artists to submit and join their sure to be well trafficked collaborative "storefront". both of these pieces are currently vying for a space in their "store", but i'm up against hundreds of other excellent artists, so i'm crossing my "fingers". lots of air quotes.

i have also recently tweaked my site. now all of my shirts, posters, stickers and playing cards are collected in one single "buy" page. i have also moved my limited run tees that i still own the rights to back to the "designs" page under the cumbersome title "designs sold at limited sites & still available for sale."

"more quotes"

sticker sale!

2010-05-18T06:09:00.001-07:00

thanks to a really great sales day at tee fury, and the interest shown for my plaidinum stickers, i have them on sale for a limited time!

buy here!

now 17% off, plus extra stickers shoved in to each order envelope!

sale runs until 5/19 at 11:59pm est

mario is dead?!

2010-05-16T23:05:00.000-07:00

i am very pleased to have an older design of mine up for sale on teefury.com for the next 24 hours:

click here to buy now.

tee fury is also currently running a promotion to win some free plaidinum stickers:

click here to enter on teefury, or click here to bypass the uncertainty and buy yourself a set.

a lot of folks on tee fury have expressed interest in my star wars themed side art (or as the tee fury word filters have retitled them, "dancing with the stars" themed) i would love some help with my design tatooine trash on threadless:

~~last day!~~ nope, voting is over.

hello ripters!

2010-05-11T06:35:00.000-07:00

i figured it'd be nice to put together a specialized message to the new folks visiting my site from my may 12th sale of my construct-a-trooper design at ript apparel.

if you're way into star wars, i have some stickers that might interest you:

and another shirt:

and another design up for vote on threadless:

check back soon, i have another design up for sale next week on tee fury.

toasted yoshi.

2010-05-06T09:30:00.000-07:00

2 new shirts on sale via crazy dog:

buy here.
you'll notice that they removed the toads i had in the original design (possibly for color count) that made this design look like a toadstool school field trip. i like the way this turned out.

buy here
and i have always held this design near and dear to my heart. this is the first design i had made where i really felt i had seen the idea in my head turn into a decent sketch, and then translated it into decent vector art. i am very pleased to see this finally on sale.

i have 2 more designs coming up for sale in the next 2 weeks at a couple different "limited time" sites, so check back!

tartan on a tauntaun.

2010-04-21T21:20:00.000-07:00

while shamelessly googling "plaidinum" the day after its initial sale on teefury last year, i came across a blog stating that the design was not plaid, but actually tartan. i learned something from google!

why am i outing myself for the self-googling? because "plaidinum." is now on sale forever at redbubble.

i also included "lycaena gygax." in an array of colors:

also, the "plaidinum." stickers ~~will be here on saturday~~ are here!

ghost ride the whip!

2010-04-10T02:27:00.000-07:00

a pacman/ghost rider design i pieced together tonight.

"ghost ride the whip!" i will joyfully exclaim that quote, though it is one of many internet memes that i never quite understood. i have a healthy hypothesis regarding the quotes origin, so i figure that counts.

this will be up for voting on threadless soon:

i turn 29 on monday; and with all the deadlines i hit and had shuffled around this last 2 weeks, i'm guessing that the clients don't want me to make it to 30 0.o;

i see it has been a while since i last blogged, here are a few more designs i have completed in the meantime:

this one is titled "cuspids." and shortly after posting this to emptees, i was informed that someone already beat me to the punch and made this exact idea into a shirt.

and for something (kinda) new under the sun:

"construct-a-trooper."

i'm old, i'm off to sleep now... or i'll watch my dvr'd soup episode... then sleep.

the yin and the yang.

2010-03-29T20:58:00.000-07:00

i had an interesting day.

i worked from 9am until 10pm, and that really wasn't any fun. missed spending time with the family, relaxing after a normal sized stressful day, etc.

but in an effort to balance out the boo-hoos, the cosmos delivered unto me 3 things:

montana flash!

this is one of those overly-expensive rock band figurines that are carved from ceramic by a 3d sculpting/painting machine. and that alone is pretty keen. but even cooler is that this character is a doppleganger for my father circa 1970. my dad was nicknamed "montana flash" (hence the custom shirt graphics i created for him) and it was a shirt design i made for my dad's birthday a decade ago that piqued my interest into the legacy that is, montana flash.

so that was pretty cool.

and on top of that, i finally received my monster league baseball playing cards!

the pre-orders are shipping out, click here to order yours today!

and lastly, my wife surprised me with new tank tops. this is fantastic solely because of the unexplainable lack of them in our area outside of the summer months. i know i live in wisconsin, but there weren't even any wife-beaters in the walmarts... that's absurd. so the 3 month wait is over.

you take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have the facts of life. the facts of life.

1960's clerks intro.

2010-03-27T12:15:00.000-07:00

after seeing the myriad saul bass inspired and re-imagined movie intros on the web, i went to work retooling my personal favorite movie: clerks.

sunny day, sweeping the clouds away!

2010-03-25T18:45:00.000-07:00

finally.

i'm contributing to pop-culture rather than just parodying or riding its coattails.

late last year, threadless was contacted to take part in a project focusing on sesame street characters. the staff then brought it to the alumni group (printed threadless designers) to come up with an idea to make a collaborative piece that centered around what makes grover who he is. the idea of his traveling tales trunk came up and the group went to work on grover's stickers collected on his journey.

the full project was for "t-world magazine" an australian bi-yearly publication, and the magazine just came out today:

and here is an early scan of the magazine (if you squint, my name is creditted third from the bottom right)

click here to zoom

if you want to get a better idea of the construction of this collab, please visit the flickr set. and an extra special thanks to ian leino for compiling everything and keeping us all in the loop!

last we had heard, t-world and the folks at children's television workshop were very interested in seeing this printed on (can you guess?) t-shirts! i would be very pleased to see that happen!

posters are here!

2010-03-24T16:18:00.000-07:00

wheeeeeee!

it's so exhilarating to see your own work as a tangible product!

the baseball cards (the other portion of this monster league baseball set) should be done very soon. you can pre-order now by clicking on any of the words in this sentence, but not the exclamation point!

march madness.

2010-03-23T23:11:00.000-07:00

i have to thank a handful of my designer friends and my wife for making my store's inventory a lot more enticing to potential shoppers.

for the most part, i had edited the previous blog to reflect the changing offers, but as it stands now (sorry for the double post of this merch) there is:
a poster set

you have your choice of 1 of 5 of my monster league baseball characters (detail shots of each can be seen here) on a 11.75x16.8 inch poster plus a set of all 6 characters on their own baseball cards.

i just finished all the art for the backs of the cards (that's right, 2-sided, did i just blow your mind?) and i had some fun writing the bios for each character. the bio for reginald carg has been out there for over a year, but i figure i'll leave the rest as a surprise for the folks who buy the poster set or the individual order of the cards.

and second, is my updated plaidinum sticker set:

i just found out that my order of stickers will include the smaller "cell phone" stickers, so those are now included in a 3 sticker pack. i originally had just one sticker on there, but where's the fun of ordering a kick-ass sticker online, getting it in the mail a few days later and then sticking it on a stop sign and leaving empty handed (vandalism!)? now you can have one for your bumper, one for your grandma, a little one for your cell phone, and one to deface public property!

the posters are already being printed, and the cards should start printing tomorrow. the stickers are paid for and queued up on the press. now i just have to spend a few more dollars on mailing tubes (it's more expensive to ship the damn tubes to myself than the tubes actually cost :P ) and i'm ready to start spreading the madness. join me, won't you? preorder today!

a non-merchy postscript, i have risen from my design by hümans slumber and submitted a couple designs tonight. i'll be sure to let everyone know when they're up for voting. (the time is now! lycaena gygax and the unveiling.)

post-postscript, i've been listening to comedy death ray, i love movies and nerdist podcasts over the past week. my goodness, who knew there was more hilarity in the podcasting world outside of the smodcast universe! fantastic.

merchy swag!

2010-03-21T01:39:00.000-07:00

i have been contemplating getting my monster league baseball project printed for some time now, and i finally got some print quotes and i'm ordering up posters and baseball cards this week.

to celebrate, (and sell them) i have set up a store at big cartel, and took one of my more popular designs and i'm getting it printed up as die-cut stickers.

right now, both products are on pre-order. i'm having the posters and cards printed at a local printer, i expect those by the first week of april at the latest. and the stickers have an expected 4 week wait, so those will be in by late april at the earliest. i have a limited amount of each, so get your pre-orders in now!

toys!

2010-03-18T08:08:00.000-07:00

patch together is a site where people submit their character art for voting. this winning designs get made into figurines. i currently have my character, clyde, up for vote:

here's clyde:

and here's where you can vote:

let's make toys!

drinking and driving.

2010-03-11T07:47:00.000-08:00

i have 2 new designs up for vote on threadless.

one is a "what if" for the world of tron:

the other is a classy version of the beer hat:

out of 1-ups?

2010-03-09T18:43:00.000-08:00

here's a little sneak peak to a (possibly) soon-to-be-printed design for the folks who dove deep enough into my site to read my blog :D

and here's some weird late news. i had sold a design to a korean company about half a year ago, and then never saw the design surface. my curiosity got the best of me and i decided to search their site, and lo and behold, there it was. so i have categorized this on my site as a "recently printed" design, but i have no idea how long it has been on their site.

click here to buy.

they added a stressed treatment to the design and my hometown of wisconsin was "translated" to milwaukee... interesting.

awesome!

2010-03-09T14:23:00.001-08:00

i recently complained on facebook that the city of duluth was featured on the awesomer before any of my work was.

then, yesterday, my design, "plaidinum." went up for sale on teextile.

and i finally got my wish, a small 300x250 pixel stake of real estate on the awesomer.

this has been a dream since i first found the awesomer following a link from a dick firestorm shirt. now if only i were as awesome as mr. firestorm...

come to the plaid side.

2010-03-08T05:39:00.000-08:00

if you missed your chance at getting my "plaidinum." design on tee fury last year, here's a second chance!

click here to buy now!

this design sold well enough to get into tee fury's top 10 selling designs last year, so i am hopeful that having this design available for a full week at teextile (maybe more?) will at least match the level of awesome it did there!

slick.

2010-03-07T00:55:00.000-08:00

i spent the evening redesigning danndesigns.com's look, and as much as i detest words like "edgy" and "hip"... i have to say that i went for a "slick" new look.

i whittled down the amount of designs, so to see my full body of work, you should check my flickr page.

and to celebrate the new doman/new design, i put together a video on the home page. i was inspired by a blog on threadless collecting initial sketches of printed threadless designs, to both contribute, and make this video:

that same video is also integrated into my new site, so be sure to check it out there as well!

sales bonanza.

2010-03-01T19:42:00.000-08:00

huge edit! feel free to read the post below, but these shirts are no longer on sale. i was either unlucky, or scammed. i'm hoping it was the former. this company just folded a week after opening, and will be refunding all purchases made. that seems legit, but this company now has my print ready art for the shirts seen below. so my designs may show up in china or malaysia (hot spots for stolen designs).

the tshirt vault site is now live, and you can buy my shirts!

i am thrilled to have these designs on sale, especially the butterfly/glasses design. a buyer from fueled by ramen (or a manager) contacted me interested in showing the design to the band paramore, but they passed. and i've always had a lot of interest in my "the death of super grover." design when in the sidebar art on tee fury, so i'm hoping that parlays into a lot of sales.

what's in it for me? besides seeing the smiles on the faces of the children? i take in $3 per shirt sold, and i have a chance at getting a chunk of a $10,000 prize if i am one of the top 5 designs sold on that site. so, please, tell your friends. order 12 in case 11 of them are destroyed in a chemical fire. it could happen!

more meta mario!

2010-02-25T08:09:00.000-08:00

i have a new design up for vote on threadless:

i even have a little back story for the design:
"lakitu towing
'the art of knowing kart towing'

"after time spent in jail, lakitu reentered the world a changed, and determined man. he started his towing business using the same vehicle he had previously used for misdeeds. it took lakitu a while, but he proved himself time and time again, helping stranded motorists from the stickiest of situations. lakitu was finally awarded full sponsorship of the star cup (a local kart racing tournament) and has become a hero to many on the road to victory.

"this is the official lakitu towing shirt worn by the lakitu staff."

if you like it, please show me some love on emptees as well!

so bright, i've gotta wear shades!

2010-02-23T21:36:00.000-08:00

a lot of cool stuff coming up this year, and only minor uncertainty.

i have 6 new shirts coming soon. 3 of them i spoke of in my previous blog, 2 of them will be for a new website launching soon, and the last one is awaiting placement (if it gets printed)

i will be printed in (and on) a couple of published books this year. one is for certain, but it's a project i can't speak about yet, and the other i was contacted to take part, but i have no guarantee that i'll be included.

i just spent an hour sifting through my entire blog for some designs to submit to the latter book project i spoke of. and i felt the need to update the blog. i am tired. i should head up to bed.

3 new prints coming soon!

2010-02-14T09:09:00.000-08:00

there is a new competition in town that is raising some eyebrows. well, some brows are being furrowed.

tshirtvault.com has a new contest model that awards designers $3 per $19 shirt sold, and the top 5 designs sold get a portion of a $10,000 prize.

why are brows being furrowed? some find the setup incredulous, and even i feel like i am gambling as i submit designs into the competition. the detail that is concerning artists is the fact that you have to send it print ready art from the word go. the first rule of design is to never send the print ready art until you have cleared the check. and for tshirtvault.com to start selling your designs, it's a necessity to have this art up front.

the fear is that these designs could end up being ripped off. the company is brand new and hasn't had the time to build any trust with the online designer community.

i am throwing my hat in only because i see other respected designers taking the same gamble. and if we're ripped off, i will commiserate with good company; if that's any consolation.

now that i've waded through the uncertainty, i'll speak to the perks. barring rejection from tshirtvault.com, these designs will definitely be available to purchase on march 1st:

this eliminates a lot of work for designers. usually, when a design is finished, a designer looks at the different competition communities threadless, emptees, design by hümans, tee fury, shirt.woot, etc.) and guess which one is the best fit. then you submit and cross your fingers for prize money or 24 hour partial sales compensation. all tried and true systems, no doubt.

tshirtvault.com operates more like the old bountee.com (now a different company, hence no link) where every design submitted is available for sale, there's no uncertainty. and unless you win one of the top 5 sales spots, you retain your designs artistic rights and can pull the design at anytime to sell elsewhere (which raises the issue of the bigger design competitions not accepting previously printed designs, no matter how low the quantity, they're tainted.)

so i'm hopeful, and i have selected designs that are particular to tshirtvault's printing process and have been favorites when featured as sidebar art on sites like tee fury, but have never been printed. so please, spread the word. make my gamble worthwhile and help me get in the top 5 printed designs!

the desperate plea.

2010-02-13T21:44:00.001-08:00

itunes just shit the bed.

i have been playing my 7,000+ songs in itunes since i first fell in love with my imac 4 years ago.

every song has been imported by itunes off of cds or purchased through the itunes store. (i bring this up so everyone understands that the aac codecs are all correct for itunes playback)

i recently purchased a couple itouches, and i noticed that some songs refused to play.

then i find that those same songs refuse to play on my imac as well.

no error messages, itunes is still pointed to the correct folder containing all of the music (both the songs that still play and the thousands that don't) and nothing happens.

i reinstalled itunes, and it immediately picked up where it had left off, same problems.

i then pointed itunes to an empty music folder, tried out a few songs and got the error message that it couldn't find that track. perfect, right? nope. the songs that wouldn't play before still did nothing. no reaction from itunes at all.

pointed itunes to the correct folder again and i still have the same problem.

insult to injury is that a call to apple will cost me a one time fee for them to walk me through how to fix a problem caused by using their software and their products together, as i can only imagine the itouches are the catalyst for this problem (chronologically speaking, at least.)

i bring this up in my oft-neglected blog as a final cry for help.

i have tried all the google-fu at my disposal, and i can only find fixes for windows operating systems.

has apple gone rotten?

sha-na-na-na-na-na knees, knees!

2010-02-10T19:43:00.000-08:00

i have a new design going up for sale on teefury tonight at midnight titled "use your illusion." (hence the comical title to this blog)

if you're having a hard time deciphering why i think this design is interesting, start looking at it knowing that it's an optical illusion. your mind has just been blown, courtesy of dann matthews.

this sale, like all teefury sales, is only for 24 hours, and it's dirt cheap. so go pawn your dirt!

damn squatters!

2010-01-28T14:09:00.000-08:00

thanks to my ego, i quickly found out i had lost something dear to me.

while twittering with old bandmate and fellow designer, justin peterson, i found out that dannmatthews.com was gone.

it has been purchased by a domain squatter, who buys up hundreds of derelict domains to then sell them back at ridiculous markups to the poor schmos who lost them. call me mr. schmo. i hadn't kept up with the yearly charge by sheer ignorance and a previously unused broken email account as my lifeline to godaddy.

so, i almost hesitated (almost) calling the new owner of dannmatthews.com a squatter, as i have asked him/her/satan how much they would like to buy it back. but something tells me i'm 100% correct in my prejudice.

so, i just purchased danndesigns.com, and after i await the pending server re-point, i'll have a new home.

at least it's not a bad domain, it's just not as great as being able to own my own name :/

new website! (2.1)

2010-01-23T14:47:00.000-08:00

i have been meaning to update my website for some time. while i was very pleased with the easy to update look of version 2, i was never 100% pleased with the completion.

so i started making some alterations (most notably on the designs page) and bringing in something more (dare i use the adjective) "dynamic".

click here to take a look for yourself.

i will most like make my way through the shop page and finish off the rounded look, as well as rearrange the stock, as a lot of the shirts have sold out (indefinitely or otherwise)

for now, the "up for vote" section i had on the home page has been removed. i might revisit that in the future. i may also add my twitter feed... or i may get off the computer and make myself a sandwich. the possibilities are endless!

fuzzlebeast.

2010-01-14T07:10:00.000-08:00

threadless is running a 10k prize competition. this year's theme is new trends.

so i looked at the (extremely) vast collection of threadless shirts and saw a lot of designs that tell a great, well thought out story. not too many left the story open-ended for the viewer.

so i created trevor & the fuzzlebeast.

a design with enough detail to draw your own conclusions, making my suggested trend one of open-ended story telling designs.

this design should be up for vote soon.

if you would like to see how this design came together, i have the work in progress images here.

nerds unite.

2010-01-11T14:12:00.000-08:00

i have a 2nd shirt up at shirt.woot today.

it would be my third shirt with the wooters, but they had asked to buy a previously sold design at one point last year.

i am pleased to present:

i read through the forum's reviews and the posters aren't as pleased with this design as they were with my last woot design. on the other side of the same coin, this design has already sold double in the first 12 hours what the other one sold in it's entire run, and most of the tweets from strangers have been positive. take them both and there you have the facts of life... the facts of life.

shirt.woot only keeps the 20 most poular designs, so this one could be gone soon.

2009 design roundup.

2009-12-18T18:41:00.000-08:00

well, firefox tricked me into updating and rendered my fireftp add-on inoperable. so with my limited trial of fetch, i quickly made the latest design updates to my site:

turtle shells are dangerous.

2009-12-16T19:12:00.000-08:00

a shopping cart wearing a hat:

if you get it, please vote:

if you don't get it, you sir/madam, have not experienced fun in it's purest form.

more e.t., merry kwanzhanamas!

2009-12-15T19:10:00.000-08:00

if you missed your chance to order this shirt from france at the beginning of the month, here's another chance!

tee invaders will have this shirt on sale for the next 24 hours only. if there's anyone on that christmas list you've been holding out on getting a gift for, nothing says "i had no idea what to get you!" like an e.t. parody shirt!

e.t. has to buy minutes.

2009-12-03T16:31:00.000-08:00

i have a ridiculous update to the 80's classic e.t. on sale at tee48h.

the shirt will also be available in long sleeve (a tee48h first) and to celebrate warmer forearms, they are featuring my design for 72 hours, rather than the standard 48 hours (as seen in their domain name).

tee48h is a company based out of france. So, my international friends; now's your chance to own one of my designs without paying $88 shipping and worrying about customs wearing your shirt for a week before forwarding it on to you.

some designs on the horizon?

2009-11-30T11:55:00.000-08:00

i have a design coming up on the new site tee48h.com where, like teefury and their business set-up, shirts are sold for a very limited time.

tee48h gives you doule the amount of time to pick up their shirts, and they're based out of france, so if you're from that side of the pond and you dig this design:

it will be up for sale this upcoming thursday and friday (12/3-12/4... or the correct european parlance, 3/12-4/12 from what i understand) for only 10€

i am also crossing my fingers, there may be a few cool things happening this month if all goes well.

back to the future: starring shia labeouf.

2009-11-18T21:07:00.000-08:00

i recently decided to spend some of my t-shirt earnings on myself (most of them went to the house / our christmas fund) so i bought a few things that are complete wastes of money, while simultaneously completely awesome.

first, i got some miniature arcade cabinets:

seen here guided by the expert hands of twin shia's.

i got these bad boys from the big j.w., he makes custom made cabinets from centipede to donkey kong... not that those 2 titles necessarily run the gamut of gaming cabinets...

they are well constructed, much lighter than i expected, and decently put together. i was a little disappointed at the low-res pacman graphics when compared to the clear t2 cabinet's graphics.

the next thing i bought was a 1:15 scale back to the future 2 diamond select delorean (with lights and sounds from the movie!) i'm feeling a bit of buyer's remorse, solely from the price tag. but it is still an awesome detailed piece of chunky fun. (chunky fun was my username on match.com... no, i was never really on match.com, but i couldn't resist including that)

if i had a shia to scale with the delorean, i would share photos, but alas, i have not. and pictures of an empty delorean just seems sad.

so instead, i leave you with this:

t.g.i.f.13th!

2009-11-13T14:57:00.001-08:00

happy friday the thirteenth. i haven't posted in a while, i'll make up for that soon with some of the design work i've been hoarding.

to celebrate this occasion, here are some jason inspired designs i made lately:

paris 2600.

2009-10-21T20:36:00.000-07:00

i have a shirt on sale today at teefury.

a note for anyone unfamiliar with teefury's set-up.

the design is on sale for 24 hours only, then it's gone (from teefury) for good.

now you too can be the nerdiest tourist in the louvre!

partay!

2009-10-20T08:11:00.000-07:00

i've made a few more designs this month that are worth sharing.

first, it's "super smashed bros." the original title was going to be "mario partay!" and that explains why the mario party mc is pictured, despite not being in the smash brother's games.

and, just in time for halloween:

also, check back on thursday (the 22nd) i have a new shirt going up for sale somewhere on the internet, and it has to remain a secret until then.

rock the vote!

2009-10-13T09:23:00.000-07:00

threadless has a "bestee" competition every month. each design printed the month prior is voted on, and the winner receives $2,500.

"picket." (seen below) printed last month and the voting for the bestees is right now.

please vote! my very wallet depends on it!

nerdy butterfly!

2009-10-04T19:19:00.000-07:00

i have a new submission up at threadless that i'm particularly proud of.

there's a themed contest running titled "threadless loves geeks", and i frantically bugged friends on facebook and followers on twitter to lend me their glasses so i could put this together:

many many thanks to my friend dean for the photoshoot.

i created the design to display empty lenses in low light, and then when it's exposed to sunlight (uv ink) the monarch-like pattern appears. the transition can be seen here:

i've titled it "lycaena gygax.", lacaena being the butterfly genus, and gygax being the last name of the creator of dungeons and dragons. i played with the geeky name in the tag in the larger image you see above in the blog, but i chickened out of including it in the design when no one seemed to know why gygax was :P

on a personal note; the apartment's all packed up. we move into our house on friday.

wake me up when october begins.

2009-09-26T23:37:00.000-07:00

t-minus 12 days until the family moves into the new house.

i've been working on a lot of favors and a collab that have been swept into an oft forgotten corner of my mind. i apologize if you are one of these 4 or so people. i'm trying my darndest to remain creative with a house full of boxes.

threadless recently reprinted "picket." so if you missed your chance to nab "picket.", try, try again.

i recently sold a currently "secret" design to culture twist so i'm having my first design printed overseas.

i want to give a quick thank you to robbie lee. he helped me get my foot in the door at shirt.woot and eased my trepidation when i recently entered a deal with culture twist. i seem to trail him by a few days at various shirt sites, and he was recently printed at design by hümans, so i'm knocking on wood, crossing my fingers and throwing table salt over my shoulder in hopes that i finally get a print there.

i recently vectorized an earlier sketch of mickey being torn asunder:

and made a logo for my uncle's construction company:

there's another design you've already seen in these blogs that will be printed somewhere on the internet sometime soon as well. as a matter of course, this is also a secret. the world of t-shirt design is very secretive, mysterious, and treacherous, friends.

might as well carpool!

2009-09-13T14:00:00.000-07:00

something compelled me to mix the look of eddie van halen's classic guitar with the quintessential soccer mom vehicle of choice.

enjoy.

kids show characters and death in france!

2009-09-09T19:43:00.000-07:00

i recently updated my website with more designs.

if you follow me on flickr then you have already seen these:

king friday, mickey mouse, skulls, atari and paris. nothing is safe!

help me picket threadless!

2009-09-07T08:45:00.000-07:00

threadless chose my design"picket." and it just printed today!

click here to see the listing and buy one iffin' you're so inclined.

this is my second print at threadless, and i'm beyond stoked. i felt like such an adult when i turned over the entire threadless check to the bank to add to our house down payment. i'm such a big boy now.

september is busy!

2009-09-06T19:12:00.000-07:00

threadless will be printing "picket." tomorrow morning. (i'll dedicate a lil' blog to that in the a.m.)

i'm going to see kevin smith mid-month (squeeeeeel!)

i'm flying down to colorado to celebrate my aunt's retirement from the airforce

i'm meeting some old friends in denver (one of which punched me in the face when we were roommates :D )

we've been and will be very busy at work releasing a new product for a client that is time-consuming but exciting (so if anyone has been waiting on me to finish side-projects or favors, there's my reason, sorry)

and to top it all off, the family and i just bought a home, so we'll be packing furiously and going through the mountains of paperwork all month to get into the new place next month. (thanks in part to threadless' and shirt.woot's prize money giving us that last little push)

so hopefully you're not one of the individuals on my list of folks being neglected. if you are, here's a sketch of j.f.k. with a goofy haircut to tide you over:

death of the airwaves.

2009-08-26T23:11:00.001-07:00

here's my new design that is a macabre homage (oooh, spicy vernacular tonight!) to the death of traditional broadcast, now that we've gone digital:

this design is up for vote at design by hümans.

and, a reminder, i have added an "up for vote" area to the front of my website to easily find where to vote on my wearable wares. (alliteration, awesome!)

and a reminder, "on a horse with no name." is on sale until the end of this week at teextile

2 designs for sale this week!

2009-08-23T19:48:00.000-07:00

both teextile and ript apparel are featuring one of my designs this week.

this design will be on sale all week at teextile.

this design will be on sale today only at ript apparel.

the folks at teextile contacted me last sunday night asking if they could run my shirt last week, but i didn't read my email that weekend and i missed out 0.o' but luckily i was still on their roster of printables.

the ript apparel print i've been waiting on for a while now, back when the good folks at ript apparel sold my gorgeous george design, they had also taken in the teddy terror design an wanted to wait 2 months between prints. so i've been impatiently waiting ever since.

to add to my impatience, i'm posting this and updating my website 2 hours before the shirts go on sale. so here's hoping i'm not incorrect on the dates :P

the phantom of crystal lake.

2009-08-15T11:03:00.000-07:00

joing me in watching the classic play, the phantom of the opera on friday the 13th.

so much democracy!

2009-08-08T10:16:00.000-07:00

i have a lot of designs up for vote at various sites right now.

and after going in to check up on them and forgetting half the sites i have submitted designs to, i decided to compile them all in one place.

rather than setting up a favorites dropdown in my browser, i figured it may be interesting for others to peruse my votables as well. so i have added an "up for vote" area on my site's home page.

i will still update on the ol' blog here, so if you're one of those 8 people, fear not. i will continue to self-promote as shamelessly as possible on blogspot.

bags!

2009-08-03T23:09:00.000-07:00

when i first started at my current job at nelson&company, i made my first design intended to go onto a retail bag.

that, sadly, never came to fruition, and i couldn't own my own plastic piece of art.

but now, shirt.woot (who previously printed my gojirawk shirt) is having a non-shirt design contest. instead, they are asking artists to enter in a bag design for all their shipments to go out in for years to come.

they have a limited color scheme (as most bags do) so i had some fun retrofitting a design from the past few weeks into this template.

shirt.woot has always been an off-kilter place for people to congregate and purchase shirts, so i figured this design might be up their alley.

here's hoping everyone digs it, there's a decent take for the winner, so outside of seeing my design printed on plastic, it'd be nice to toss a few more bucks in the bank again.

update:
they're now up for vote:
gorrilla riding shark
8-bit jet-pack pandas

beware ye the walk-ed cross.

2009-08-03T20:27:00.000-07:00

had some time to myself this evening, so i put together a design playing with the icons within the crosswalk sign:

this will be up for vote at threadless soon, and the design has some glow in the dark expectations, click below to see how that would work out:

more designs? howcanthatbe?!

2009-08-03T10:48:00.000-07:00

i have added more designs to my website, here are the previews, all conveniently linked to my design page. how about that?!

easy, peewee, snorks.

2009-07-31T10:23:00.000-07:00

i had contemplated (and blogged) about entering the last 2 designs i made at threadless.

but the more i thought about it, i didn't think they were the best fit for threadless' audience.

so instead, i'm gambling that they're right for the teextile audience.

peewee rider.

2009-07-30T22:25:00.000-07:00

before paul ruebens teamed up with a post-frankenweenie/pre-scissorhands tim burton and made a little red bike the object of peewee's affection, there was a scooter parked in the playhouse walls:

and years earlier, a pre-waterworld dennis hopper rode easy

now, with the power of vectors, i bring to you, "peewee rider."

eat along with the snorks.

2009-07-30T07:36:00.000-07:00

for those whose childhood was deprived of the spunky underwater antics of the snorks:

not only can you play and swim along with the snorks, now you can eat along with the snorks too!

the duke of ducks.

2009-07-22T14:08:00.000-07:00

a new company contacted me today and asked if my "i (nes zapper) ducks." design was for sale.

i said yes and they bought it.

that is a short story.

the intrigue for me is that they don't have a site yet (or at least they don't have one that they sent me a url for) but the company, or parent company's name is "the duke of cool".

i'll obviously update the ol' blog here once it's up for sale. i was told to look for the site launch on august 1st.

gamer shirts make me feel all fuzzy inside.

everybody's heard about the bird.

2009-07-21T13:50:00.000-07:00

i'm part of another artist collab. for a shirt for teefury.

for those unfamiliar with teefury, they have a couple of birds as part of their logo. they utilize them more as characters. a slew of artists were asked to dream up their version of one of the birds to put together on an omnibus shirt.

mine is just low of dead center, the bird skull on top of the starburst.

it goes on sale at midnight (7/22) and is only on sale for 24 hours, so if you dig it, buy quickly!

teefury.com

fossils and viruses and shades, oh my!

2009-07-16T12:00:00.000-07:00

i might as well post a threadless roundup.

i have 3 designs up for vote right now:

also, if you read the previous blog, i have a design up at teextile as well!

it's a designing bonanza!

on a horse with no name.

2009-07-16T09:09:00.000-07:00

i put together a new design mixing classic american art (end of the trail) and some more iconic pop culture.

it is up for vote right now at teextile.

is that kool-aid?

2009-07-06T21:03:00.000-07:00

today i sat down and put together a bloody design. this one is called "blood on the dance floor."

click here to see the full design.

another name i jokingly toyed with for this design was:

"take that kanye!"

this will be up for vote at threadless soon:

thriller mcnight.

2009-07-05T16:56:00.000-07:00

consider this my tribute to michael jackson, despite the odd pairing / parody.

click here to see full design.

the pose is one of mj's classics, and the cover art (although originally a full white background) is from his "number ones" release.

i re-entered the fray at loiter ink by submitting this design, so here's hoping this design (minus the lp sleeve trappings) will be on a shirt near you sometime soon.

the design is up for vote now!

transitive pictographic verbalization.

2009-07-03T14:16:00.000-07:00

i have a new design for the nintendo devout:

if you have already clicked the image above, you will notice how i enticed you to click by the possibility of seeing a naughty word. i win!

i've been shopping this design around, so i hope i can tell you it's on sale soon!

angry lizard!

2009-07-02T09:23:00.000-07:00

i have a design up for sale at shirt.woot!

shirt.woot keeps a new design on the front page for 24 hours, then moves it into the archive, where only the top 20 bestsellers stick around. So buy 13 each and every day to see me smile.

here's my original design:

click here to see full design.

shirt.woot had to pull the color count down a bit (originally had 8 colors) and i dig it. i miss the shading i had done, of course, but for a cheaper printing solution, i think this works in spades:

click here to buy.

edit: i just got my overnight gojirawk shirts (that was unnervingly fast) and i have to admit, i was unsure about the colors from looking at the mockup on the shirt.woot sale page, but it really turned out sweet looking. i am really proud of this print!

paperclip hangers and mysteries.

2009-06-25T22:59:00.000-07:00

i have a new shirt in line to be voted for at threadless.

this is my first design since bowler that feels artsy to me. here's hoping everyone else agrees :P

it's titled, "convoluted."

it will be up for vote soon:

and some more mystery news, i recently confirmed that i'll have another design up for sale at a site i haven't been sold at before. i am very excited for this one!

father's/president's day sale!

2009-06-20T23:52:00.000-07:00

i had a new shirt up at ript apparel for 24 hours only. (father's day) and it is now sold out.

it's done up in beautiful silver ink! you know you have always wanted a large print silver inked shirt of george washington looking like a badass! now your chance is gone :(

hey, look! it's designs!

2009-06-16T17:44:00.000-07:00

i have updated my design page yet again, with some updated oldies and some newer goodies!

plus, i found out that i'll have a mystery design up on ript aparel.com this sunday, here's another look at the hint i dropped a week or so ago:

this, like teefury is a site where the shirts are sold for only 24 hours, so hold onto your cash until then if you want your face rocked. or, maybe if you're happy with having your face smooth jazzed, that might work as well.

2009-06-16T10:51:00.000-07:00

fifteen frames of fame.

2009-06-12T15:51:00.000-07:00

there are supposedly fifteen minutes of fame set aside for each and everyone.

last night i was on current's "the rotten tomatoes show" providing a webcam review for land of the lost.

it's not worth a video upload to show you my cable debut... so here's the transcript of my scene.

"It was a horrible movie."

so magnificently round.

there are 30 frames per second on television.

i just used up 15 frames of my fame.

i use my fame sparingly.

26,985 frames to go!

remains of the fray.

2009-06-07T12:00:00.000-07:00

another lazy sunday, so i busted out my sketchbook and came up with this:

if you've seen any of my non-vector work, you may notice that i'm a huge fan of textures, i almost sent this design in to threadless without the texture. but as i was putting together the submission image, i added the texture to the background to dress up the submission a bit and found some serendipity. so i retooled the image as seen above.

i'm imagining that everyone can tell what the image is, but in case you can't, it's the skeletal remains of a hand grenade. hence the title "remains of the fray."

here is the link to the submission mocked up on a shirt:

2009-06-04T07:47:00.000-07:00

back in the habit?

2009-05-30T00:36:00.000-07:00

if there's on quirk anyone knows about me, it's my love of transformers. (the autobot symbol tattooed on my shoulder is a dead giveaway)

anyone who knows me from 5 years ago knows me as a rabid fan.

3 years ago, an intense collector.

today?

for those not in the loop, today is the street date that they allow stores to sell the transformers 2 movie figures. after a night of playing risk at a friends, i hit up the local wal-mart an hour and a half past the street date.

there were new figures galore, enough that i would have contemplated fasting for 2 weeks to fill my cart right then and there to go on a bliss-filled transformation bender 3 years ago.

today, i circled back and forth, putting figures in and out of my cart and ultimately left with nothing.

the $1.99 iced coffee i went home with ended up being far less satisfying than breaking into a transformers package with my keys and quickly undoing all the packing work some chinese laborer had done months prior, and then sitting down and fiddling with the toy for a few hours.

so, while the allure is gone when i'm staring down the toy aisle; there's something to be said about the satisfaction of buyer's rejoice.

i'm going to go and be old in the corner now. keep the punks and hippies off my lawn.

more t-shirts!

2009-05-29T15:17:00.000-07:00

i have to be vague for now, but there is a new t-shirt company about to open up an on-line shop that has expressed interest in a couple of my designs.

i just sent the art off to them and i should have an update as to whatwhichwhenandwhere soon.

here are some close-up sneak peeks:

updated design page.

2009-05-25T22:29:00.000-07:00

i have updated the design page of my site.

here are some previews:

pimp yo' playhouse.

2009-05-25T15:01:00.000-07:00

memorial day 2009

more to love.

2009-05-24T22:02:00.000-07:00

i've decided to look into a few new shirt competitions and sites i had been too shy or busy to get into.

i visited teextile.com when they first opened, and boy, did they grow into a pretty cool site while i was away. i feel like a father who "left for smokes" and now, a year later, my kid is all grown up and famous, and i'm looking to get reacquainted to ask for a loan. (that will be the last horrible metaphor you see in this blog)

i now have a number of designs (including the tee i just sold at teefury) up for vote here.

i also visited shirtfight.com and liked the set-up. every thursday they introduce a theme, designs are voted on for a week and the winner gets a cash prize and a print of their tee. this week's theme is "tell a joke" so i submitted 'game over.' and 'lambchop.'.

i was then referred to shirt.woot by one of their commissioned artists (robbie lee), and although they have a weekly set-up like shirtfight.com has, i was informed i should just send them some examples. so cross your fingers with me and you might see some of my cataloged designs on shirt.woot soon!

one day only!

2009-05-11T11:23:00.000-07:00

the sale is over, but thanks to the art curating skills of jimiyo, my design by hümans design (that fared decently on emptees) was printed at tee fury for 24 hours only, now it's gone!

click to see design page

i'm very excited to see this shirt in print. i love large print, i love patterns, and i love vader.

my day has passed. i received $1 per shirt, and i made a very nice amount of scratch, so i am pleased that i'll be able to buy some nice spectacles to replaced the scratched windows that currently obscure my eyes.

thanks again to jimiyo!

the "oops i didn't post in april" blog

2009-04-23T20:13:00.000-07:00

not too much new design wise in april. anything i did was on the clock.

i did take part in a short film, "another day", by my old friend travis koval. i play a supporting character, and i swap dialog with a gentleman named achilles.

achilles is a racial mutt like i am, and for that reason alone, i saw him as a leaner, more athletic better looking version of me. and now i know why i didn't get the lead.

as soon as the films youtubeable, i'll post it here to share my acting chops.

i'll give an odd hint to my character. i play a classic video game collector. the movie takes place on 9/11 2001. should be interesting.

ham-murderer

2009-03-30T20:37:00.001-07:00

tired of being denied delicious processed beef and cheese, the hamburglar moved from petty crimes on to murder one.

up for vote at loiter.

100th post extravaganza!

2009-03-23T09:53:00.000-07:00

well, not really much of an extravaganza to speak of, per se.

i do have a new shirt up at loiter

i also have updated my website (dannmatthews.com), and if you dig around in the updated site, you can find out a secret of a future print (really, not a lot of digging has to be done).

i was really happy with the look of my 07-08 website, but i went with something more minimal (which you may have noticed the color changes on my blog set to match my site) and ultimately, easier to update than the train.

let me know how you like/dislike the new site, and let me know of any bugs you encounter!

this marks the end of the 100th post extravaganza.

schwing!

2009-03-16T12:25:00.000-07:00

do you love inside jokes?!

well then, do i have the shirt for you!

the imaginary donut shop where this happened:

in french!

now up for sale on loiter.

pizza!

2009-03-13T10:17:00.000-07:00

i've been printed a threadless again.

only, this time, as 1/50th of a collaboration!

alexmdc put together the idea and the color scheme etc here. and then assembled the deliciousness here.

here's my topping:

see if you can find it on the pizza!

Pizza Party with Alex Solis! from Threadless.com on Vimeo.

you can buy the shirt here.

a big thanks to alexmdc for putting this together and making this collab look really awesome tied together with his art. he also put us to work on a bunch of cool side projects revolving around the pizza party design (they can all be found here) here are a few of my entries into those side projects:

jet-pack panda.

2009-03-06T23:16:00.000-08:00

nothing more need be said.

plaidinum.

2009-03-01T12:07:00.000-08:00

i have this design up for vote at design by hümans. i have neglected my account there for awhile, so i decided to refresh it.

great job!

2009-02-23T12:43:00.000-08:00

well, my batch of 22 designs up at loiter finally paid off.

even though the votes on my design in their submissions section didn't pan out very well, it seems that the owners of loiter know a good tie in to a hilarious show when they see one.

that's why this shirt is now on sale.

confused? let youtube school you:

all from the show, "tim and eric awesome show great job" one of my favorite shows.

part of me is stoked because i finally got to order my very own channel five shirt. the other part of me is stoked because, thanks to loiter's set-up, i'll be getting 20% of every channel five shirt sold for life!

i just made $6.01 buying one for my wife and myself.

it's official

2009-02-21T19:54:00.001-08:00

i am now an award winning t-shirt designer.

*pats self on back*

the duluth superior adfed just had it's 33rd annual addy awards tonight, and one of my t-shirt designs for braggame rights went home with a silver award.

i was hired by nelson&company on august 4th last year, and my first 6 hours were spent creating that very t-shirt design.

i've actually known about my win for a few weeks, only because i have been helping out the adfed for the awards show. because of that, i had prepared the stills for the winner's reel. i got to work with the guys at tri-quantum productions putting together the winners reel and being taped telling a story about kicking a stranger in the butt in idaho. (true story)

the night was fun, i got to watch my boss drink, play a little electronic drum kit along with the dueling piano performers, play piano to some 80's hair metal song (that i can't remember right now) and then i got up and did my best (bad) will ferrel playing cowbell to "don't fear the reaper" impersonation.

interesting night indeed.

snorg'd

2009-02-10T05:56:00.000-08:00

well, i had just blogged about some secret stuff last night, and one of those secrets came to the forefront this morning.

my boats n' hos design from a while back just printed at snorg tees:

keep in mind that the above image was my mock up with suggested design size and placement and shirt color.

snorg tees opted for a baby blue shirt, and they don't have any model shots yet for me to know the exact size of the design, but you can support snorg tees and buy the boats n' hos shirt here.

oh, and for those that don't understand the reference, do yourself a favor. pop some corn, rent, nay, buy the movie step brothers; and have the answer unfold in front of your eyes.

mid-february extravaganza!

2009-02-09T21:41:00.000-08:00

lots of stuff going on, including a couple of ego-strokes i'm not yet at liberty to discuss.

i've submitted a few more designs to loiter:

i'm putting together a website for a church my grandfather is a part of, i don't have the site built yet, but i put together a logo for them that i'm currently pretty keen on:

and i also was charged with the creative challenge of making a visually interesting commercial for braggame rights (a local gaming store) with nothing but a pre-existing radio ad, so i put together the graphics and artistic direction for this ad:

design overload!

2009-01-24T06:33:00.000-08:00

after submitting "game over." to threadless and having the submission denied for copyright reasons. i hit the threadless blogs and asked what I could remove to make the design less of a possible legal hassle and i was prompted via email to visit loiterink.com. the owner previously ran luckythreads.com (i believe) and brought over that slew of shirts and made loiterink.com in threadless' likeness. the big difference is that the winners of the ongoing design contest don't get prize money; instead they earn 20% of all profits for life on every shirt sold. and they have a penchant for the busted tees and snorg tees style (in fact, loiterink has quite a number of designs on sale at one or the other), so i was able to pull up some of the designs that threadless wouldn't have any interest in and finally try my hand at a place that digs 'em.

a number of them are resubmissions of my threadless works (with slight retools):
go ahead, make my day.
gojirawk.
pen fifteen.
the secret of vyagra.
sesame street fighter.
fruit luips.
toastor.
aquanet lincoln.

and a bunch of designs never submitted anywhere:
boats n' hos
the death of super grover.
duck, duck, top gun reference.
kill them with kindness.
channel five.
and the design that lead me to loiterink:
game over.

here they are in absolutely no order whatsoever:

game over.

2009-01-19T07:22:00.000-08:00

unfortunately for yoshi, the most delicious fruit often hung over tar pits.

check out the threadless submission below, i included a "video game" to make it a lil' more fun.

edit:
the design didn't make it into the contest for possible copyright issues. read the next, more recent post to see where it ended up!

back in the saddle 2: electric boogaloo

2009-01-13T08:04:00.000-08:00

i haven't been on a designing streak per sé, but i do have another design pending at threadless.

as well as this design in the critiques:

titled "rocket boots never really caught on."

help me make absurd amounts of money.

2009-01-13T07:53:00.000-08:00

the threadless bestee awards are underway.

threadless is giving the years best design (by votes from the citizens of the internet) $20,000. and i'm up for it.

i'm also up against over 300 other designs, most of which eat my designs lunch.

but if you want to help me at least get one single vote (i voted on someone else's design) i'd appreciate it.

or, you can vote on someone else's too, why waste your vote?

click here.

remember, mine is the bowling pin with the bowler hat perched upon it, titled.. get this: "bowler."

back in the saddle.

2009-01-06T13:17:00.000-08:00

after a 2 month break from any new design work at threadless, i finall started adding some new designs (oddly, after my christmas break and not during)

i have these 2 designs up for scoring soon at threadless.

and a few older designs submitted to a UK company, chimpogo, which has a scoring system very much like threadless' set-up:

gojirawk.

by dann Matthews

hank the handsome hippo...

by dann Matthews

tattoos for cancer.

2008-12-30T14:22:00.001-08:00

a long while ago, when i first started blogging, i had pieced together a tattoo for my old boss.

a week ago, right before christmas. a gentleman e-mailed me asking about that very tattoo.

i don't know if he found it on a google image search or what, but he wanted to use it for his group, "cancer warriors support association". i said sure, and immediately thought of all the pitfalls they would face when attempting to use that lo-res sketchy image i had created. so i offered to create a vector file and a full logo packet and guide for him. he was pleased and thankful, but i had 3 days off of work for the holidays. i needed an excuse to keep my design brain working anyway.

so i presented him with this on christmas day:

merry christmas, cancer warriors support association!

nelson&company wish list.

2008-12-21T12:00:00.000-08:00

at work, we conspired to come up with a fun and goofy holiday card. i modeled it after a department stores holiday toy guide or wish book. i thought it would be cool to rebuild the card with a simple flash interface so people who aren't on the company mailing list could see it as well:

nelson&company store

my boss, bill, and i then joked about making a "cartoon" starring the toy characters. then it became a reality. after a short bit of thinking on bill's part, we nixed the pg-13 version and replaced it with the pg rated version you can find on the page.

happy holidays!

jugg band.

2008-12-21T11:40:00.000-08:00

i've been gone for a bit, busy at work. i've neglected my designs!

i have a couple cool things to post on christmas day, but i'll wait to avoid spoiling the surprise.

i literally had a soda pop and pie party on friday, we watched punky brewster and tried to make the seemingly lame exciting. and it worked. but we took a break from lame to play rock band. and while i was getting far too intense jamming on a plastic guitar, i popped my knee out of it's socket and now i'll have a limp for a while.

so while seated today, i put this together:

i also have it up for critique at threadess.

tractor beam.

2008-10-25T19:36:00.000-07:00

the visual puns continue!

this one is titled tractor beam:

get it?!

ha!

this one will be up at threadless soon:

monster league baseball.

2008-10-23T21:39:00.000-07:00

i've been having fun making these guys. i think i will pursue printing these up!

you can check the previous batch in the last blog post, here are the new teammates / rivals: