T-Shirt Designer Geek Chic Interview On Geek Shirts HQ Designers Unlocked

Posted on June 25, 2012 by Geek Shirts — No Comments ↓

Welcome to another edition of Geek Shirts HQ popular series Designers Unlocked. This week, we have a t shirt designer from down under, aka Australia.

Geek Chic

He is to surfing what Margret Thatcher was to nude modelling J But that does not matter as he is a talented designer.

What is more important? Running a country? Or Designing a great t shirt?

It is too obvious for me to answer.

A t shirt designer whose designs I like to call wearable art.

A designer that when faced with the deadly Hadouken, survived and lived to tell the tale. But still has not produced a Street Fighter tee

A designer who has endured danger on a daily basis but has still, managed to create a cool Doctor Who tee (Doctored Moon Landing).

He is a designer who doesn't wear glasses and experiments with different ways of design, currently he creates his designs in Lego!

Chill and relax or chillax! While Geek Chic takes us all on a journey into his Lego mad mind.

Can you start by giving some background about yourself? Where you are from? What is your background? How did you get into design?

I’m based in Melbourne, Australia. My day job is design, and so is my recreational job – designing t-shirts!

Where did you get the name GeekChic?

At the time the ‘geek chic’ fashion trend was just beginning, I liked the word and thought it was an appropriate match for the kind of designs I wanted to make. If I had my time again, I think I’d call myself something else – a lot of people mistake ‘chic’ with ‘chick’!

Howl AT AT The Moon

Available at Redbubble

"The AT-AT is known for it’s bizarre behaviour when the moon is full … wait, that’s no moon"

Where do you get your inspiration for your designs?

It’s tricky to say, it can come from anywhere really. I have a stack of RSS feeds to various websites (the daily what, geekologie, wired etc.). I guess it’s a matter of parking a lot of stuff in the back of my mind and every now and then something good bubbles up to the surface.

When you create a new t shirt design, what is sort of process do you follow?

It will depend on the idea and the result I’m after. Usually I prefer to work with vectors (illustrator and often CAD software too), but I’m just as happy to use photo manipulation or hand draw and scan.

Infinite Slots

Available At Redbubble

"The ultimate figure 8 track"

Looking at your own portfolio what is your favorite design and why?

My favorite design is Dali’s AT-ATs, which was recently taken down due to a complaint from Lucas Film lodged with RedBubble. It’s a bit sad as it was easily my most popular design and had a 24 hour stint on Teefury too. I’m going to take it as compliment though – Lucas Film noticed my work!

Dali's AT-ATs

What current projects are you working on now? And can we get an exclusive peek?

I’ve just launched ‘Technology I Used To Know’ which features some rather sad but cute characters from our analog past doing their best to be as popular as Gotye

Technology I Used To Know

Available At Redbubble

"Your analog friends miss you. Have you heard the song ? This is their version"

Geek Shirts HQ: I really like this shirt, the line work and overall design is excellent and I love the colors, they work so well, judging by the initial sketches of the floppy disk version that like it will be a great design as well.

I’ll be following up with a floppy disk version – here’s some study sketches I’ve done for them!

geekchic sketch tees T Shirt Designer Geek Chic Interview On Geek Shirts HQ Designers Unlocked

Coming soon to Redbubble store!

Who are your favorite designers?

In the world of t-shirts, I’m a huge fan of the Ames Bros, you may notice that Sheldon Cooper wears some of their stuff. I liked Ames Bros before they were cool (joke).

Outside of t-shirts, I like the work of some classic graphic designers like Paul Rand and Saul Bass. I also admire Jonathan Ive’s work at Apple and Dutch Architect Rem Koolhaas who integrates graphics and clever signage into all his work.

Do you try to convey any message in your designs?

Usually a bit of humor – that’s the key really, efficiently delivering a message that is clever and witty is what makes a good t-shirt design in the genre I’m designing for.

Doctored Moon Landing

Available At Redbubble

"What if the moon landing was Doctored ?"

Geek Shirts HQ: This is my favorite Geek Chic tee, I am a huge Doctor Who fan and I just love the concept of this great design, and the Union Jack flag on the Moon is pretty cool as well.

Star Trek Original Series or Star Trek reboot? Which do you prefer?

Re-boot for sure! They’ve really turned things inside out in the latest movie and I found the whole thing to be a visual masterpiece too. Really looking forward to more! Have you seen the original series lately – it’s so boring!

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

Working on things I love and spending time with my family – my wife and I have three kids to keep us busy!

What other interests and hobbies do you have when you’re not designing?

Mostly I’m hanging out with the kids – they’re all boys and Lego is a favorite pastime as are trips to the zoo and the odd gallery or museum.

Anyone you want to give a shout out to?

Rubyred for being an awesome chap.
Andy at hideyourarms.com for his amazing support,
Jon at shirtoid.com for sharing my work and flyguydotnet for reviewing my Stormtrooper Academy shirt
Of course the crew at Redbubble is freaking great too – none of what I do would be possible without Redbubble, they are the best!

Imperial Academy

Available At Redbubble

“It is unknown who devised the Imperial Stormtrooper motto. What is known is that when literally interpreted by trainees, it produced a vast army of courageous but incredibly inaccurate Stormtroopers incapable of striking their mark in the most important situations.”

Where is the best place to find your designs and buy some of your shirts? And of course get in contact with you

All my work is for sale at Redbubble
I’m on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest too
and now I am also on Society6
Oh and I have a few designs up for voting at qwertee – head over and vote them up!

One last question, any chance of you designing a Firefly shirt, as I am a massive fan?

Totally ! I’ll add it to my list (I kinda need to watch firefly first … he he).

Geek Shirts HQ: A big thank you to Geek Chic for a great interview and taking the time out to speak to Geek Shirts HQ, I have been reliably informed that GeekChic has started watching Firefly, so we may see a design soon. I hope so!

Do not forget to check out the tees at his Redbubble AND Society6 stores