Cameesa - The Blog

Loud Splash by Carolina Molina

Females are always requesting more female designs on Cameesa. They want to see designs that are more appealing to themselves, and their taste in clothing.

We got a chance to interview Carolina Molina (aka Cmolina) from The Dominican Republic, a female artist who answers many questions that we have had from day 1. Carolina is a great artist with designs that literally scream out at you.

Could you please give us a window into your background, and personal life?

I come from the a little island called Dominican Republic, though most of the time I think I come from LALA Land. Ive been painting since I was 7 years old, and I just loved colouring and making things from scratch. I love all forms of art, music, theatre, plastic, you name it, I probably love it.

I think of myself as unique, just like everyone else. My native language is Spanish, though Ive been speaking English since I was four. I attended a private British school owned by the sugar factor in my town. I moved to the United States when I was 18 yrs old and stayed there for about a year and half. I try to go as often as I can, at least once a year, though I plan to move there in a year or so.

Describe your typical day.

Carolina Molina

I wouldn’t say typical day, because I create at night. Basically I’m like Superman, I live a normal life during the day and create t-shirts by night. Unfortunately I cant fly, working on it though. I sleep three or four hours a day, and work during the morning and design at night.

Where else can we find your artwork, other sites, stores etc.?

Well I am working on a project right now called Unique 909, and you can find it in zazzle. There is not much to look at right now, but soon I will post many designs Ive been working on. I guess I want to post them all at once. In addition, I have started a new group on MySpace, called Tees and T-shirts. Come by and check it out.

How did you get into design, and what do you like most about it?

I haven’t been designing t-shirts for very long, but design has always been part of my life. I started designing t-shirts for 5th and Ocean in Dominican Republic. And found out it was something I wanted to do, and I learnt as much as I could about the printing process, and all of that good stuff. They were not too creative, or aloud us to have a voice in the designs so I quit and decided to fly solo.

Favorites

Carolina’s Inspiration, her backyard

TV show: When it comes to TV, I watch whatever is on…I love TV.

Magazine: I don’t really read magazines, I rather read blogs, and I read many different ones, not one in particular.

Artist: Ha. These are my favourite questions. Let me say Jason Mraz is playing wildly in my ipod, I usually play it when am designing, that and The Doors.

Favorite course in school: In school I loved math, yes I did, I still do.

About 10% of our artists are female, do you encounter any challenges being a female artist? If so, what are they and how have you overcome them?

I think the biggest difference is that although a lot of girls wear t-shirts, they don’t wear them as often as guys, so the main audience people want to target are guys. Guys don’t want to wear flower and cute designs, so some girls might find it hard to create designs guys will like.

So far I haven’t encounter that problem because I started by making t-shirts with slogans instead of designs, and I take pride in being a tom-boy, so thinking about phrases that dudes would like on t-shirts was not hard.

We have had numerous requests for more girly designs on Cameesa, do you think of this when designing or do you just go with what your hear tells you?

It is possible to make designs that girls and guys could both wear. If you mean butterflies and flowers on a t-shirt, then that might be challenging. I think of things I want to say, or wish I could say, or moods I am in. Its nice to have t-shirts that represent the mood you’re in or that says something about you.

Carolina’s Workplace

In your opinion, what is the difference between a male and female artist? What is the difference in their art?

See, Ive seen a lot of t-shirts designed by girls that you would not imagine it came from a girl, or the concept that girls like girly things. Maybe not too many female artists are recognized, but people assume they are guys because they don’t see rainbows and unicorns. Not that there is anything wrong with unicorns, I like them.

How did you find Cameesa?

I came across Camessa in the Pop culture t-shirt blog.

Being a new Artist on Cameesa, what advice do you for other artists out there?

I remember reading the comments on the first t-shirt and using it as fuel for my next design. The first one might not be the one, or maybe the 20th, but if you read the comments you will be able to produce better designs.

Cameesa is a site were the comments are usually constructive, not destructive. They will always find a thing you did right and point out what can be improved. So don’t give up!

What are you most proud of?

Im proud of being a free spirit, it takes a long time to able disconnect from the real world.

What is your advice in Life?

Everything comes on its own time, no need to rush.

Her by Cmolina

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Thank you very much for you great insight Carolina, we look forward to seeing more of your art very soon.

I’ve decided to start a crowdfunding blog. I think there a lot of good crowdsourcing blogs out there but not that many dedicated to solely crowdfunding. I will document the developments in the space as well as taking an in depth look at some of the platforms that are out there today. I will post some of the material on the cameesa blog as well. Get the RSS feed!

A couple of nights ago, I had the pleasure of speaking with Liz, the founder of PopCultureTees, about her T-shirt blog,  influences, and, of course, her background.

Liz spent most of her life in Maryland, until she got a call from a screen printing company in Tennessee, where she would become a graphical designer.  Sounds like a big move to me, nice work Liz (I moved from TX to IL).  After a few years of working for the screen printer, she fell in love with t-shirts, t-shirt designs, and design theory/practice.  This is when she decided to start her T-shirt blog, PopCultureTees.

PopCultureTees is about 6 months old, and has gained a respectable following from the T-shirt community.  Liz mentioned that she was highly influenced by some very influential companies, Go Media, and 37Signals.  Liz writes majority of the posts, with a little help from her bf Jason, who happens to be a Unix admin (ComputerGeek like me).  Liz is a fan of other t-shirt sites such as: Troundup, Cottonable, and Tcritic.  Which we are also fans of.

PopCultureTees is a colorful t-shirt blog that gives you a look at the latest tees, with a little commentary from Liz.  It is greatly designed and has succinct posts displaying cool shirts that you may enjoy.  In my opinion, the best part of her blog are the descriptive/tutorial posts like Gradients and Halftones in Screen Printing (which I’ve already read three times) and So You Wanna Design T-Shirts? Part 1: There are THAT many ways to print a shirt?….btw, where is Part 2?  These posts give us newbies an insight of how things are done at the low-level of design.  I’ll be honest, I couldn’t design a STOP sign in Microsoft Paint…ha.

Liz, thank you for taking time out of your schedule to speak with me.  I learned a lot.  In this blog-loving world, I wish you the best of luck with PopCultureTees.

p.s. To learn more about Liz and PopCultureTees make sure to check out her interview with Remarkable Blogging.

p.p.s. Also, read Liz’s awesome advice on keeping your blog fresh.

p.p.p.s. Is this a letter or something, why am I using “p.s”….oh well.

I like it! You just have to keep on it. I totally agree with Gary.

Be forewarned that this is a reflection of my past 3 years working at Bank of America; sadly, all good things come to an end.

It all started on November 14, 2005. I was a young, inexperienced programmer finishing my Computer Science Master’s at The University of Chicago. Brien, Karen, and Zo gave me a chance to showcase my ultimate programming skillz. I had no idea what I was getting into, but I knew that there was something special about these people. In the end, my intuition was right, these people were awesome.

Brien and Karen taught me that it is possible to be close friends with your managers, and still maintain a healthy and professional relationship. This lesson was solidified when Karen, Brien, Suneet and I spent an entire day hanging out : watching the Cubs, eating at Tango Sur, chillin’ at Moe’s Cantina and laughing endlessly.

With laughter there always came business, and with business came Mr. Business Time, Taylor (aka T-Raack). Taylor, a Northwestern graduate, was my partner in crime…..programming crime that is. He actually taught me everything I needed to know about programming and, to this day, he is still the smartest and sharpest programmer that I have ever worked with. Sorry ladies…he’s not single any more

In the workplace, I met a UFC fighter, Tom, who happened to have a strange love for peanut butter, the Russian language, and monkeys. His attitude taught me to be happy no matter what life handed me. Next, there was Suneet and Lindsay who were both natural Providers, and had an endless caring for others. Lindsay was famously known for decorating people’s cubes on their birthdays, but when it came to her own birthday, she did not want to make it a big deal. Moreover, Suneet, organized Bank of America’s first basketball league, of which more than 100 employees participated, and then setup a volunteering program for the kids. Suneet also had a freakish memory by remembering significant names/events in everyone’s lives, not to mention a hilarious giggle. With giggles there was always wit…this is where sarcastic Scott came in, he was a witty individual that wrote depressing music, and was calm no matter which situation he was in. If you wanted to get back to a happy mood from Scott’s music, all you had to was call Darrin Tracy. “The Darrin” was famously known for his Slam Dunk video and for partying like it was 1999. Finally, there was Whitney who taught me a ton about Unix Systems, solving problems, and technology as a whole. And how could I forget Zo. Zo taught me that things are always comical, no matter what. If we weren’t talking about programming, then we were talking about something that no one in the world would think of…(ie. The Bristol Chart). Zo had a way to bring up questions and topics that no one could ever imagine.

“Jak sie masz? My name-a Borat. I like you. Do you like me?” was heard non-stop throughout our cubicles as Yury and I would fall back in our chairs. We met Borat from the Ali G show and spent half of our Christmas vacation watching it. Yury was a master negotiator who could sell a ketchup popsicle to a lady in white gloves. “Very nice, I like.”

My business partners were in North Carolina, and I wish I could have seen them more often. I will never forget my trip to Charlotte, where we spent majority of our lunches together, and then hung out after work……EVERY DAY. They were thoughtful and gave me recognition for everything I did, sometimes even for work that I didn’t do. Allison, Alison, James and Sara, thank you for being open and honest communicators. Sara, thanks for making fun of James and James, thanks for always ripping on Sara.

Believe it or not, I actually learned a lot at work. Magenta Magenta helped me find myself, and my true strengths. Wyatt Sutherland taught me about Agile Programming, and Michael Menary taught me to always give people their space.

As we have all know, the people make your job interesting and fun. From Qarlympics, to building a cardboard castle around Yury’s desk, to Congratulating Suneet on his weddingto Darrin’s birthday party, to Bryan Chavez eating 30 butter packets for $30, to Fat Fridays…..we ALWAYS had fun.

These are the things that i will miss most. I will miss you all and I thank you for making my last three years so memorable.

As some may know, Ali Gowani will be taking over my job as the Lead of the Corporate Research Library. I foresee him to be more successful than me because he is smarter :). Ali is a great programmer with an eager thirst for knowledge. He asks great questions and is an extremely quick learner. Ali taught me that the best way to learn something is by teaching someone else.

So………August 29th, 2008, is my last day working at Bank of America. I will be joining Andrew Cronk on the Cameesa Full-Time Squad on September 2nd, 2008, and am extremely excited for what is about to come with Cameesa. We are going to work very closely to provide you with the best T shirt Crowdfunding Platform EVER. Feedback is always welcome.

Andrew Lockhart of Thinking Interactive introduced me to Jessica Hagy’s blog Indexed. Jessica refers to Indexed as her project that let’s her make fun of things while making sense of others. As she puts it, “I use it to think a little more relationally without resorting to doing actual math.”

Anyhow, I always have a good laugh every time I see a new index card. One index card I especially liked was “This is what 2.0 means”.

On Friday Cameesa was featured in Webware. I’m glad Josh found the idea of crowdfunding interesting. Although he did mention that the selection slim was slim, the article was positive overall. The selection is slim right now, and it’s steadily growing. Hopefully, the next time Josh visits we have a wider selection.

I’d like to thank our initial community for their participation on the site. It’s growing quickly and things are going to become very interesting soon.

One of our artists, stevebalistreri, recently submitted a real-life design, the Flabongo. (http://cameesa.com/support/design/28/flabongo-evolution)

In my 26 years of existence, I have done my fair share of partying, but I have never encountered a Flabongo; hence, my inquiry on Steve’s post asking “what the hell is a blongo?” (http://cameesa.com/forum/post/12/new-design-flabongo)

Even after Steve explained the Flabongo concept, I was still somewhat puzzled, and skeptical of the Flabongo.

So, this past Saturday night, I attended a Lincoln Park house-party at a friend’s place. As midnight struck, a mysterious creature entered Brendan’s home. It was pink, had no legs, and its insides were ripped open. Lo and behold, the Flabongo had entered my life for the first time ever. I was stupefied and amazed as to what I was seeing. Who would have ever thought that I would see a design on Cameesa.com - for the first time ever - and get a real-life taste of it, only days later.

I flew off the couch and greeted the gentleman who brought the Flabongo into my life. As I approached him, he quickly jumped back because he thought that I was going to kiss him (note: it’s atypical to kiss strangers in Chicago…although it has been accomplished before.) I told him the entire Flabongo/Cameesa.com story but he clearly did not understand my amazement of Flabongo.

The moral of the story is : “Cameesa.com brings people together, whether in designs or real life.” I want to deeply thank Brendan for a great party, Steve for the Flabongo design, and the gentleman, whose name will remain confidential, for bringing Flabongo into my life…..I miss you dearly.

Cameesa was featured in Mashable yesterday. It’s a good article overall outlining our goals and questioning the value of crowdfunding. Read it here.

When sitting down and brainstorming a t-shirt design you can find inspiration from many places. One notable place I look to is street art due to its rawness and edge. I know many times when looking for the next t-shirt idea I do look at the work of Banksy, Faile and Shepard Fairy and other street artists to get the ball rolling. While searching for some inspiration and street art I came across the blog “Wooster Collective” that is dedicated to celebrating street art. There are lots of interesting works to get ideas from. (Image: Gunflower, in the streets of Paris, via Wooster Collective).