Recently I did a poll for the Best Young Brands of 2008 and the winner was Electric Zombie. I have wanted to do an interview with Kyle for a while and since his brand won the voting I figured it would be good to go ahead and do it. Aside from running EZ he works as a graphic designer doing band merch full time and freelance. Check out the following interview to get insight on both the brand owner end as well as the designer end…

Before we really get into it what do you normally do while not working
on either band merch or Electric Zombie?

I don’t think there’s a time I’m not really doing any of those things.
My typical day to day goes something like this…
8:00 – wake up, get ready for work
9:00ish – start working at equal vision records
5:30-6:00 – go home, make dinner, check emails
7:00-8:00 -  watch Scrubs
8:00 – 11:00 – freelance
12:00 – go to bed
REPEAT…
I usually don’t freelance on Monday, and Thursday and Friday nights.
Saturdays I run errands and usually end up freelancing for a few hours.
Sunday I freelance all day. I usually don’t do much. I find everything
boring. I’m a pretty boring person. I just watch movies and go
shopping ( I know that sound’s a little girlie)
I like the life I have. I need to do it while I still can. Who know’s
when all of this will stop.

I know you are a big fan of the horror genre, is this how you get
inspiration for your work?

Not really. I use that inspiration for EZ or other bands that may fit
into that style. If you look at my work, there’s hardly any guts and
gore, even though that’s what I’m known for. I use everything around
me as inspiration. Other peoples work inspire me to try harder and
push myself. I just pay attention to what people say and do and it
automatically triggers an idea. The day to day life is my inspiration,
even though I don’t do much else other than work work work.

What advice can you give for new bands or clothing lines for
contacting designers to get work done?

Have an idea of what you want. It really bugs me when they email and
ask a million questions, but when it comes down to what they want,
they 80% of the time don’t have an idea. “Do your thing man” or “we
trust you, hahaha and sometimes lol”.
Don’t scoop up reject designs either. Sometimes it’s convenient, but
in all actuality I think it’s a weak move. Sometimes a design can be
changed to fit, but just slapping on “said clients” name or logo is a
cop out.
We all have an imagination, it’s time everyone uses it.
oh and stop going to emptees.com and using it as a super market. Just
because a guy is hot for a moment and gets shirts of the day doesn’t
mean that person will rack in the dough. Take me for example. Ive had
what 2-3. Look at my portfolio.

What are some things you like and dislike to hear when taking on new projects?

“Can you knock this out by tomorrrow”
“What if we buy a bunch of designs from you, could we get it for an
embarassing low price?”
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN’T HAVE IT DONE BY THIS TIME?! I have other
designers that I can go to that can get this done, TOMORROW!”

Last year you launched your brand Electric Zombie and it took off
great. How hard was it juggling that with your other work and personal
life?

Not really at the time I had a lot of positive people behind me. I’d
fold shirts while watching tv. Sometimes my girlfriend would help.
Things like that. I mean it’s really not that hard to get things
together. The hardest thing I think is organizing everything. Doing
the art and ordering the shirts is the easy part. I wish I still had
more time to promote, or the money for that matter. I just do my
thing.  I never really put EZ first. I kind of just do it as a hobby
and I feel really lucky to have had the success I’ve had

I have to say that I am really impressed with what I have seen from EZ
so far.You do a great job with packaging, promotions, and
giveaways. Can we expect the same for ‘09 or was that mainly to get the
initial word out about the brand?

I’ve got a few more things in store. One of which will happen when the
new line drops in a few weeks. I’ve got lots of cool and new things in
store. I am super excited about it, you’ll just have to wait and
seeeeeee!

What are your thoughts on the apparel industry right now, from both a
designer and a brand owners stand point?

I think that it’s a little overwhelming. I hate the fact that people
see one persons success and think they’ll have the same
results. I think that if you aren’t already in this industry in some
sort of form you’re just going to make it way hard for yourself.
Im sick of people going to emptees.com and just grabbing up rejects or
using the same people. In fact I decided to not print a design from my
new line because other companies like Dekay and Zombie Liquorice are all
using him. Everyone tries to nab whoever is hot for the moment. I mean
whats so great about having the same person do the same thing for
everyone else? Get your own damn idea and find your own people. The
internet is an amazing thing, it gives you many doors to open.
I just hope that with this so called economic problem we’re in, it
will weed out all the shitty companies. I’ve got my fingers crossed on that one!

What clothing brands are you currently into?

Third World, Mishka, Obey, Drop Dead. I was into 410bc big time, I’m
not sure what’s going on with them but they’ve been MIA for a while
now. It actually made me forget to send shirts to Mike from 410,
(writing a note down now, ha!)

If you were not designing merch or running EZ what else could you see
yourself doing career wise?

I honestly have no idea. I’d prob be back working at Hot topic or
working at Starbucks or a movie store or something. It’s actually a
question I’ve been asking myself a lot lately. “How long will I be
popular for merch design?” “When I start a family, will I have
time for freelance or EZ?” “I’m probably going to have to get a part
time job at target or something, fuckkkkkkk”
I’m pretty nervous. I say this year is a make or break it year for me,
if EZ doesnt take off (even more so I guess), I’ll step back a
little. If freelance doesn’t pick up, I’ll focus more on EZ, if both
fail, It’s time to ask my girlfriend to contribute more and Look for a
second job, ughhhh

What little bit of knowledge would you like to share with those
reading who are considering starting a brand of their own?

Do your homework, realllllyyy think about it. Try and brand yourself,
do something different. There’s a lot of companies out there who are
popping up now doing the same thing I’m doing, what Glamour Kills is
doing and it’s ultimately going to fail. I’d say do yourself a favor
and DON’T start it. If it does indeed take off, you have no idea what
you’re getting yourself into

Any plugs or last things you would like to add before we end this?

I just want to say that I am way proud of my guys over at theblackaxe.com
and want to thank them for being awesome cyber buddies and great
people to work with. I also want to give props to Pyknic for staying
on top of their game and really succeeding this year. I honestly
thought the whole “food” thing was a little iffie with success, but I
think they still have a really awesome thing going.

Be sure to check out the suprises in store coming very very soon! My
new uhhhh Winter/Spring (sprinter?) line comes out Friday February
13th! WOOOOO

In the interview we talk a little bit about how important the little details are and as much as I like to support the artists of the industry if you want to be successful its more to it then the graphic your chest…Enjoy!

When and How did you get into the apparel industry?

I guess you could say i’ve been messing with it since 2003-ish doing freelance for bands and such, but I didn’t do anything of my own until 2007 with my ‘AOK Mart’ line that was intended to only be an off shoot of my own freelance work. It was really a place for rejected designs from clients that I thought had ‘legs’. After about a half a year of running it I decided to change the name/logo to something that would leave me free from any possible legal troubles moving ahead. You can read more about that on my blog: http://alrightok.com/2008/08/06/use-your-confusion-pt-2/

What does your brand name mean and How did you come up with it?

I’d been freelancing under ‘Alrightok’ since I was out of school and working. I honestly don’t remember where it first came from but it’s definitely in a lot of rap songs and it is a combination of words you’ll hear one after the other so i’m sure it was repeating in my head and when time came to register a domain for my portfolio it just stuck. I think part of what made it work was at the time of me leaving school and being unsure of the future a phrase like “alright? ok…” just made sense.

What inspires the designs done for the line?

Wow, it’s really something that’s hard for me to answer because we’re still feeling it out ourselves you know? I think the biggest thing we’re trying to impart is that we’re trying to give all of our ideas, experiences, and influences through the visual medium of the tee shirt. We aren’t a traditional brand in the sense that it’s built on one singular vision, theme, or lifestyle in mind. Part of that, i’m sure, comes from doing client work where the goal is to stay consistent and on a guided path when it’s my turn I want to take so many different paths and express so many different ideas that it’d be impossible to pin AOK as any one thing. We’ve got a lot of respect for this medium/business (I pretty much don’t wear anything but tee shirts) and all we’re really trying to focus on right now is adding something worthwhile and learning the industry.

As you know there are tons of new brands out now, what are some things that you think are sometimes overlooked by start ups?

I’m going to completely contradict what I just said but having a point and/or theme and sticking with it. While I did say we don’t have one theme or market in mind, all of our artwork is done in-house between myself and another artist, so by nature everything will have one consistent look and feel to it. I see a lot of new brands throwing paint at the wall and they end up with a mish mash of ideas and styles. To me a lot of it looks like band merch that happens to have the brands name on it instead of a bands. There’s obviously a market for this but if you want to be a real brand and ‘blow up’ you need some level of consistency and follow through.

The other thing that i guess stands out to me is presentation. I suppose a lot of people who own these brands aren’t designers themselves and sometimes they don’t see the importance of good web design, finishing on the garments, photography, etc., but part of what separates you from what someone can get in the mall are these things so I wish there was more care taken. It makes all of us look better.

It seems like a majority of newer brands are geared towards the younger crowd and feature super bright poppy colors, not saying that is a bad thing, but you’re going a different direction correct?

Yeah, you’re right it isn’t a bad thing at all it just isn’t me. My general taste leans more towards subtlety and creating something classic. Doesn’t any artist or designer want to do this? The basic idea of a graphic tee will never go out of style so I would feel odd creating something that years from now i’d say “man, that looked so 2000″.

I’m really big on things like tone on tone printing, garment finishing, quality of the overall garment as opposed to just the design. These are all things, as a designer, that make me feel good internally as opposed to a brightly colored loud graphic that, I would assume, make a person feel good externally. Myself and the Yesh (the other artist with the brand) come from loving comics, video games, cartoons, Japanese culture, etc. but we feel like there is a difference between regurgitating all those things and creating something new with those influences in thought.

Can we expect you to be around for a while, what is down the road for AlrightOk?

I mean we can hope right? Haha, we definitely have a lot of things planned we’ve only recently dropped our first set of tees. We don’t plan on leaving the still very fertile ground of tee design for a good while. I believe people should stick to what they’re good at and more than just designing cool graphics for tees I want to feel we’ve mastered it before we decide to move on to things like cut and sew, hard goods, etc.

You have a blog at alrightok.com where you post videos and insight into the business, what makes you do this?

The biggest thing is wishing I had a resource like this when I was starting out. I had so many questions and rarely were the answers either 1. good (for the kind of brand I was aiming to create) or 2. from someone who’s made the mistakes themselves. In a short 2 year span there are tons of blogs about this subject now and great forums to ask these questions, so it only strengthens my thought that there’s a want for it. I’d like to chronicle the growth of the brand and let people take whatever info they can from that rather then just say ‘here’s how you do it’ because there really isn’t a right way to do this.

Do you have any advice for those looking to get into the game?

Research and planning. Pick a name that you can live with and make sure it doesn’t bear resemblance to anything else out there. Figure out who it is you’re trying to sell to and design with them in mind. Create something that stands on it’s own. “When you make something no one hates, no one loves it.” – Tibor Kalman

Any last comments or shout outs before we finish up?

Any person who’s supported me thus far either with words or buying a shirt. Hopefully some of these answers didn’t come off as pretentious i’m generally a ridiculous person. Comment: Do it because you love it!

I got up with Alval, the owner of the brand HomeRoom to ask a few questions. They are a young brand rapidly rising to the top of the game and I really like what they constantly put out. If you are not familiar with them then hurry up and do your homework before you are left behind. If you are interested in branching outside of the basics and doing just t shirts then I would highly recommend keep tabs on these guys!

Check out the HomeRoom site and blog HERE

Here is a short interview with the mastermind behind it all…

How did you get into fashion design?

I’ve always been into fashion. My mom used to make clothing for me. I would see it as a kid and imitate it. I always kept it a secret that i sewed. I didn’t think it was a manly thing to do at age 13. haha. I would hang out skating at pier 7 and go bomb the city at night. It would be have puzzled my homies if they new i sewed when i got home. So, i never let anyone know until college. I made a hoodie in may 2006 that changed my life. The day i made it and wore it, i got stopped by 5 people that were wondering what was it that i was wearing. One of the ladies worked for Complex magazine. She loved my stuff and got me a feature in the magazine. It was before i even named the company HomeRoom.

How long have you been in the industry?

I have been in the industry since 2000 at the age of 16 when josh (10 deep), mike brown (true), Eric Ross (red 5), and Salthdean (nike) took me under their wings and since then i’ve been on my way.

What inspires your pieces?

I get inspired by music and structures. It’s hard to explain, but music gives me color, music gives me angles and a heritage to uphold. Structures give me technical ideas. Combined i try to achieve an epic sound and a structural innovation, or in simpler terms a classic piece. The goal is to make something that will be relevant forever.

How do you feel about the fashion industry?

I love it. There’s nothing better then waking up everyday to your own business that you have created through vision and dedication. There are many perks that come with the fashion industry as well; I get gear flowed to me by my favorite designer and in turn I do the same. I also get to fly all over the world and meet amazing people on a frequent basis. Its the life!

What are other brands are you currently into?

I’m into Mike and Chris, Joy Rich,Original Fake, HomeRoom, Fall of Rome, Visvim, DTA, Benny Gold, Huf, Supreme, Sugar Cane and Flat Head.

If you could choose any brand to collab/work with who would it be?

There are so many dope people out there. If I had to pick one, I would collab with a car company. Design the interior for a concept car!

What can we expect from Home Room over the next 3-5 years?

Music, Eyewear, Pants, Shoes, Bullet proof bed sets, and a series of stores. HomeRoom LA opens from 11/15/08-1/15/09

Have any advice for those who may be trying to get started in the fashion biz?
Work cause you love it, not cause u want to make ends. Only 1 out of 1,000 fashion companies make ends.

Have any shout outs or last words?

I Can’t do it with out the HOMEROOM FAMILY!!!