Teefury

Tell us about yourself:
I’m a proud design geek, I love that finally, you’re allowed to be open about your own geekiness. I’m a father of two beautiful young girls who are embarrassed that their dad is a geek. Anyway, enough of this geek talk.

Your last Teefury shirt knocked everyone off the top ten list with a huge lead. What was the experience like? I think we sold a shirt about every 30 seconds on average.  Did you take your family to Disneyland or buy a small village?
Well, let’s just say I didn’t get much sleep, my refresh button will never be the same again. I now have to leave the house in disguise to avoid the paparazzi and ‘art’ lovers. A totally surreal day that will live with me for a long time, and I’ll be sure to name my new village after Teefury once I’ve settled on a location and finalized the plans for the castle.

Are you Eco friendly?
I have two young girls and they keep me in check. They’ll tell me off for running the tap too long, or for mixing the recycling. But on the whole, I think we do pretty well with our carbon footprint. I do a lot of design work for an environmentally conscious sector that promotes green issues and organic/sustainable development so I'm aware of a lot of current issues.

You are a senior designer for a publishing company. If you had to have chosen a different career path a decade ago, what would you have been?
I wanted to be an architect but the academic side of the studying just didn’t suit me, so I switched to graphic design and illustration. Looking back, I kinda wished I had stuck it out, but hey, we make our choices and I can’t complain about being paid to be creative (which is what I should tell myself when I’m complaining and whining when clients get ‘involved’ with the creative process).

Do you own a lot of shirts? If so, what's your favorite?
I do own a lot of shirts, it’s almost a fetish. I’m lucky that everyday is ‘dress down for work day’ in my office so I get to exhibit many different designs. My current favourite is a skate tee ‘Bored? ... Board’ by Nick Ford, I’m a sucker for clean, crisp lines in tee designs.

What advice would you offer to aspiring designers? I saw you were on the top ten RedBubble sellers list. Got any advice on selling designs online with a on demand fulfillment company like RB?
You’ve gotta keep at it, especially on POD sites. Just because they handle all the production doesn’t mean sales will automatically come. You’ve got to promote very carefully. Blanket spamming just doesn’t work, you’ve got to be targeted and work hard to build relationships. If you’re prepared to put in the work, the good times will come. Thankfully, it’s not a dark art, common sense will take you a long way.

Any shout outs?
I have to give a mention to my fellow collaborators in ‘The Game Of Kings’ over at RedBubble. There are some seriously talented and varied artists and writers working on a huge chess based art project. Each of them has inspired and pushed me in a direction I didn’t think I’d go in.