laFraise.com started in 2004 as an ongoing open call for tee shirt design submissions. The submitted designs are scored by the community with the best ones being printed and sold in limited editions of 500 pieces. laFraise is all about community, designs & designers. Over the years, laFraise occasionally printed designs by established artists such as 123Klan, Chris Gray or Obion for instance, allowing them to circumvent the submit & score process. This way, emerging artists whose work was printed through the laFraise selection process, have been marketed alongside well-known creatives. In order to let our regular designers shine even more, we will put our selected artists right next to the upcoming stars on a regular basis with our “Featured Artists” edition.

The line is curated by graphic illustrator and laFraise Art Director, Jared Nickerson aka J3Concepts.

Collectable, affordable and downright sexy, laFraise Featured Artists is a collection of the best shirt designs from around the world.
A new Featured Artist shirt will be released regulary from September 2009 on. There will be 9 Featured Artists in total this year.
Each release will include a collectable sticker and poster and be limited to 250 tees. Each artist will be presented with an interview and a 2 week long feature on laFraise. The first Featured Artist tee will also be released and sold alongside a Limited Edition tee by Jared Nickerson specific for the Featured Artist line.

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First up, is Canada’s own, Meka.

Tell us who you are. (location, hobbies, birth defects, fetishes etc.)
Well. Name’s Meka, grand guru of the ZOMBIEcorp. Illustrator, and graphic designer as a day job. Quebec transplant for a year now, after 27 spent in France.
Main hobbies: partying in all the bars of Montreal, or anything that allows me to extend my zombie universe. Characteristic: a really bad tendency to hyperactivity. My strongest fetishes are sneakers and designer toyz.

Do you get inspired? or do you just sit down and doodle and hope something comes of that?
I tend to work more when I’m inspired. The problem is that this can happen any moment, like a sudden need to pee! That can cause some problems, for example with my dear fiancée, when we’re having a conversation and I suddenly leave because an idea’s rushing in. I guess I can consider myself lucky that I haven’t been kicked out yet! ?

What do you think influenced you the most to start to and continue to design/illustrate?
I grew up immerged in the whole skate culture, and what pushed me at first was seeing all the logos, all the designs, on the clothes and on the boards. I used to spend my time re-drawing them on my school books. Then, it all made sense !
Today, my influences span a lot of different fields, but the base of my graphic culture is rooted in horror cinema, with of course a preference for zombies. But it’s not limited to this; I also hold lots of admiration for 50’s cartoons, because of their simple yet extremely expressive style.

You sit down; you grab the tablet pen or mouse, what goes through your mind? what are you listening to? Are you wearing pants?
When i get on my tablet, the purpose is always to expand the universe of the ZOMBIEcorp; usually with massive heavy guitars blasting (punk, hardcore…).
My current playlist:
SUICIDAL TENDENCIES,CANCER BATS,GALLOWS,SLAYER,COMEBACK KID,TERROR…
As for my work uniform, it generally consists in baggy shorts, an Obey shirt, a New Era cap, and a nice pair of sneakers.

What’r your thoughts on la Fraise? Good, bad? What are your thoughts on design contests in general? (be honest)
La Fraise offers everybody a chance of having their work printed, while respecting the artist’s work and offering a really decent pay (unlike some competiting websites). You can really feel that your work is considered for what it’s worth. The community is really nice, but I always end up being a bit disappointed because of a small minority who seems to believe that sitting behind their computer allows them to criticize some artists’ work for no reason.

5 favorite items around your house/office right now, what are they?
My mac laptop,my goldorak toy,my “craignos monsters III” book,my box of Sharpies,my pez (yup, i collect PEZ, so what? :) )

You could fight any celebrity to the death, and win, who would it be? Why?
I don’t think it’s a celebrity, but my last pulsions of violence were directed towards the asshole who hacked my blogs. As if it had any sense to hack an artist’s blog! Everything’s back to normal now.

If you weren’t a graphic artist, what would you want to be?
Winner of the lottery, so that i could give in to all my materialist consumer self’s desires!

Any current projects/shows/releases you want to advertise?
Huge upcoming project: i’ll be working on a video clip for Mic Life (hip-hop artist from Quebec), in which the ZOMBIEcorp universe will be brought (back) to life. I’m also participating in the next Montreal Vinyl exhibition.
But to get all my news, it’s best to follow my blog! :)

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Meka’s design is now available in the Shop