Hi Randyotter,

- Please introduce yourself in a few words, tell us who you are and where you come from. How and why did you become a graphic designer?

My Name is Aaron Jay working under the name Randyotter and I come from Southampton England. I have always loved drawing since I was a little boy at age seven I decided I would go to university to study animation, I actually ended up studying illustration but I still followed the same goal of drawing for a living. I graduated university and have been working as a freelance illustrator ever since.

- How did you conceive your design “Otter meditation” and how did you get the idea? What inspired you and what is the story behind it?

I usually spend a lot of time trying to think of new ideas, usually more time than I spend drawing them however otter meditation was an exception, this was a day where I just decided to draw weird detailed things without thinking too much about the concept or what I wanted to achieve as a final product .

- Your designs are very simple, efficient and have a simple approach of humour? Do you do it on purpose or is it wanted because you think it catches the attention more?

I try and simplify my ideas so that people from anywhere in the world can understand the idea, usually my best concepts are ones which anyone can understand regardless of what language they speak or what culture they are from so that is my general goal when I brainstorm ideas for an illustration.

- How long have you known laFraise and how did you find us

I have know of La fraise since about 2009 when I was looking for other sites to get my designs printed however I did not submit for a long time as my work seems to do quite badly here, I eventually earned my first win however I have not really been very successful since then so I will probably be leaving to find other sites quite soon.

- If you would recommend us, what would you say?
If you have a style that La fraise customers like you can be very successful so try them out!

- Do you have hobbies other than drawing? What are they?

Apart from drawing I play computer games but really I spend most of my time drawing or just watching tv, most of the things I do to have fun tend to link back to drawing or work.

- What are your expectations for this year and the one to come?

For the year to come I am planning to expand my body of work into different media and to try and gain a larger following as I try to do every year, I have been looking into traditional animation and working on another book project to keep me busy.

- Could you please draw us your interpretation of strawberries with Chantilly cream? Thanks for the interview and the drawing!

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Hi Tony Centeno,

- Please introduce yourself in a few words, tell us who you are and where you come from. How and why did you become a graphic designer?

Hi all! My name is Tony Centeno and I am a Spanish illustrator and graphic designer who lives in Madrid. For me, drawing was always a hobby, until I lost my old job (worked in construction as a carpenter) and then I decided to turn my hobby into my profession. Since that day I have tried to learn how to improve my concepts and designs.

- How did you conceive your design “Mr Doodles Inc” and how did you get the idea? What inspired you and what is the story behind it?
“Mr. Doodles Inc.” is the brainchild of my good friend https://www.facebook.com/ibyes AKA Ibyes. It all started with an idea that Ian threw me to do a collab together. Since then we started working on this concept, adding both design ideas, taking care of every detail and trying to do the best job possible. Finally, after many hours of work, “Mr. Doodles Inc” was born.

- Do you have a tattoo? Do you like tattoos?

Yes! I love tattoos. If I had more money and less domestic obligations, my body would be decorated with more ink. Currently I have two tattoos, one on my leg in Chinese kanji, with the name of my wife, and another on my arm in Elvish letters with the name of my son.

- How long have you known laFraise and how did you find us?

Actually the first time I heard about laFraise was in early 2011, shortly after I signed up and started submitting my first designs.

- If you would recommend us, what would you say?

Designers say it’s a great place, where everyone shows respect for the community and there’s good atmosphere among designers. From the perspective of a customer, the shirts are great, both the design and printing on textiles

- Do you have hobbies other than drawing? What are they?

I have many hobbies but little time to enjoy them. What I like most is watching movies, reading and music. I also play video games with my son, but less than we would like. I also love painting warhammer figures.

- What are your expectations for this year and the one to come?

This year I hope to have more success than in 2012, which wasn’t as successful as I would have liked. So here this year I will redouble my efforts to keep bringing good stuff.

- Could you please draw us your interpretation of strawberries with Chantilly cream? Thanks for the interview and the drawing!

Here I leave my interpretation. Thank you very much to all the staff for giving me the honour of this interview, and laFraise community, both designers and users, and wish you all well in 2013!

Thank you very much Nathalie! :D

All the best,

Tony Centeno

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Hi Zerobug,

- Please introduce yourself in a few words, tell us who you are and where you come from. How and why did you became a graphic designer?

Hi, my name is Loh Jun Yeap (Lawrence Loh) aka zerobug. I’m a ordinary graphic designer that is always working hard to create some unordinary designs. I’m currently working as a graphic designer in a international advertising agency in Malaysia. Since I was young, I’ve loved to doodle. After my high school graduation, I didn’t want to go to business accounting school like most of my friends did, as my biggest interest was in design, and so I decided to enroll in art and design school to become a graphic designer.

- How did you conceive your design “Run T-Rex, run” and how did you get the idea? What inspired you and what is the story behind it?
The idea was inspired by the movie called “Night at the museum”. In the movie there’s a scene when the skeleton of the T-Rex dinosaur came alive every night and moved around in the museum. I was wondering what would happened if the skeleton of the dinosaur T-Rex was being chasing out by a pack of bone eating dogs? I’m sure it will be very funny to see that happened!

- What is your favourite dinosaur und why?

I don’t have any preferences on any kind of dinosaur, but I do remember the very scary T-Rex scene from the “Jurassic Park” movie.

- How long have you known laFraise and how did you find us?
About 2 years plus, I got to know about laFraise from some graphic artist who also submitted their designs to other t-shirt design contests.

- If you would recommend us, what would you say?
Hey, here’s a t-shirt design company that sells all kinds of cool and awesome unique graphic t-shirts!

- Do you have hobbies other than drawing? What are they?

I’m currently keen on shooting video using my DSLR camera, and learn to edit and compile into a short movie clip. Whenever I’m travelling, I will shoot all kinds of things, people that I come across, and edit it into a travel log kind of video.

- What are your expectations for this year and the one to come?
I hope to create some creative work and submit it to the local and international advertising award show and to execute and take part in a TVC shooting. Beside work, there are so many places that I haven’t visited, and I will keep travelling whenever I can, hopefully could tour around Europe.

- Could you please draw us your interpretation of strawberries with Chantilly cream? Thanks for the interview and the drawing!
Awesome! I really appreciate and thank laFraise for printing my design! Million thanks!

Hello Michael,

Tell us a little about yourself – where are you from, who are you, where do you live and what do you do at laFraise?

My name is Michael Johannes and I’ve been at laFraise for about 6 months as its Business Unit Manager. I’m from Germany and am currently living in Leipzig. My responsibilities at laFraise are quite varied – but my main role is to support the team in their planning and organization, as well as to serve as the Product Manager and develop the laFraise platform.

Can you tell us why you landed at laFraise? What attracted you to the company?

Landing at laFraise was more of a coincidence, as I found out about the company indirectly when they were looking for a project manager. Before I joined at laFraise, I worked as a Project Manager at Unister Holding on a number of projects and also ran the portal management for the real estate porta myimmo.de. Unfortunately, most of the projects there relied on assertiveness rather than creativity. It’s much different at laFraise because laFraise lives from creativity itself. I actually wasn’t looking for a new company, but it was more like laFraise found me (with a little help from a former colleague). The more I found out about the company, the more I realized that I absolutely wanted in on it.

What is your vision for laFraise and can you tell the community what your expectations and projects are for 2013?

Helmut Schmidt once said: “Those who have visions should go to a doctor.” Now, you should necessarily take this quote literally. Rather, it should remind you that the best idea doesn’t really have value if you can’t actually implement it. For me, 2013 is about one thing – namely, concentrating everything on laFraise finding itself once again. Over the last few months we’ve been working on moving external and internal obstacles out of the way. Now, just before the new year, we are at a point where we can concentrate on development. I don’t want to say too much about the upcoming projects, I want them to be something like a nice surprise ;)

What do you want to create with laFraise?

My idea for laFraise is as simple as it is demanding: it’s supposed to become the coolest international platform for graphic designers!

What are your three favourite designs at laFraise and why?

I have no idea why I like it, but somehow I love this kind of morbid humour.

Simply a cool retro design, and with a message to boot!

A cool one

At this point I’d like to invite you all to contact me via Facebook and exchange ideas.

Hi childmirror,
Could you please introduce yourself in a few words, tell us who you are and where do you come from? Could you tell us how and why you became a graphic designer?

A guy from Penang who has drawn comics since he was young whenever he was given a pencil and a sheet of paper. Aliens, fluffy sheep and talking puppies are always his best friends whenever he was alone. His name is Loh Keam Long. That’s me =). I am a graphic designer and animator, graduated from Wanganui Polytechnic, New Zealand. Being a graphic designer has been my ambition since childhood. I love to create my imaginary world and wishing that one day I would be able to make it realistic. This drove me to be a graphic designer and animator.

Could you tell us how did you conceive your design Come from sky and how did you get the idea? What has inspired you and what is the story behind it?
There is a rumour that 2012 is the year that our world will come to its end. As filming in the movie “2012“, earth will be flooded and human beings will to try thousands of methods and compete among each other for survival. Or perhaps it might just be like the story in “War of the worlds“ ,  aliens attacking humans for our earth’s resources. Anyway, be optimistic, I believe that even if the aliens are coming to the earth, they won’t not necessarily hurt us. They might be just wish to stay peacefully with us. Cheers!

Have you watched the TV show “lost” and were you a fan of it? Do you like aliens?

Yeah, I love it. Aliens are always a good idea whether in creating movies, animation or short films.
How long have you known laFraise and how did you find out about us?
For two years now, when I Google searched for t-shirt design competition.
If you could recommend something for us, what would you say?
Advertise laFraise widely so that it is more well known by the public.

Do you have hobbies other than drawing, which are?
Music, watching movie and creating animation.
What are your expectations for this year and the next one?
Creating my own animations and more graphic designs.
Could you please draw us your interpretation of strawberries with Chantilly cream? Thanks for the interview and the drawing!

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Hello Zafeu,

We’re happy to see you again! (In case you missed our first interview, check out this link)

Pleasure’s all mine!

Can you tell us how the idea for the design Free The Nature came about? What was your source of inspiration?

There was a contest called „Gaia“, which was all about showing your vision of Mother Nature. Since a plain female representation seemed a bit too easy for my taste, I had a look around in the animal world. For whatever reason, the turtle felt like an obvious choice. It’s an animal living on land that has the highest life expectancy of them all (over 150 years). This is why this animal exudes wisdom as we associate old age with experience and knowledge.

When depicting the animal, I wanted it to embrace the whole world. It was during my studies that I once saw an illustration by the name of Disc World – and I had no clue what it was about. But the depiction of a turtle carrying 4 elephants, which in turn carried a disc world, appealed greatly me. So this phantasy world contributed to the process that eventually led to my design.

Are you a big animal lover, and do you have a favourite?

I do love animals, even if I don’t have a pet myself.

There is no clear favourite, but I have always been very enthusiastic about all kinds of animals. Marine creatures I find particularly fascinating.

Since when have you known laFraise, and how have you become aware of this tasty little fruit?

I have known laFraise since 2007. It was pure chance when I saw the famous MisterTee design “I love it when a flan comes together”, which is a crazy mixture of Jack Daniels and Shaolin.

It’s quite brilliant really! LaFraise is a lot of fun, and a sound community. It is also a source for heaps of creativity and plenty of shopping opportunities. The designs in this community made me opt for giving it a go, and I developed my own designs for it. Still, the MisterTee design is special as it embodies the spirit of LaFraise, at least the way I got to know it.

If you were to recommend LaFraise to someone, what would you say to him?

You can’t eat this strawberry, but it’s plenty sweet to wear their juicy designs.

Do you do other stuff besides drawing, and if so, what?

I do a lot of sports. I just cannot sit still, and whenever I don’t sit crouched over my computer or a newspaper I go outside. Out in the open I get the best ideas.

What are your plans for this year and next, any resolutions?

I want to hone my skills and fine-tune my graphics style. I really adore artists whose style is so characteristic that you can recognise their designs amongst hundreds of others. Some of them are at LaFraise! That’s my goal, to develop a style that has people instantly say “that’s Zafeu!” It’s a long way, though, as it means trying out different things and creating stuff every day. Apart from that, I want to go travelling next year.

Can you draw your version of strawberries with cream? Thanks a bunch!

Today is our last “A week = A designer” and from next week, we will start with interviews again. In the meantime, we are going to Italy this week – Rome, baby! This is where we are visiting our designer Letter_Q. He has not published all that much with laFraise, but his designs are simply funny and cool.

2011, when Red Fury was released we interviewed Letter_Q to see what kind of guy he was.

Read interview

There are a few Letter_Q products in our shop, which at the moment can only be ordered in size S and L for women.

A few samples of his humourous work:

If you want to find out more about him, please check out his website or become a fan on Facebook. And if that’s not enough – Letter_Q is also on Twitter!

This week we would like to honour Vomaria, a Brazilian artist that has been part of the laFraise community for the past three years.

If you want to get to know Vomaria a little better, check out the interview we did with him at the end of 2011.

Read the interview

You can only find one design from him in our shop – but it is worth a look! What do our Ninja Turtle fans have to say about that one?

And now a small taste of his really funny work:

If this has peaked your interest in Vomaria, then have a look at his website or take the extra step and follow him on Twitter!