Hi Graja,

- 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?
I’m Eduardo and I’m from Spain. I’ve always been interested in all creative endeavours. As I was good at drawing, I focused my studies towards design from a very early age.
- How did you conceive your design “Making a mark” and how did you get the idea? What inspired you and what is the story behind it?

I’ve always been fascinated by Zen gardens. In fact, I’ve already created a design based on them which has a touch of humour about it.

We use our fingerprints like minute trademarks that represent us – I liked the parallels with Zen gardens where a monk makes his own trademark on another scale. It’s amazing that something which could easily go unnoticed is connected to something big and spectacular.

- Do you practice the Zen attitude yourself?
Sometimes. For example, I try to be Zen-like when I’m waiting in the supermarket and someone jumps the queue.

- What do you do to stay Zen in life? Any tips?
When I’m sitting on the sofa with Gara, my little dog, I turn into a Buddha who’s achieved inner enlightenment and peace.

- How long have you known laFraise and how did you find us?
Around four or five years ago. I used to read a Spanish blog about T-shirts and other things and it mentioned the shop being one of the best in the world and the best in Europe. I love design, so I looked around the blog and still enjoy doing so today.

- If you would recommend us, what would you say?
I would say that the shop has the best products out there, as its T-shirts are the result of designers fighting it out! It also values humour and more artistic, daring designs.

- Do you have hobbies other than drawing? What are they?
I love writing short stories, but I’m just an amateur.

- What are your expectations for this year?
I’ve just recently moved to a new city (Barcelona) so my list is all about getting to know the city better, learning languages like Catalan, the language that’s spoken around here, and, of course, seeing more of my designs on laFraise, hahaha.

- Could you please draw us your interpretation of strawberries with Chantilly cream? Thanks for the interview and the drawing!
Of course and thanks for the opportunity of participate in this community.

Check out his flickr

Hey guys!

I´d like to inform you that Solidays wants you to be inspired by the claim “In Love We Trust” but it is not necessarily needed to use this slogan for your submission.
There´s still 1 week left for you to submit and we´re quite curious about the designs to come…

For more inspiration, here are the winners of our former contest with Solidays:

///////////////// roundup /////////////////

The Contest

- ‘In Love We Trust’ is our this years motto, but you shouldn’t use necessarily the motto itself.
It should not be specific to a particular sexual orientation and have a somewhat general nature,
so that it can also be used for future events.

- the design should mainly be usable for textile print (on t-shirts, bags, bibs). Further use will not be excluded
(i.e. for goodies).

T-shirts containing a message have been well received in recent years.
- timeless

- without reference to any event or year

- a graphic design and/or a graphic illustration of a message for the Solidays t-shirt ‘In Love We Trust’.

- 12 colours max.

- you may use Solidarité Sida’s logo

While spring is coming (now hopefully to stay) we´re coming up with a weekly selection in GREY.
Not sure if this is funny, but we have to deal with it! :) Please let me hear a big applause for our this weeks finalists!

Rockers!

Wrestler by -Davide-

Bonne Action by vinsse

•••

Zweiter Platz : 2600 Brouzoufs

The Great Power Of The Sea by buyoDesign

Dritter Platz: 1300 Brouzoufs

Out Of Fuel von Naolito

Rama lama ding dong, here we are with the results of our nerdy special contest.

To be honest, we´ve had other designs in mind while thinking about a nerd contest. A bit more fashioned stuff for nerds rather than making fun of them. We´ve seen that our designers struggled hard, not to submit floppy disks or USB plugs with eyes and arms. ;) Some designs were really interesting and definitely  a favourite of ours, but the scores … yep, the scores… phew!

The “Digital Geekfection” had been very close to our idea of what a trendy Nerd T-Shirt should look like. In the end the cuteness of  “I am an AI” did conquer the hearts of the laFraise girls and the decision was done. Rewarding the good voting result of “Computer Bug” has been a must too, so we ended up with the ranking below.

Congrats to our winners! The next contest will be easier! Promise!

Rockers!

I Am An AI by  Oxyd-Cygo

•••

2600 Brouzoufs

Digital Geekfection by xraysucks

1300 Brouzoufs

Computer Bug by RosCreatures

laFraise is organising yet another nice game with French sweets company lesbonbecs.com. Les bonbecs make you discover or rediscover sweets to relive the sweetness of your childhood and bring back memories. Most of all, eating sweets is just like being comfortable at home with loved ones.

For €13 per month – including shipping fees in France – an assortment of 4 to 5 French and international sweets will be selected for you! :-)

laFraise and les bonbecs give you the possibility to win 3 boxes of sweets, at a value of €13 each.

How to participate?

Send us the picture of your favourite sweet to jeux [at] laFraise [dot] com

Dates :

From Wednesday 10 April to Wednesday 17 April at noon.

Prizes :

1^st : A €13 bonbecs box

2^nd : A €13 bonbecs box

3^rd : A €13 bonbecs box

All pictures will be posted on Facebook. Winners will be drawn randomly using the random draw website Courte Paille.

Hi Pigboom,

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?

Hello, I’m Pigboom and from Philippines.  I’ve really loved to draw and doodle since I was a kid. I love to explore different styles and processes of making art pieces both digital and traditional. I became a graphic designer by accident. I’m an Engineering graduate, but I didn’t take a licensing exam. My first job was in an outsourcing company, doing some web thingy stuff like SEO, website administration and some graphic designing.  I left my job to become a full time freelance graphic designer and it was not until 2011 when I decided to make more of my art and started joining t-shirt contests.

How did you conceive your design “Machine gun bloom bloom” and how did you get the idea? What inspired you and what is the story behind it? What is the message of your design, it’s more an appeal to peace?

It was last year and Machine gun bloom bloom was initially for a design challenge on another website. It didn’t get printed so I submitted it here. The theme was political and I thought about war, peace and hippies. I came up with a concept and started working on it. And yes, the message is all about peace and against war. War is destructive. Don’t let this destruction erase us and the beauty and wonders of the world.

I guess that you would have been anti-war in the 70’s and hold “Make love not war” signs?

Yeah.

Are you politically engaged? Do you think politicians should show a way against war?

Not really. I sometimes hate political stuff and those government issues. I want to be part of it but only if the system is cleaned up. Graft and corruption, greed and political propagandas exist and control our freedom and made us slaves. This sometimes leads to war and rebellion. Some politicians just took over, have the power to rule and brought war and violence. Definitely politicians should show a way against war and become leaders of peace.

What action would you do if you had to convince people to shake hands and make peace?

I’d draw things that show how pointless it is to make war and make them see the effects it can bring to us.

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

I came across laFraise from my newsfeed. I joined last 2011 but it was a year later when I started submitting designs.

If you would recommend us, what would you say?

Hey guys, you should check out laFraise.com for lots of great out-of-the-box shirts. You get to meet artists that produce underground shirt designs based on mainstream concepts. Graphic designers can get their designs printed and make money and the site’s great to build a fan base too.

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

Screen printing and collecting books/magazines.

What are your expectations for this year?

To make much more art and hoping for much more prints.

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

Hello Fraisiens!

Death seems to be an everlasting topic at our contest and that´s one of the reasons why we´ve decided to chose “Spaghetti Western” for a print. It´s a classic “fraisien” shirt story and a nice idea. Same for “Mummy Moon“. We´ve thought this would be a simple and unique eye catcher. Though “Skin Problem” by Scro/Lufograf has reentered our contest and had a minimalistic better score and we loved it, but it hasn’t conviced us with the skin problems as the mummy did. Congratulations, too for Oktopussapiens’ for his fantasy design, which opens up a great view below the sea level.

PRINTS

Spaghetti Western by JordyTheGnome

***

Mummy Moon by barmalisiRTB

***

PODIUM

***

2600 Brouzoufs

***

Skin Problem by Scro / Lufograf

***

1300 brouzoufs

***

The Island by Oktopussapiens

Prize:

1st place € 1,500 + 3-day-tickets for the festival

2nd place Solidarité Sida is allowed to use your design for its purposes + two festival tickets

3rd place Solidarité Sida is allowed to use your design for its purposes + two festival tickets

+++

Solidays is the pinnacle of the annual Solidarité Sida festival in France. It is an association designed to spread awareness
for Aids amongst young people. Every year the festival attracts some 160,000 spectators at the racecourse of Longchamp.
A host of events including animations, exhibitions, bungee jumping etc. as well as actions for Aids prevention will be held
on 5 stages for a total of 3 days. More than 200 artists, some 100 societies and associations as well as over 1,000 voluntary workers all take part in creating a truly memorable event.

This is all centred around a simple humanitarian idea – collect money to help anti-Aids campaigns all over the world. In doing so, Solidays managed to collect a total of €1.5 million. This is made possible by e.g. selling t-shirts and other goodies that have been created and produced by Solidarité Sida. To create the designs for the collection, quite a number of graphic designers are involved each year.

The Solidays are a trademark for music, prevention on youth. And of course solidarity, fun… and more. For a lot of young people and their friends, Solidays is the first of many events that they do not want to miss as it conveys quite a unique holiday-feeling. The motto ‘In Love We Trust’ will also ring true this year.

And Love is always written in capitals – whether it is Love for a single person (regardless of sexual orientation) or Love for people in general (expressed by solidarity, openness, tolerance). After all, Solidarité Sida is devoted to fight a dangerous disease. It is about bringing people together, to make people show solidarity, and to fight clishées and break with taboos.
The Solidays are ideally suited to make young people and those who are still young at heart exchange ideas on those many beautiful as well as dangerous sides of Love. At the forefront you will always find joy and togetherness, Love and music.

Here you can discover the esprit that is Solidays: http://www.solidays.org

The Contest

- create your own design for this year’s motto ‘In Love We Trust’, but you shouldn’t use necessarily the motto itself. It should not be specific to a particular sexual orientation and have a somewhat general nature, so that it can also be used for future events.

- the design should mainly be usable for textile print (on t-shirts, bags, bibs). Further use will not be excluded (i.e. for goodies).

T-shirts containing a message have been well received in recent years.
- timeless

- without reference to any event or year

- a graphic design and/or a graphic illustration of a message for the Solidays t-shirt ‘In Love We Trust’.

- 12 colours max.

- you may use Solidarité Sida’s logo

- tags: festival, activating, love, colour, music, tolarance, pizzazz, oomph, fight, rock’n’roll, trendy, fun, togetherness, solidarity, support, party, differences, dancing, concert, cheeky, wicked, humour, encounter, high

+++

The contest begins on 8 April at 3:30 pm and you can submit until 22 April at 3:30 pm. Voting ends a week later on 29 April at 3:30 pm.

+++

You want music, fun and Love? Then come join us at the racecourse in Longchamps from 28-30 June 2013!