T.E.S.T. Interview: Indeed Emma Design

We hope to introduce you to all the great Etsy sellers to be found right here in Toronto. Here at the T.E.S.T. blog, we plan to interview them all. This is the 36^th in our series with Emma of IndeedEmmaDesign.

You're new to Etsy and I see from your links you're a well respected and established designer with fabulous credentials - who is also bilingual. What brought you to Etsy?

It all started a few months ago. I started playing around with vectors and creating bright and graphic pop culture portraits. I’d post them over Facebook, Twitter, my blog, and eventually dedicated a Pinterest board to them. The response was really positive and soon I was getting requests to buy copies of them. As I realized there was an interest in what I was making, I thought starting up an Etsy shop would be a great way to reach a wider audience. I attended an Etsy workshop in Toronto, which was extremely useful for me, being so new to everything Etsy, and shortly after I opened my shop.

What is it you like most about Etsy?


Everything is so beautiful! Not a day goes by that I don't swoon at the items and treasuries that come up on my feed. It's inspiring to see so much passion and talent by Etsy creators.

What is most challenging?

Taking good photographs of my items. It was an ordeal for me to take the photos I took, and I feel like there is a lot of room for improvement. But I’m sure I’ll get better with practice.

From your printed work I'm guessing you're a hybrid fan of science fiction and literature. What makes you enjoy producing those images and please explain a little of your process?

I absolutely love science fiction and literature. I think there are amazing worlds and odysseys created in scifi and great books and I look to tap in to that shared experience. I sketch out an idea with paper and pencil, then use Adobe Illustrator to break down and simplify the image even further. I try to recreate a retro feeling, building on the nostalgia I hope the images and their content inspires.

Your shop also carries cozy and charming knit goods specifically made for ipads and iphones. How did you come up with this idea because it's great - suddenly my iPad looks cold?

My grandmother taught me knitting, and for years I could barely manage a scarf. One winter break from school I wanted to do something purely creative, so I challenged myself to knitting a sweater. It was such a calming and rewarding experience, I’ve hardly been without a project on the go ever since. I’m lucky that I have colleagues who knit as well and we make it a regular social event. When I first thought about knitting items for Etsy, I was quick to realize there is such a wealth of amazing knitted accessories. I wondered what I could make that wasn't as popular on Etsy, something that wasn't too big a project, that let me play around with new techniques and styles, and would be great to buy as a gift for someone else or yourself. And there you have it, iPad covers. I’ve received requests for Kobo covers and laptop sleeves, which should be up on my shop soon!


Do you do all the knitting yourself (not sure from your item descriptions) and if so are you watching Breaking Bad while you knit?
 
I do all the knitting myself - I have a trunk full of yarn and an epic collection of needles I inherited from my grandmother. And I definitely knit while watching Breaking Bad.

I know you love mint chocolate chip ice cream so - what's the one thing you would take to a desert not dessert island?

Other than matches, a knife, water purification tablets, and a solar-powered satellite phone? Probably a guitar. I don’t play very well, but I’d have a lot of time to learn.

Check out the other items available from Emma in her Etsy Shop! You can find more of her work on her website, blog and Twitter.

Interviewed by Christine of ArtThatMoves in November 2012 in Toronto.

T.E.S.T. Interview: SewTara

We hope to introduce you to all the great Etsy sellers to be found right here in Toronto. Here at the T.E.S.T. blog, we plan to interview them all. This is the 33^rd in our series with Tara of SewTara.

Tell me a bit about how SewTara started and why you opened an Etsy shop.

I started SewTara after the birth of our second son. I was feeling sort of lost in the role of Mommy and vaguely remembered I was once a crafty creative person. Despite having a 2 year old and a newborn at home, I decided to start my blog as an online creative journal for myself. Eventually things grew from there, the stuff I was making started piling up and I had this wacky idea to open an Etsy store to sell some of it.

When you aren’t creating items for your Etsy shop, do you go to a day job?

I'm a Special Education Teacher. I teach in a class with 3 other lovely ladies who are EAs. I have 10 students, the class is for grades 1-4.

I noticed in your profile and about page that you are a mom. What one piece of advice do you have to other parents trying to balance raising kids, Etsy and day jobs?

Just keep at it! It's tough to balance it all but you can have what you want. It might mean trading sleep for some extra time but I find I get energized from what I like to do so it's worth it.

Looking at items in your shop, especially the cup cozies, I see themes around pop culture and social media. Are there any other themes you incorporate into your work? 

Mostly I just make what I think is funny. Since I'm a bit of a dork - zombie, horror movie, sci fi, comic book, geeky, word play lover, that tends to come out in my work. When I sew things that aren't cup cozies I use wild crazy fabrics and love cute Japanese prints.

In the age of information overload, how do you choose your designs to reflect the pop culture and social media themes most accurately? (In other words; how do you say no to one design but yes to another? Or do you have shelves of books filled with massive ‘to do’ lists!?)

Haha, I have several To Do lists and piles on the go! I usually have lots of ideas. I'm fairly new to pulling off the entire screen making process myself so I can print my designs, so sometimes that slows me down on getting a new idea 'out there'. But that's ok because it's more important to make something that I like and hopefully other people will like it too. I find if you try to make a product so it *will* sell and not because you're in love with it, it's just not going to work.

I love that you upcycle and are respectful of the environment in all your creations. Can you tell me a bit about this process?

Quite often the material used on the backs of the cup cozies is repurposed or scrap from another project. I rarely buy a pile of new buttons I just search through the stash I have from donations or scavenged off clothing. I've also started to keep every little scrap of fabric and I use them to make 1 inch magnets or fabric covered hair clips. I try not to create too much waste in my work.

Do you advertise your shop, or guest blog, or any other sort of promotion? And if so, what has worked for you and what hasn’t?

I have paid for ad spots for my blog on other blogs. I've also written guest posts and done giveaways. I find being active on social media is a great way to get yourself noticed and have your presence out there. Posting images and engaging your followers and likers is great too. It's good to show there's a real person behind that virtual store front.

Aside from advertising, what is the best thing you ever did to boost your Etsy shop?

Well the best thing that brought the most traffic to my shop was being linked on Gizmodo and Reddit. But I can't claim I had anything to do with that, I didn't even know it had happened. Taking great photos and having a nice product is a great step towards being in the Etsy newsletter or on the front page, which are also things I can't claim credit for but have boosted traffic to my shop.

Tea or coffee?
Tea!

Mornings or nights?
Nights :)

Books or movies?
Arghgh books are awesome but I can craft with a movie on . . . .

David Suzuki or Al Gore?
Suzuki

Terrible Twos or Teens?
Not at teens yet so I'll go with Twos

Facebook or twitter?
I'm starting to lean towards twitter more and more.

Mac or PC?
Mac. Mac. Mac.

Check out the other items available from Tara in her SewTara Etsy shop! 
You can find more of her work on her blog and twitter

Interviewed by Carolyn of SproutsPressDesigns in November 2012, in Toronto.

T.E.S.T. interview: DinosDiedOfBoredom

We hope to introduce you to all the great etsy sellers to be found right here in Toronto. Here at the T.E.S.T. blog, we plan to interview them all. This is the 23^rd in our series, just in time for Hallowe'en, a monster-filled interview with Sheena of Dinos Died of Boredom.

When I first read your shop name, Dinosaurs Died of Boredom it evoked for me a sense of playfulness. Upon seeing your work besides the obvious, that you like to explore interpretations of well known iconic images. I would like to ask;

Describe your process:

I start off by finding a nifty person or monster that would look cool in watercolours. Then I make some tea. I paint said subject while drinking said tea. Wait for it to dry. Photograph the painting and then post on etsy. I will often put a notice on my facebook and tumblr pages about the ‘fresh off the easel’ painting and then probably have another cup of tea. Since I already mentioned the social media outlets, why not do a a bit of shameless plugging?
my dinosdiedofboredom facebook
dinosaurs died of boredom tumblr
Dinosaurs Died of Boredom Blog


What inspires you and draws you to working with iconic imagery?

I have an absolute obsession with retro. It started as a little kid bopping around my living room to Elvis and watching Leave It To Beaver when I came home for lunch. The first two CDs I ever bought were Elvis and The Beach Boys. As a teenager I started wearing vintage clothes and growing more of an appreciation for the cultural significance of the past several decades. I was always watching TV shows from the 50s-80s (loved The Munsters, Brady Bunch, Three’s Company, ALF…). I could always spend hours in a thrift or antique shop. When I was about 16, I read Frankenstein and Dracula and that set me on a path of deep love for monsters (which continues today, as can be seen by my mostly monstrous collection of paintings). Life moves horrifyingly quickly and shows/items/relics/images from an era gone by are like pieces of the past frozen in time.


Do you feel your work is a continuation of the pop art aesthetic of such masters as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein?

I’m going to go ahead and say yes. I certainly could never compare my pieces to the likes of Warhol and Lichtenstein, but I will attest to the fact that without pioneers such as them, who knows if there’d be a place in the landscape of art for quirky and kitschy paintings like mine. The pop artists of the 50s/60s really helped breakdown the distinction between high and low culture, revolting against what was typically considered fine art. As can be garnered from my lament of all things retro, I’m a big fan of pop culture (mostly from the 20s-80s). I watch a lot of film and TV (my day job is actually in film and TV) so, like Lichtenstein and Warhol, my inspiration is heavily drawn from sources of popular culture in music, movies and television.


What criteria do you use when selecting your images?

First, it has to look good in the style that I paint in (a lot of negative, white space).
Next, the subject matter has to be awesome. I love the classic monsters, so I tend to feature those creatures quite frequently. I also lean towards historic figures who have made my life a little better or more enjoyable in some way, whether it be a scientist, an actor, a musician or an artist.

It seems that you are using 'Dinosaur' as a metaphor for something that is past its time much the way we refer to, "dinosaur rock bands' for example.
How did you arrive at, Dinosaurs died of boredom?

Interesting way of looking at it. I suppose we can harken back to my aforementioned love of retro if we want to create a metaphor with the past. I never quite thought of it that way, but I like it.

“Dinosaurs Died of Boredom” actually came from a book… I have this very old book called “Strange Stories, Amazing Facts” and it is full of just what the title implies. One of those strange stories/amazing facts is the theory of Paleoweltshmerz that expresses a possible explanation for the extinction of dinosaurs. It claims that dinosaurs became so disillusioned with their ancient world that they died of boredom. I think that that is such an interesting and hilarious theory that I use it as a daily philosophy to live my life. Don’t die of boredom.


Please further define Paleoweltschmerz regarding your paintings.
Well, essentially I started painting so that I don’t die of boredom (as the dinosaurs may or may not have).

Biggest artistic influences:

Two influences who I think got to me subconsciously are Basil Gogos and Alex Pardee. It wasn’t until after I opened my etsy shop that I looked back on some of those gentlemen’s art work and I realized how they both, unbeknownst to me, crawled into my head and truly impacted my style. Gogos was an absolute master of monster art. In the 60s and 70s he painted bold portraits of ghastly ghouls, monsters and horror film actors. Most of his work was for the cover art of monster movie magazines. His dazzling use of colour and dramatic lighting create the effect that these creepy creatures are about to crawl out and get ya. He paints these ghouls in vivid colours, creating a neat juxtaposition between macabre images and happy colours, which I tend to do. Alex Pardee is in the new generation of monster artists. He also uses bright, jovial colours for his spooky drawings and there is a terrific sense of humour that comes through his art. The paint dripping off the page is an effect which he frequently employs, as do I. Again, it wasn’t until my shop was up and running for a few months that I looked back on some of Pardee’s work and I was astounded to see that, without consciously realizing it, I most likely swiped that idea from him. That’s part of the thing about pop culture, isn’t it? It’s so invasive; it penetrates your thoughts and ideas without you having any idea that it’s actually happening.


Working on now:


I’m working on a blog that I’ve started up. Seeing what the action is on this crazy blogosphere I’ve been hearing so much about. In terms of upcoming subjects for my paintings, I recently saw an excellent rendition of The Crucible performed by Ryerson University students and it has reminded me of how much I love Arthur Miller, so I think I’ll add him to the roster.

You can find more of Sheena's work at the aforementioned Dinos Died of Boredom Etsy shop, the dinosdiedofboredom facebook, dinosaurs died of boredom tumblr, and the new Dinosaurs Died of Boredom Blog. She was interviewed by Tosca of nanopod, in October, 2011.