This is How Good Friends Roll

We are used to creative commissions, but this particular illustration David commissioned from Louie Zong is particularly clever. To surprise his friend for her birthday, he had her favorite t-shirt design re-illustrated- with her as the star!

Backstory Behind the Piece – Q&A with David

ArtCorgi (AC): What’s the story behind the “This is How I Roll” shirt?

David (D): I suppose the main story is that it is a birthday gift for a friend, and it’s a personalized version of this friend’s favorite shirt, where I have replaced the character in the shirt with a cartoon version of her.

AC: What inspired you to commission a version of the shirt’s illustration with your friend in place of the roll?

D: I suppose it took a few things before I got the inspiration, what I initially set about doing was finding out if this shirt was still available to buy anywhere, when I was unable to find it I found out that you could get the same cartoon that was on the shirt on some buttons, this was tempting but I didn’t feel like it was enough, so I went to the site of the company that made the shirt, to see if there were any other shirts there that might suit her personality, I found one that I liked, but they were only based in America and with shipping and tax added on to it, it ended up being quite expensive. It was then that I saw an ad for ArtCorgi on facebook, and the idea just came to me, I thought it would be interesting to see if it was possible but thought that I shouldn’t spend too much, so I set my budget at a price similar to that of the shirt I could get from America, and then I went through the application process, and I am so glad I did, as I ended up with a shirt that is a lot better, and more personalised for my friend.

AC: This is the first time we’ve had someone commission art for a shirt through us. We want more people to do that! What tips would you give to someone who is contemplating a potential original shirt design commission?

D: The main advice I would give to someone with a shirt design is to decide early on if they want a background with the image, or to just have it transparent so that the shirt is the background. Also if you were going for your own design of a shirt, I would say try and be as creative as possible with the placement of whatever is on the shirt, maybe have things interacting with areas that normally have pockets on shirts, or that type of idea, be as creative as possible :)