William Marchant

TigerHawks - MU & KU Fans Coming Together for the Cure!

I did these shirts for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in St. Louis this past Saturday.  Our team/group was made up of half Mizzou fans and half Kansas fans.  So we thought that combining the two rival mascots would be pretty neat...and something that really has never been done; at least that I've seen.  My brother said it best when I showed him the shirts, "It's bittersweet."  We thought about doing "JayTigers" but that didn't have a nice ring to it...plus Mizzou needs to go first, right!  Sidenote: When designing the logo, it was a pleasure cutting off the jayhawk's head!

So the shirts were a big hit at the race/walk!  A lot of people were even stopping us to take pictures, haha.

But, on the more important side, the race was an AMAZING experience.  I've never been a part of something that large and for such a great cause.  There was a part of the walk where the people in front of you were on an incline and you could see the massive river of people cutting through downtown St. Louis (picture below)...you couldn't help but get teary-eyed.  

There is not a single person that I know who hasn't been some way connected to breast cancer...whether it was a mom who passed away, a grandma who survived, or even just a friend who had a scare.  I was thinking while we were walking the 5K, it's been like 30 years since the Susan Komen for the Cure began, and I really hope that this race doesn't go on year after year and get to a 50th Anniversary race.  It would be nice if a cure was found and there was a big "finale" race or something.  Or if it became "We Found a Cure!" race...that would be awesome!

That's what I hope for at least.

LOOKS GREAT! is the New William Marchant Illustration & Design

It became apparent to me that this site, WilliamMarchant.com, may seem a bit jumbled.  There's a lot that I do so there is a lot going on on my website.

In an effort to make things simple, straight forward, and clean, I am launching a re-branding of myself under the model www.LooksGreat.biz!  Looks Great (LLC pending) will serve as my main portfolio/resume website and WilliamMarchant.com will be converted to my blog.  While I do like this site, I really beleive that in the long run, Looks Great will be easier for new visitors to understand and navigate.

A link to my blog will be added to the new site soon, but I am still figuring out the best way to link the two sites...so I am just keeping them separate for the time being.

So go check out my new site and let me know what you think by voting for your favorite on Facebook!

The Best Mistake I Made Learning to Screen Print

Up until last week, I had been using 3M Injet Transparency Film on my Brother MFC-5890cn to print transparencies for my screen printing process. I had been quadrupling them up to get darker black areas.

In an effort to cut some costs, I found a much cheaper injet transparency film made by Apollo.  My costs for transparencies were substantially cut!  $50 for a 50 pack of the 3M stuff went to $14 for a 50 pack of the Apollo stuff!

So the new transparencies arrived and I ripped open the package...only to look at the specifications and find that they were not compatible with my Brother printer.  Tiss tiss for not looking into that before I ordered, right?  But, I tried printing a few anyway...only so my Brother could completely eat each page.

I sat there for a few minutes letting set in the fact that I was stuck with 200 transparencies that I couldn't use.  And a thought came to me!  They were compatible with HP printers and I had an old HP printer collecting dust next to my desk! 

DECEMBER UPDATE: W Marchant Ilustration & Design

My blog hasn't been updated for a while so I figured it a good idea just to explain why.  Why is because I've been busy as EVER!  While I've gotten only rejection letters back from a few of my picture book submissions...the design side of things has been great!

One thing I've been busy with is a lot of renderings and other design for a company in New York called Populate: Drawing People In.  I can't really talk about the projects I did for them because each involves 2011 ad campaigns for some major companies.  But I will say that a major soft drink company, a leader in dress pants, and a technological giant have some really cool campaigns coming soon and I am glad to have had a hand in pitching them! 

Other projects that I can only "mention" are the work I did for the CDC (Centers for Disease Control & Prevention)...but there is some neat stuff going on there too!

Some stuff that I can actually talk about, for one, is all the stuff I've been doing for MSI (Motor Service, Inc.).  I've been handling a rebranding of their company since early this year, which has included everything from new business cards, to truck decals, to merchandising items, to carbonless forms.  It has been a well-rounded project to say the least.

With all this design work, I feel lucky to get away from the computer screen every now & then...and some recent t-shirt screen printing orders I've gotten have helped that! 

Also, in whatever spare time I get, I have been developing a mini-comic or zine that is nearing completion (that's the cover above).  I will be targeting some underground comic stores and indie bookstores to sell some of these things so look for them soon!  If you want to pre-order a copy just shoot me an email.

And the last thing is always my side project RockScratch...I'm always adding new stuff there so check it out.  I'm running a 20% OFF Holiday Sale...so now's a good time to take a look!

Well, I think that covers most of what I've been doing lately...I'm going to get back to it, but have a happy Christmas season!

Bis dann!

Fraternity T-Shirt Designs

My college fraternity hired me to design all of their fall semester t-shirts...the shirts are being printed by a third party company...I just did the designs. I wanted to post a few that I was happy with...

LIMITED EDITION Kings of Leon PIGEONGATE Tees!

Check out RockScratch.com for more info on ordering yours today!

 

 

Screen Printed Bachelorette Party Shirts!

This is one of my first screen printing projects...just a few shirts for a friend's upcoming bachelorette party. 

The design is nothing too special, just a funny phrase that the girls liked, her name and the date.  The run was very small...I did 5 white on fuchsia for the bridesmaids and one fuchsia on white for the bride.

I think they turned out pretty good!    

Next time you have an event or need team shirts/jerseys...

...LET ME DO YOUR PRINTING FOR SUPER CHEAP!

My First Batch of Screen Printed Posters...

I just finished with my first screen printing run...and for a first attempt, I think they turned out alright.  An experienced screen printer will see the obvious mistakes that I made, but the posters will look okay to an average viewer.

For my first run, I chose to do posters for the Black Keys concert I'll be going to on June 10th at the St. Louis Pageant.  The printed posters are seen at left...I did 15 black and 5 blue (and I completely botched 10 others).  I wanted to do something with a lot of detail and a couple different colors just so I could see how well it came out.

Rather than laying out instructions on the screen printing process (which you can find like I did by Googling "how to screen print") I'd like to offer some general ideas that I worked through.