Going Full Iron Man
This is a story about my son reading “The Martian”, and wanting a t-shirt commemorating his favorite line… and not finding it. So we designed one.
We have an agreement at Unicorn Manor (yes, that’s the name of my house) that you must always be reading. In this case, my son was diligently devouring “The Martian” by Andy Weir. And every day he’d share another delectable phrase spoken by the irascible Mark Watney. This time, it was when he wanted to “go Iron Man” during the final climax. This line was further refined in the Ridley Scott movie as “I’m going full Iron Man.”
We loved the line, and decided that we needed a t-shirt with the iconic phrase. There’s no way that it didn’t already exist. But, low and behold, we couldn’t find one. We looked everywhere, and came up empty… so, we did what only seems reasonable: we designed our own.
I pulled out my sketchbook and quickly whipped together some basic layouts for the phrase that might look good on a shirt. Once I had sign-off from the client (i.e. my son), I spent some time on a more detailed version of Watney jetting around. Even though it looked reasonable enough, we knew we needed to engage some professionals… enter Fiverr.
I’d engaged some folks on Fiverr for other projects, and knew that amazing talent was only a few clicks away. So, we scanned the sketches and uploaded them to the site looking for artists that might be able to hit the right notes for the design we had in mind. Once we had the short list of about 7 artists we liked, we sent them proposals with the sketches.
A few days later, and we had three artists who agreed to take on the challenge. So, with each artist charging between $30 and $100, we engaged all of them, thinking that it’d be fun to see what each did with the initial sketch. And boy… we were not disappointed!
Each artist, from Argentina to Indonesia to South Africa, delivered print-ready images that we could use. So, the next move was to find the best place where we could upload them to be printed. And, amusingly, one of the PAs on “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” clued me into RedBubble… so that’s where we went next.
We uploaded the images, and customized the products that could be printed using them. It took some tweaking, but we finally found what we think is the optimal print placement for each product. And now, anyone can print t-shirts, hoodies, stickers, mugs, and even gym bags with the logo we designed!
But sure… uploading an image to an automated system can look great in their interface… but how do the final products actually look when printed?
So, once uploaded, we had to order some examples from them. With a few more key-clicks, we’d filled our cart with some t-shirts and stickers to test the output. The question was whether or not the output would match the designs… and how we imagined that they would look.
Again, as must be obvious by now… we were not disappointed. A week or so later, and we received the first printed shirt. And, honestly, I don’t think Griffin has taken it off since it arrived. Well, he did take it off at night (but only so it could be washed for the next day).
Soon after the shirt arrived, we also received the stickers from each of the logos. And, again… they far exceeded our wildest expectations. There’s no surface we can imagine that shouldn’t be festooned with “I’m Going Full Iron Man” stickers. So far, we can confirm they look great on water bottles, laptops, and notebooks… but we’re definitely putting a new order in so that we can figure out where else they belong.
And with that… we’ll toss the ball into your court… what would you like to decorate with an original “I’m Going Full Iron Man” design?
Head over to our shop on RedBubble, and you can make the magic happen! …and remember to send us a snap of what you get!
