Back in 2012, the Executive Director of the Greater Sudbury Big Brothers Big Sisters asked me for a poster for that year’s Bowl For Kids Sake. The theme was “Pirates”, and after some thought, I realized that some fun could be had by turning a bowling ball and pins into a skull and crossbones.
Four and a half years later, I get it in my head that I want to make t-shirts (technically it was three and a half years later… I got the idea last year but didn’t act on it). I started with a bunch of emoji shirts, but then I realized… I have something very market-specific that I could be tapping into… and it’s all ready to go.
Since I’ve never sold the rights outright to any Big Brothers Big Sisters agency, they’re all mine to do with what I choose. And at this point, what’s pretty cool is that there’s a whole market of bowlers out there that may have an interest in these odd little pieces of merchandise.
Plus… I didn’t stop with the Pirate theme. When the Sudbury agency got a call asking if they could use it, I realized there was a market out there for more themes that other agencies could use, and I have indeed gotten requests over the years to use them. I spent a lot of hours creating additional themes (it spiraled into a massive illustration/design challenge for me, and I kept getting ideas, so I kept exploring them), and now rather than collecting digital dust, they potentially have a new lease on life out there in the bowling world.
became…
became…
became…
And then I finally created this one from scratch, because, well… I had the idea:
It’ll be a challenge connecting with bowlers and attracting some interest in these… but it’s a challenge I’m looking forward to meeting.
All this merch is available on my Society6 site.