2008 Last Post

Thanks to all of you! This was our first year as Akumu Ink and what a great year it has been. I promise to do some kind of a recap of the year's events soon but for now Dora and I wish you all a Happy New Year! Have fun tonight and you'll hear a lot more from us in 2009.

Willard

I'm back with a new post since Xmas. We caught up on a lot of family time, movie watching, and well deserved rest. And we came up with some great ideas for some new shirts.

Being that we live in an apartment that's probably over a 100 years old we had an unexpected visitor staying with us the last couple of days. A baby rat! Tiny (our dog) found him hiding in our screen printing room. As cute as he was I had to set him free. For a day I felt like Willard...I miss him.

RIP Last Call

If you don't know yet our RIP section is livelier than ever. With very limited stock from tattoo conventions of summer 2008 I'm putting up a last call on some items. We may not have all the sizes or designs on men's and women's shirts but if you want any of those items be sure to get them now! Each size is limited to one item, so if you grab it you'll have the last one.

Merry Christmas everyone! Have fun and drink responsibly (I know we will be doing a lot of that!)

Impatient

Dora and I were so impatient that we opened our Christmas presents yesterday... Great gifts all around. Dora got me a 1:6 scale model of the Joker which is awesome! And The Dark Knight Special Edition!











And I got Dora a Toki Doki mini messenger bag.











After working so hard this year this was well worth it :)

New Old Video

I finally had a chance to put this piece together. It was supposed to be finished and uploaded prior to the release of the shirt, but here it is finally....I present to you the promo for our "After Party" tshirt:

Find us in Longueuil!

For those of you Akumu Ink fans living in the East of Montreal or in the South Shore you will now be able to get your Akumu fix much more easily! We just dropped off a bunch of items at a new location in Longueuil. The place is Kromatik Coiffure, my cousin's hair salon! So go in get a hot haircut or some colour put in and top off your new look with an Akumu Ink tshirt or tote bag. This new location is accessible from Longueuil-Université de Sherbrooke‎ metro station. I'm providing the map location here. For other locations carrying Akumu Ink merch go here.

Akumu Ink in a Video

Our friends from the Netherlands Meet the Storm sent us this great music video of them performing live. Not only are they fun to watch but 3 of the members are wearing Akumu Ink tshirts. Look out for the Without You tshirt on the guitar player, The Black Rose on the drummer, and the limited edition RockStar shirt is on the other guitar player.

Sit back and enjoy:

The Charlie Browniest

Last night while decorating the Christmas tree we had A Charlie Brown Christmas playing on tv in the background. I have not watched this special or any of his tv shows for a long time, so to watch it last night was shocking. Charlie Brown totally has depression! I know he is based from an adult's perspective, but he is the most EMOest character that we were exposed to as kids. Check out the following speech:

After I found that video clip I found the following amazing clips of classic moments dubbed with death metal songs:

Drop Off

So Saturday we dropped off some new items at our Montreal stores. Sin City in Ile Perrot will now be carrying 4 different hoodie designs, and Boutique Perfide near St-Henri metro is now carrying a bunch of tshirts. We were even pleasantly surprised to find out that on 2 seperate occasions someone went to the boutique with the intention to buy our shirt and did so. That is really awesome to hear :)

Btw, this weekend I will be dropping off a variety of items at a new location in Longueuil. If any of you want Akumu Ink stuff in the South-Eastern part of Montreal that will be your new destination.
More news and pics to come.

Nice Print Shots

Being that this was our first year. We did not know what to expect as far as sales were concerned. And after a very successful summer printing non stop, and also because we were preparing for tattoo shows the entire time I was pretty sure the winter months would be very quiet. Thankfully it hasn't! I think we're just as busy as this summer so that's really exciting. I'm also always happy to read all the emails you send in. It's great to see how many sweet people out there like my morbid designs. Here are some closeups of the new After Party tshirt, a photo of Shukketsu, and a nice clean shot of the silver razor blade logo that comes on the hoodies:

Winter Arrived

This morning I woke up to this beautiful scenery. Then reality kicked in and I had to actually go out there and dig out my car which was frozen into place. My car was like the chocolate in those Tootsie Pop Lollies... I hate winter.

Creepy Pics

These photos are from Friday night (before it started snowing and getting really cold) when I was waiting outside with Tiny while Dora was inside sending packages at the post office. I must have looked so creepy taking pics at night...hehe. Speaking of which, look at the creepy stuff I found on the side of the post office.

Tshirt Close-ups

This weekend was nice we got a lot of work done. I was really sick today unfortunately and had to stay home. Dora and I have been taking a bunch of photos during the last couple days, so I'll be posting those during this week. Here are some close-up pics of our most popular tshirts:

Akumu Gift Certificate

Looking to give an Akumu Ink hoodie, or tshirt as a gift for Christmas but don't know which one to get for that special person? We've got the solution :)

We just posted Akumu Ink Gift Certificates on our Etsy page. There are 3 to choose from: 1 Tshirt, 2 Tshirts, 1 Hoodie! The certificate covers the cost of the shirt as well as the shipping to the recipient. The 2 Tshirt certificate actually has a bit of a discount on it too, so it's totally worth it. These are only valid here on our website and at our Etsy shop. Please don't show up at our retailer's boutiques with your certificate cuz they will totally turn you away.

Pass the Nightmare along!

Down to the Last Ones

I've been very stingy with blog posts as of late. Nothing much new is going on I guess. I just want to mention that there aren't that many paper toys left. So it's now or never if you want to get one. As I've previously mentioned : once they're gone they're never coming back :)

The Blogs Have Spoken

It's always funny to see how people react to our stuff. Here is the latest reactions from Andy of the HideYourArms blog, and Kat from the Tshirts Around the Internet blog.

BoA

BoA was one of the first introductions I received to asian music. The story of BoA's rise to success is so messed up and interesting. Basically she's from Korea and she was found through some talent search when she was 11 years old. She pretty much been bred since then to live, eat, sleep dancing and singing. She makes her job look so effortless when you watch her perform live. She's suppose to be doing her first American performance on MTV on December 5th in New York. I'm posting her newest single which is what she's going to use to try and break into the American market. I wish her luck cuz she totally has what it takes. Check out her new video below:

Never Say Die Cute Closeups

I was printing our Never Say Die tshirt tonight and was bored while waiting for them to heat up so I took a bunch of pictures of them. I will be putting up a last preview of next month's design so keep your eyes open.

Sungazer Concert

Last night Dora and I attended my close friend Marc's concert. Their band Sungazer played in a great little bar called Saint Laurent Bar 2 which turned into a rap/reggae bar after the show was done.






















That's Marc sporting an Akumu Ink tshirt.











Later in the evening Marc showed me this pic on his phone of his paper toy that he made.











On the way home we saw a manhole overflowing.

Latest Preview

This is the same design I previewed below. It will be available next weekend ;) Bookmark this link because as soon as the shirt goes online I'll post the link here.

More Posters

It's Friday again and I'm watching Sold Out: A Threevening With Kevin Smith. So far it's more like the first one in terms of interesting stories. Also I got the rest of my posters and put them up in my printing room. So here are some pics of the posters and you can see my screens that I use to print your shirts in the foreground.

More Vintage Blood

Here is a preview of our December design. As I've mentioned in the last post I was inspired by our past design Death's Embrace as well as the Dark Knight movie.

December Creeping

Today was great fun. I watched the Dark Knight again (second time so far) while working on the December design. Let me put it this way: I was very inspired by the Dark Knight movie as well as our Death Embrace tshirt for this new design. Previews will come shortly.

Inspirational Posters

Dora bought some posters for me a while back, and I got some for myself as well. And guess what...they arrived today! I have a couple more coming that will go up in the printing room which I'll post when they've arrived. So now you can get an idea of what my office space looks like:

Akumu Ink Paintings

I've already mentioned this I know. But here is the official post.






















Anyone can make and sell a print. But I want to offer you something more. I want to offer products that are high end, limited, and custom. I want to express to you the difference between mass produced whether in small quantities or large quantities compared to something made just for you. So this month's new item will be our paintings. All our designs will be available this weekend. I'm still working on redesigning the site. I've just added last night a new feature on every item page called "Customer feedback" which will link to our Etsy page allowing you to either provide feedback on our service and products as well as read what others think about us.

Books of the Dead

I love these hand made book covers. All made from leather to give the impression that their like old sorcerer books. I am totally considering filling my shelves with these.

This person on Etsy was featured in the blog section. I really love the concept, and if time permitted I would totally love to experiment with this medium. Anyways, if anything it opens the doors that if we can come up with an idea all we need to do is put it into practice. You can visit her Etsy page here.

BAPE :: Ideology

There's a real interesting blog post I found about Nigo (the guy behind BAPE) over at complex.com. I'm really fascinated by his "number 2" comment of why his clothes are so expensive. I found myself having to explain to buyers at the tattoo conventions why our shirts were 28$ when some other guy a couple booths down was selling a lame mass-produced Walmart looking tshirt for 15-20$. Read the article here.






















Hopefully tonight I'll get a chance to put the paintings up.

A Lot of Hard Work

If you do read my blog every day or so you might have noticed that I've been very quiet recently. The reason for this is there's not only been a lot of orders coming in but Dora and I have been working hard painting a custom piece. We were hired to do a painting of Montreal blogger and Akumu Ink fan Tanya McGinnity for her birthday. I'm really happy with how it turned out. Here's some pics of our hard work. If you're interested in getting a painting done, no matter what the subject matter feel free to email me.

Then, Now, What's to Come?

Here's a brief overview of the past, present and future of Akumu Ink:

When we started Akumu Ink the point was to produce a unique quality product for you at an affordable price. So we entered the market in February 2008 with tshirts.

In October 2008 we brought in hoodies to meet your needs. Again printed on an American produced product. No sweat shop labor used. The highest quality we can afford while still retaining a competitive price. Still at this point all our products are printed after you've ordered them by us. We do NOT outsource any of our silk screening.

Now in November we will be making something very customized. We will be offering hand painted art pieces featuring the art of Akumu Ink. These are NOT prints! But actually painted by hand, by us, for you. You can currently get your hands on your own Akumu Ink painting through our Etsy page or by clicking on the following links: Tokyo Painting, Of Horror Painting.






















The rest of the line of our diverse options of paintings will be up some time this week. With Akumu Ink we're not just your regular tshirt label. We're real people and we're willing to create products that you will be excited about.

Sale Ends Tomorrow

Tomorrow's the last day of our 17$ Sale. After that I am washing out those screens and I will print them no more. There are a few random sizes left (from this years tattoo conventions) and you can purchase them in the RIP section at regular price afterwards. But for now I'd just like to say it was a nice run Beloved and RockStar, you've been with us since September of last year as sketches in my notebook. Back when I had no idea how to design a tshirt, and had not even made a tshirt yet, or even expected anyone to buy one.

It's crazy to think that a year ago Dora and I had absolutely no idea what direction we were going to go in. But for now we will be making room for new designs coming in 2008. Currently we are working on high quality items that will be so limited, and so original, you'll be sure no one will be copying your unique style.

Band Photos

The boys from the Netherlands' band Meet the Storm have not disappointed us. Here is their latest photo shoot. They are currently editing their video which I will post here as well when it's completed. But for now you can hear them on Myspace.