Post 100

This is my 100th post. exciting...

Tomorrow night the new items will be up. Lots of new stuff! These are special items. Limited edition possibly. More likely because we don't have enough room to keep all the screens so I'll have to just put them away. Thanks to everyone for buying and liking our stuff.

BTW! shipping to US and Canada since Wednesday is 3.95$ per item. Internationally is 5.95$ per item. So take advantage of these new rates.

There's alot of website updates that need to be made....will i make them tomorrow night? maybe a couple if i have time. That's it for now.

Rain all Weekend

So the weather network says it's going to be raining all weekend. Awesome. First off I love the sun, but this hasn't been the summer that I've been able to enjoy it. Being in the room with the heater blasting at 350 degrees I've been pretty happy for the terrible weather we've been having. I've increased my printing speed again, I'm starting to get the hang of this :P I printed about 30 shirts for Calgary in about an hour. Below is a picture of shirts with no prints waiting to be printed on.






















Thanks again to everyone for keeps giving us positive feedback about the shirts when they get them. We're always grateful to hear that you are happy with your purchase. And be sure to keep your eyes peeled because it's that time of the month again when we have new products for you.

Printing Pics

I noticed I never actually posted any pics of the room which I print in. So here you are...Welcome to the room I spend about 4 hours in every night when I get home from work -_-*

And a photo of our Bates Motel styled bathtub. We like to keep the sink and tub bloody at all times :)

We're on Twitter!

So as the world changes we shall adapt. Twitter is like a blog feeder thing... Like you know how awesome it is to check the main page of Facebook to see all the useless updates your friends have made, well this is similar. You can 'follow' the people you like and want to be updated about. I see people using it as a mini blog. So you get a synopsis and if you like it you can read it in more detail. It's pretty clever, could be more attractive though. So If you want to follow me on there please do so and I'll make sure to check out what your about as well. Blogs seem to be pretty one sided unless you count the comments, so hopefully I can get to know you a little more as well. Here's the link.

My Secret Potion

So this weekend I printed a record of 100 tshirts. The most I've ever printed in a period of 2 days. It was tough but I'm happy I did it. And of course midway through my ipod died, so I had to listen to the incessant banging of my new landlords hammer, children playing soccer in the park across the street, and neighbors playing in their pools. Bitter much? :P

Here's my magic potion for keeping me from crashing: 1 fan, red rave (a cheaper and tastier version of redbull), vitamin water, and a bag of roasted corns.

Batman...no spoilers.

So after work yesterday I went to pick up Dora at the hospital (she was just finishing a months worth of unpaid internship there) and then we headed to the cinema to finally see The Dark Knight! Ok, let me just say the movie had everything, great action, creepy scenes, and was like 2 hours and 30min long! The Joker was awesome, Ledger really did a good job at playing the character. I remember when he was first casted for the role I was very disappointed but he actually pulled it off really well. I don't want to spoil it for anyone but it's worth seeing, oh and especially that new Terminator teaser at the beginning. Anyways all very inspiring, let's hope I can crank out some cool shirt designs from it.

Dark Knight Tonight...finally...

So we dropped off the shirts at Sin City Tattoo Shop last night. Two of the artists at the shop placed orders with us. We left with a list almost as large as the one we had a week ago :P It's cool though, I'm always happy to see the look on people's faces when they get their shirts. On the way home from the shop, I was so tired that I missed the exit to our place. Luckily we caught the bridge back home, cuz we were seconds away from hitting downtown traffic and a huge storm. When we got home I think it was 9pm and we crashed on the bed. When I woke up it was midnight and all the lights were still on in the apartment from when we came in.

Tonight finally we get to see Dark Knight. Luckily no one has spoiled it for me yet. I can't wait to see it, I loved the last Batman with scarecrow, and also The Prestige, so let's hope this new movie will be just as awesome.

Tim Hortons Coffee

Without this magical drug there would be no way to actually survive in the working world. Tim Hortons, if you don't know already is a chain of coffee/donut stores that offers a delicious Large black coffee at about 1.50$ in Canada. Amazing.

Last night I had to help a friend with his tshirt company, it seemed he's been running into one obstacle after another. So out of the goodness of my little black heart I said I wouldn't mind printing some of his shirts since it was a low quantity (9) and it was just the company name on the back. Anyways, to make a long story short I finished printing around 1:30-2:00am. Had to paint in the letters by paintbrush cuz the screen didn't burn properly, also burnt one shirt out of pure uncontrollable fatigue. But in the end it was worth the extra push. The shirts came out great, and my friend was really happy when he saw the results.

Dora burned her index finger bad while heating up Akumu shirts for the Sin City Tattoo Shop last night. She touched the metal tip of the heat gun, the part that turns red cuz it's so hot! The whole top of the finger was white...poor thing :( We're cutting it close to the deadline, but considering we printed and heated by hand about 100 shirts in a week I'm very proud of what we've accomplished together.

Lastly, it is confirmed...We are going to the Montreal Art and Tattoo Show! Here's the poster:

Draining

What can I talk about...As you've read below we're doing good, hooking up gigs and stuff, but the truth of the matter is our work load has doubled. I may have mentioned that I work fulltime at a day job, and fulltime for Akumu Ink. It can get very draining. Many sacrifices have been made by both Dora and myself. But it's cool though, we choose to work hard now to hopefully someday be able to enjoy what we worked for. We don't have anyone helping us out with the workload or the financial stuff. It's all us, and it's all for you. We try and bring you something you will be proud of and that we can be proud of giving you. I sleep in my car during my lunch break at my day job...I'm sure everyone thinks I've become some asocial jerk but really I'm just so tired from working 18 hours a day, everyday that I need the 30min sleep. Wow, boring huh? Tomorrow we're delivering the shirts to the tattoo shop, so hopefully we'll be able to take some pics and post them up.

Work to Death

This weekend was another work filled weekend. Got a lot of stuff done though. Finished up the printing for our in store debut. Also preparing for the Calgary tattoo show. And yesterday we got an email from the Montreal tattoo convention letting us know that a spot is available for that show! Everything keeps working in our favor. Although it does mean more work... but if I'm going to have a mental breakdown then let it be so in my little room that's as hot as hell, with my heater that causes the breaker to jump in 3 of the rooms in the apartment when Dora prints something, with my little print machine and terrible ventilation. Something to look back on and laugh, hopefully.

So I got a comment on the last couple of blog posts from someone who has their own tshirt blog. Not only does Mr. Chaunt like our shirts, we're on the top of his wishlist. So check it out.

If there is any discipline in my life is based on a movie about robots from the 90's. Thanks mom and dad I'll never forget my birthday in grade 4 when you rented Terminator 2. Best birthday ever. All this to say that there's a teaser trailer up for the newest Terminator movie: Terminator Salvation. With Christian Bale as John Connor, amazing. This movie looks like it's going to be really sick.

Akumu Ink in Stores?

This month has been crazy. Got back from Toronto, going to Calgary, sponsoring a band, looking for a new apartment, and now we're going to be in a store! We just signed a contract yesterday with SinCity Tattoo Shop in Ile Perrot, Montreal, Quebec, so this is for real. You'll be able to find all your favorite Akumu Ink tshirts alongside your Afflictions and Wildcards within the next 2 weeks. We keep on growing bigger and bigger every week. It's crazy. We really appreciate everyone who likes our stuff, let's keep bringing you a quality product at an affordable price :)

Big Spender

I don't know what has gotten into me recently. I think when you work really hard, even if you're broke you gotta get yourself a little something sometimes. I'm looking for inspiration as well as just satisfying my pallet with beautiful art stuff. So I just bought this last night; I personally can't afford WrongWroks' shirts or other items, but I can afford their book so I got it. I don't know what to expect, either it'll be awesome and I'll keep it on the proverbial coffee table, or it'll suck and I'll end up shoving it in our library.

I've also been questioning if I should buy Jim Mahfood's MIXTAPE Vol. 1 and I'm going for it. as soon as I get home tonight I'm getting it and I can't wait to see his stuff coloured in print. Very exciting.

Iron Fist Hoodies

Yesterday I went to D-Tox...The Quebec version of Hot Topic and finally picked up 2 iron Fist hoodies that I have had my eye on all season. I only discovered Iron Fist last year, and totally feel inspired by the items they produce. Every time i saw these two hoodies at the store they were always 70$ a piece, but I guess it's end of season sale cuz I got them for 40$ each. I got the Blue one in the first pic and the grey one from the second pic.

Dora and I would love to produce hoodies. And I totally think it's something we're going to be doing sooner than later. We're just currently trying to figure out how to charge shipping so that it will be fair for our Canadian, American and international customers, as well as for ourselves. Anyways, we got some good ideas which we hope will come to life before the end of this year. We'll keep you posted.

Tee Party

Hey, so if you've checked out the German Shirt Spotting Blog you'll find that they have a competition going on. It's their one year aniversarry and they're giving away a free tshirt to the winner of this event. I don't know how a winner is chosen exactly but all you have to do to enter is leave a friendly comment, saying Happy Birthday or whatever you like and maybe add the company you’d prefer to have send you a shirt.

This isn't mentioned but for first place winners we're offering 2 tshirts, and 1 to the second place winner. So check it out, maybe you'll win something. Thanks Shirt Spotting and the other tshirt companies for participating. Here's the link to participate: Shirt Spotting Anniversary Tee Party

Of Blogs and Shops

So good news today. Met up with some really good friends of ours today who ordered more shirts from us (Thanks Marc and Hong!).

We've gotten a lot of offers to have our stuff in different shops and boutiques. But today we actually were able to talk to some owners of a local tattoo shop that seemed very interested in our Akumu gear. Hopefully, I'll have more good news on this subject to let you know about later on this week.

Also I'd like to make mention that some very respectable tshirt blogs have mentioned us again, and the reviews keep getting better and better. So far we've been getting alot of good feedback about our designs and prints, as well as comments on the quality and effort placed in our products. We're really happy you like our product, and all I can say is that there's a lot more to come ;)

So click on the images below to see what the blogs are saying this month about us:

Meet the Storm

So we've been wanting to get a band which we felt represented us well. And guess what I find in my inbox one evening. A proposal from an awesome punk/hardcore band looking to be sponsored. They are called Meet the Storm and they're from the Netherlands. They even opened for Canada's own Cancer Bats. They are definitely on their way up. Below I'm posting their banner as well as one of their live videos. please click on Meet the Storm to view their myspace page.

Worth Potential Suicide

After possibly going out of my mind last week trying to figure out what to make for this month's newest design I'm glad to say that it was all worth it. Within an hour of posting the new design Never Say Die it was purchased. Also today we got a warm comment from a fellow artist and Akumu Ink buyer:









Doing a search in google for 'Akumu Ink' lead us to a blog we didn't even know had mentioned us. And the things they say about us are very flattering. Here's the link to the blog feature written by Cici at Online Clothing Stores @ 1 T-shirts World

Never Say Die

Yes it's different but I'm glad I did it. We don't seem to have enough stuff for girls except for hearts. Guys and girls alike have favored our When A Cat Smiles tshirt so I wanted to create something for those who wanted something cute but also a little dark. Also I wanted to try something in this style to see if you'll like it enough for me to continue drawing in my style instead of the generic skulls and hearts. You all like Death's Embrace, so let me try this and we'll see where we go from there.






















Never Say Die is an illustration of a cute Japanese girl in her school uniform being embarrassed that she told someone to 'Die' aloud.

Also this month Impaled and Shattered are on sale for 21$ each. Please check it out because after this month they go back to their regular price of 25$ or might be removed completely from our selection.

The 2008 Calgary Tattoo & Arts Festival

Just want to let you know that it's official. Our plane tickets are bought. We're going to Calgary. We got to meet so many great people in Toronto, so we just hope we'll have a similar experience in Calgary. We'll be there August 30th to September 1st, so come down and check us out if you live in the area or are planning on attending the event already. I haven't started printing yet...I'm so going to regret it.

July Design on Hold for a Week

So I worked on the new design all through the night and... it sucks. I'm not proud of it, and it came out so far from what I wanted it to be. So I'm going to have to cancel this image for now. Originally when Dora and I were sitting around talking about how we wanted to start making tshirts and that I could have fun drawing whatever I wanted on them... well, I discovered last night trying to force out a design just because it's the beginning of the month is stupid. Why should I do whatever just to say I did something rather than create something that I truly believe in. So if you can bear with me for a little while longer I'm going to try something different this month and see if you like it. Also I'm considering posting my sketches and you can pick which one you think I should make into a tshirt....but I'm not sure yet. Anyways, bla bla bla right? Thanks for understanding. We've gotten such a good reaction from last month's design, that I don't want to disappoint you this month.
-Joey

July Design Preview

Here's a preview of our July design which is still a work in progress but should be up tonight or tomorrow. This will be our last design that we'll create for our Army and Raspberry collection. After this we'll go back to black tshirt designs for a while, and we'll keep these designs up until the stock runs out.

MSI pics

Hey, so MSI was entertaining as always. Even though Jimmy pulls out alot of the old tricks I've already seen him do before it's always fun to watch him. And it's really fun to see Dora turn around and face me in disbelief every time he does something strange. That made it all worth it. Btw, the pic with the tiger face is Jimmy wearing a stuffed tiger face while singing the song Animal.