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.