2011 was the launch year for Villain Inc. It will always be an important year to us for that reason. This was the year that designs and ideas became reality. It was an exciting time when our fun doodles, time killers, and fine art work when into full-scale production for the market. Now at the end of 2011 (and still only halfway through our first official launch year) Villain Inc is growing fast with a big following, multiple designs, and a wonderful reception.
Villains: To Be Or Not To Be?
At the start of this endeavor, Villain Inc was not originally going to be 'Villain Inc'. Weird huh? The work began long before 2011 through our design company,
Future Boy Productions. We had been planning to launch our clothing brand for many years, often tinkering with different ideas that included robots, aliens, and all kinds of insane characters.
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| Evolution of a Villain. |
And yet, as the design process was moving along, I found myself always going back to my sketchbook to dream up some new 'Vaudevillain' characters, as I called them. Then one day it hit me: why oversaturate the market with more robotic, crazy, hipster cartoon characters? Other brands already played with this idea and did a fine job with it. Instead of looking forwards, why not look back to the cool styles of the
past? Immediately, we scrapped our original designs and put all our energy behind the Villain style.
The Original Four
After much hard work and fine-tuning, our original four designs were printed this past summer. "The Villain", "The Boss", "The Drifter" and "The Tuxedo" hit the market in a big way, receiving great responses from friends and supporters. In these original looks, we tried our best to capture what the brand is about.
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| The Original Four. |
Admittedly, our time frame was broad in essentially covering the black and white film world of a half a century. This encapsulated the vaudeville characters of the early 1900s through the Gleasons and Bogarts of the 40s and 50s. But despite this multi-decade world, we always found a certain magic in all the characters of black and white film. It's that mysterious style that we tried to capture in our launch designs, further backed by our slogan, "The Original Cool".
Getting the Word Out
Of course the design process was only half the battle for our brand this year. The other half was marketing, advertising our name, and trying to develop a following. We knew there were many people who thought like us, and that there was a market and appreciation for this style. It was simply a matter of how to reach them?
We very quickly began showing up at fairs and festivals in the New York area, selling shirts and meeting people face to face. The positive feedback and sales we received there were very encouraging! We also took to the internet to really push our brand through our
online store,
blog and
Twitter page.
We've now had the pleasure of meeting a huge amount of friends and fans that appreciate our style and share our love for the characters of the 'black and white world'. With absolute sincerity, I would personally like to say thank you to everyone that has shown interest in our brand.
2012 and Beyond
We're just getting started. Cliche, sure, but very true. In the coming days of this year we will be launching original, new designs to our shop and continuing to build our
Villain Life Collection. We are also working hard to bring Villain Inc Apparel to retail stores anywhere and everywhere! In short, the Villain Inc you see as of this writing will be enormously bigger at this time next year. We're talking selection, activities, artwork, etc. More, more, more!
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| Villain Inc 2012. |
We also hope to grow from our friends and fans as well. If you guys want to get involved, please keep sending us you
Around The World pics,
comments & suggestions, and your own
#VillainLife images! We also are looking forward to photography challenges and more appearances at parties and festivals. If you want to get involved, let us know.
A New Year For All of Us
This is only the beginning for Villain Inc. Thank you all so much for all your support and kind words. We can't stress enough how appreciative we are and overwhelmed by the positive feedback we have received already. We hope you'll continue to support us and keep us in check.
Most of all, we hope Villain Inc inspires you all to be creative as well. Remember, this brand was built from my own personal passion and a very small amount of money to invest in it. That's it. There's no great secret to it. Follow your heart, do what you love, and don't be afraid to work very hard at it.
So let's all use this new year as the start of bigger and better things. Get rid of the negativity, surround yourself with good people, and get to work on whatever it is you're passionate about. And don't be shy to share your work with us. We are happy to support it and advertise it!
Happy New Year, Villains. Stay tuned.
The Boss
