YesNoMaybe's Ben Farleigh chatted with us recently about the Keep Calm meme, making great T-Shirts, and what it means to run a T-Shirt shop. This interview has edited by the Rumplo crew.
Rumplo How long have you been making your Keep Calm and Carry On T-Shirts? Do your London roots give this meme any special significance?
YesNoMaybe The original [slogan] would have been printed in London. We were the first to print this Classic WWII artwork onto T's - back in 2004, and they have been one of our strongest designs since we started. The artwork was once copyright of HMSO [Office of Public Sector Information], but it is now in the public domain and is enjoying a new lease of life as a poster for sale thanks to our friends - Barter Books in Northumberland. We got our poster from there and having checked thoroughly that nobody else was making them, we set to it! We launched www.keepcalmlondon.com in order to provide a genuine home of all the Keep Calm merchandise, as several copycats have moved in on the act, but ours are (and always have been) recognized as the real deal, and our detailing shines through. Heres a good geeky fact: only ours have the authentic original hand drawn font detailing from the original poster. The two hand - drawn R's in Carry are actually slightly different.
As londoners we are proud of our heritage and the look and feel of our KeepCalmLondon.com microsite site reflects this. It's in an orbit of it's own, that print. When I first got mine I did no work for a week. Swear to God. I saw it, researched it, planned our colourways, and stared at that poster. What a mantra! What a completely broad, British, sensible, soothing message! Still love it.
Rumplo What do you think about this short New York Times piece on the phenomena of the Keep Calm slogan and the reason for it's viral growth? Is making stuff that's viral an important part of your creative process, and is it a premeditated part of your business's success?
YesNoMaybe Absolutely love it. Especially the site where you can generate your own [keep calm slogan]. Aside from literally ONE particular other company, who took our idea, and passed it off as their own, which we would all recognize as low. All the others have been paying homage, and the spin offs are fun! The thing is, 'Keep Calm' is just one of hundreds of our designs, but it's certainly one of the things we are best known for.
Rumplo We get the impression from your website that you guys enjoying being an independent shop making the T-Shirts you want to make. Can you tell us a bit about what everyday life is like at what happens around the office and how the creative thinking happens?
YesNoMaybe Being independent, free and creative comes at a premium! We pay for it with stomach ulcers and alcohol problems and low wages. You can work for someone else, and get paid, but feel miserable, or you can do what you believe in, and getting paid is a bonus - and so much sweeter.
Creative thinking is a constant thing - it shouldn't be switched on or off - we just have lots of ideas, all the time. Get them all out of our heads and into a box. Have a bit of a think. And the good concepts shine through. We have a massive box of our ideas that we sort through when we need more ideas - dig out and develop a funny or interesting one into a collection, or reach out to work with an artist that we admire. The backlog is massive too - it can be 2 years before a good idea sees the light.
The reality is that when you are doing this for yourself you need to spend the vast majority of the time doing the (less exciting) run of the mill stuff that any business would do - we just look a bit cooler when we do it. Sales, PR, trade shows, competitions, blogging, postage, photocopying, invoicing, production, website development, trademark protection, banking, look-books, graphic design etc, is the name of the game - and being on top of all this crap is completely necessary if you want to do your own thing. Being a slave to yourself can be quite bitter, but glory is sweet!
So our office life pretty standard. The stockroom is fun. All that lovely stock, ready for distribution.
And the studio is the most fun place to make things happen - prototypes and vinyl cutters and the heat-press and screen printing and tools and spray-paints and fabrics and all that creative stuff that we love.
The actual clothing and print design usually happens at home in the middle of the night, and barely takes any time at all, relative to what goes into sharing it with the world. It's quick because you have been thinking about it for some time, chewing it over and wrestling with it's validity in your own mind, so when time comes to commit something to a screen you have clarity. That's where trusting your instincts is most important. And we work with an incredibly talented bunch of designers and tailors and pattern cutters who master our new creations.
Rumplo What other slogans are you known for?
YesNoMaybe Bukkake Ruined My Carpet. And we bought bukkakeruinedmycarpet.com, too. For real.
Rumplo What, in general, do you think about the business of running a T-Shirt shop? Do you think of yourself as competing with other small shops, big websites like Threadless or Graniph, or with individual artists now that there are so many outlets for putting designs on T-Shirts?
YesNoMaybe This industry was crowded when we started, and now there are more brands and more people expressing themselves with T-Shirts than ever. Saturation has always been a reality to us... But if you are working on something pure and original and interesting then there is no competition. Just you, doing what you do. And I find that a much healthier way to see things. I respect good design and always will. I love to be impressed and often I'll see things I wish I had designed - that's the best compliment I can pay someone...
We are living in the DIY society, and I think that can be great. It also has massive limitations - we are taught in school that if we work hard enough we can do anything, and that can really mess with the mind. Alternatives exclude, you know. When you are making a decision, a commitment, the byproduct is excluding the alternatives.
We compete with other streetwear brands, not with print your own T-Shirt shops, or [T-Shirt] competitions. Voting sites look like real moneyspinners, but they lack an edge, a direction. They are formed by democracy and it all becomes fairly mediocre, and formulaic. Brands have a direction, a cohesion across the range. It's a different market and a different customer. When you buy or wear YesNoMaybe, you know that you are part of the bigger picture. Like when I first bought Stussy as a kid. It's for people who know.
Rumplo If there was one lesson you've learned from your time from YNM, what would it be?
YesNoMaybe That the more you know, the less you understand. Seriously - a little knowledge is really dangerous. So the lesson is to really trust your instincts. YesNoMaybe has always been my mindset as well as my brand, but I am now able to make decisions quicker, and reduce the 'Maybe's.
Rumplo What makes for a great T-Shirt?
YesNoMaybe A good quality, comfortable and flattering cut T, in beautiful colours, that other people would like to look at and that you would feel proud to wear. That probably all sounds really obvious - but a lot of people don't ask themselves those really important questions! Does it look good? Is it original? Will people like it? What's the point?
Rumplo What's next for you guys? Care to give us a sneak peek at some upcoming designs?
YesNoMaybe Ok - up next will be some new artwork from the legendary John Pound (who drew the Garbage Pail Kids) and I think his work is really beautiful. previews attached. And a Halloween edition of the Keep Calm print. We are working on a new line of 59FIFTY caps with New Era too...
Rumplo Thanks!
Be sure to check out the YesNoMaybe T-Shirt Shop everyone!
