The inspiration for the print is a Ninja Assassination by a skeleton. After getting numerous requests for ninjas to be incorporated into a design, and the fact that during the 80’s Ninja craze they were DBD head honcho Chris Manning’s childhood obsession, the design was born. This illustration is done in a Noir Comic Book style with dynamic lighting effects and nicely plays on perspective.

Head over to www.dbdstore.co.uk to grab this now. Only 30 pieces.

Soap-Box is an artistic design house run by two guys, Daniel and Ben, based within the UK. They provide exclusively designed products, with runs as low as 25 pieces. Their brand uses an ‘eclectic combination of suburban, street culture and lifestyles’ to create refreshingly edgy tee and crew neck sweatshirts.

Who are you guys, where do you come from, what do you do?

We go by the very standard names of Daniel and Ben, we are both from planet Earth living in the UK and we design, create and everything in-between for Soap-Box. These can range from us doing just sketch work and illustration to 2d & 3d animated projects. We also do client based freelance work which include Graphic design, logos and album artwork.

Tell us more about Soapbox, what’s it all about?

The brand was developed in 2008 and is a design house, which is focused on delivering quality products and services, which include limited edition artwork, apparel & graphic novels. Soap-Box also stands for ‘freedom of speech’ which we put across with our clothing and designs.

How did it all start?

It all started with the idea of us using tees as another blank canvas for us to work with but to mix it with our love for oldskool video games, which is why we was working with the mantra of the Mode-7 name to begin with. This soon changed however, because we wanted a brand that would last and stand strong for years to come, so we developed the project more and kept reworking and tweaking until finally Soap-Box was born. We felt by calling the brand Soap-Box allowed us to express ourselves more within what we produced and left it open for us to experiment with many different concepts and art styles.

What’s been the highlight so far?

The highlight so far has got to be the journey itself and where we have come from to get to this point in time where we are now, meeting and working with new people as artists or client/customer is a really good feeling, may it long continue into the future.

What inspires the designs/designers Soapbox?

Inspiration comes from many sources, which include music, different cultures, comics, animation and the all-important one, life and the people around us.

Who are some of the other brands out there that you look up to, if any?

There are a lot of brands out there that are doing really good things, but to be honest we only really focus on what we our doing and how we can grow and develop our own brand and ideas.

What have you got going on at the moment, any interesting projects for 2010?

We have a few things in the pipeline including a couple of surprise collabs and extending our product range, but I would say the most interesting project we have is our graphic novel pack due for release later this year, really excited about this particular project.

If you were to do a collaboration with anyone, (celeb/artist/other designer) who would it be and why?

Hmm tough one this, as there is a lot of really good artists, think company wise it would have to be SEGA, they have such a huge back catalog of diverse and artistic characters, especially the classic works like Golden Axe, Space Harrier & Streets of Rage etc, so many things could be done with such a collab its unreal. Then as a musician it would have to be Madlib because of his unique sound and the concepts he creates within his work, which makes his distinct and abstract style stand out.

EASILY the dopest find this week!

I love it when a brand totally speaks my mind as a physical and fashionable manifestation that i’m gonna wear. This needs to be added to my wardrobe…now.

Limited Edish prints, quality manufacturing, dope designs and just a real brand…I can’t really hype it any more.

Here’s what they have to say…

WWW.PAPERPLATESCLOTHING.COM

“IN A NUT SHELL, PAPER PLATES CLOTHING IS A MESH OF HIGH-END QUALITY MIXED WITH PLAIN AND CLEVER DESIGNS. WE LIKE TO THINK OF OUR PRODUCTS AS MORE THAN PHYSICAL THING; IT REPRESENTS A “HUNGRY” LIFESTYLE. THIS SITE WAS CREATED TO TAKE YOU THROUGH THE JOURNEY OF A BRAND, THAT PLANS TO LEAVE ITS MARK IN CULTURE. HERE AT PAPER PLATES, WE PROMISE TO DROP CONSISTENT HOT SHIT AND KEEP EVERYTHING LIMITED. WE EMBRACE THE RED CUP AFFAIRS, LOCAL CELEBRITIES, FLY GUYS, AND GALS, FIJI WATER DRINKERS, MERCEDES BENZ DREAMERS, AND VIP SOFA SITTERS. CHECK ON US DAILY, WE’LL KEEP YOU POSTED ABOUT FUTURE RELEASES THAT WILL BE AVAILABLE ONLY HERE.”

BELIEVE.

I was gonna hit you all up with a few select items from what ans is offering us this summer….but i thought what the heck, let me just show it all.

BELIEVE.

Dan Mumford dropped us through some info on his new clothing range recently, and it’s looking like a really impressive introduction to MUMFORD. The first line which was released on the 15th May features 8 new tee designs and two A2 Giclee prints limited to 50 each. The tees all link together to tell a story of the occult. Always an artist and designer with depth, and impressive use of colour and detail. Mumford will by default be a favourite amongst those that have loved Dan’s work for a long time, and hopefully Mumford will also open his work up to a whole new crowd too.

www.mumfordclothing.com

Who loves Superdenim?

I do! That online store is one of the dopest niche stores around and they’ve just settled down into a sweet little bricks and mortar location situated in the heart of York, just around the corner from the Minster. Now there’s tons of hype around what the boys are doing there on forums already, but we’re real buying fans here at RISE and we wanna’ say our piece too!

Hide and Seek brands like Studio D’Artisan, The Real McCoy’s and Mister Freedom are just some of the brands we’ve been dying to see stocked on UK shelves more frequently and we’re excited to see what else The RS is looking to bring in.

Go see for yourself!

The Rugged Standard

First Floor
19 High Petergate
York
YO1 7EN

So after a few weeks of us not posting this on the blog due to life being manic, its probably about time it got a post. We’ve put 6 months hard work into producing some really cracking product, and the culmination of this is our debut UK highstreet collection. Insert offer code BLOGS001 to get 35% off the webstore HERE.

This is RISE Worldwide’s debut collection comprising of eight cut and sew tees, some sweats and accessories. We’re a new and (hopefully) exciting UK Streetwear brand which has started as we mean to continue in terms of our production and print quality. Our t-shirts are fully cut and sew made from personally sourced Turkish cotton to our exact specifications (neck taping, side pips, shirt weight and cut), and then printed here within the UK. This collection is just the beginning for RISE, with further expanding collections and cut and sew garments planned for the future. Bold and unique vector graphics, with a penchant for handrawn works are the hallmark of the range. Always fun, always bright, with a simple message to always RISE.

One of the funnest blogs I’ve seen in a long time has to be this post from The Sartorialist. On a regular basis this blog is packed full with top of the line undercover fashion icons.

But anything to do with moustaches is instantly shunted to the top of my list! I love this feed and if you have any taste you will too! Gosh darn it, I really hope my own birthday part is like this…

“I have always loved this picture of my mother and father (Ann and Herman) enjoying a night out at Grossinger’s Resort in the Catskill Mountains in New York. (It was the inspiration for Kellerman’s Mt. Resort in Dirty Dancing). This was taken sometime in the early 1950’s. My father, who is now 90 years old, told me this was some kind of mystery themed event. What I love so much about this photo, besides that it always makes me laugh, is that it shows what a cute couple they were and that they loved having a fun time together. They were happily married for 65 years and were madly in love.

Growing up poor in Philadelphia did not stop my mother from expressing herself through fashion. She had such a wonderful and carefree style - she loved wearing bright colors and patterns, and never left the house without looking perfectly put together. In this picture I love her plaid skirt and how it matches my dads plaid jacket. Also her lace up shoes are just fabulous.”

Some new big tees from Death Before Dishonour, the Shishi-guchi tee.

Shishi-guchi means lion’s mouth, it is a Japanese Mythical mask and the version DBD have created again depicts enlightenment. The Head is partly in the sky and partly in the sea, this is to show the realization that all is one in every part of the universe.

The two cross thunderbolts go straight through the head to symbolise the moment that ultimate reality is realised. The lightening bolts are aflame with Japanese tattoo style smoke. Death from above is a military slogan and I have used it to refer to the thunderbolts smashing through the head. The third eye is open symbolising the dawn of spiritual wisdom. The chewing of the eye in the mouth means destruction of the mundane vision of the everyday eye. As always I put a contemporary slant on the old ancient wisdom of the east, my favourite part being the stretched earlobe rings with the sea splashing through.

DBD’s Chris Manning says “This took me ages so I have printed up a mere 25 but I may look to repeat in other colours at some point in the future.”

My house mate Grace regularly spends her days glued to the screen of her laptop. You’d think that would be weird, but given that she’s not sat there playing World of Warcraft or Farmville for hours, it’s not so bad.
She’s actually got some crazy skills at discovering interesting websites. From blogs on the ‘top ten favorite movies of Christians’ or ‘what to put on toaster waffles’, she finds the most random things.

Yesterday Grace found the clothing line Not of This World. An American clothing line dedicated to spreading the word of God through the variety of graphics on the clothes they sell.

They have a number of cute tees for girls. My favourite is the one above, but they also have a variety of manly graphics for those boys out there who don’t want to compromise their ‘toughness’ by flat out loving Jesus!

Grace’s favorite is a girls tee that says the words, ‘I Killed Jesus…& Jesus Saved Me’. When she explained it to me and the other house mates I realized it’s true and at some point we all need to fess up to the fact that we all killed Jesus. Perhaps we weren’t there alongside the Romans, Mary and the disciples. I mean, we certainly didn’t feel the earth shake and didn’t see the curtain tear from top to bottom…

But nonetheless when we read the Gospel we have the opportunity to. We can read the story and see ourselves right there. We were there in the midst of the crowd, not even attempting to scream “Free Jesus!” alone, for a fear of being beaten. We see the way he was tortured, we can feel the pain of the nails through his wrists, the sword in his side.

And just like a sword in our own side, we stand right beside that officer when he woke up to the realization that Jesus really is the Son of God. So with Easter behind us, take the time to push it to the front of your mind and remember the real reason Jesus died. He loved us…and he still does to this day.