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.

Its been an exciting period the last 3 months, and it seems to have got busier and busier as the weeks have progressed. From early financial decisions, sampling stages, pre shipping, design discussion, artwork alterations, screen shooting to today. Today the first batch of product landed on my doorstep. 300 white cut and sew tees, ready to be sent off to get screen printed by MissionPrint.

Its a big day, with only bigger and better to come!

VICE magazine have churned out a really interesting project recently, The VBS guide to Liberia. And in case you don’t know much about Liberia, it was ravaged by civil war for years, a civil war that was characterized by the use of child soldiers, massacres of civilians, cross-dressing combatants and a touch of cannibalism.

VICE founder Shane Smith and Editor Andy Capper, visited Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, to meet three men who participated in the 14 years of civil war. One of the men giving us a guided tour is Joshua Blahyi, aka General Butt Naked, an ex-war lord famed for forcing his soldiers to fight wearing nothing but shoes. Blahyi admits to killing more than 20,000 people and drinking the blood of children, but now spends his time preaching about his quest for forgiveness. They visit swamps, heroin dens, churches, brothels and a police station with a monkey in it along the way….now that’s worth a watch.

They are showing it in the format of eight segments released over the course of 8 consecutive days which create a full hour-long documentary releasing on January 19th. WATCH THE TRAILER HERE!

So this is a shameless plug to get all our tens of thousands (tell it to google analytics if you don’t believe me) linked through to all of our social media methods. Basically, GO BECOME A FAN OF US ON FACEBOOK.

Take the link HERE TO LINK THROUGH TO THE FACEBOOK FAN PAGE or just press the button on the top right of the nav bar…

We here at RISE Worldwide are going through the exciting times of working on some blank tees, and so I thought I would show you a few of the areas where we get to play around with when making up garments from scratch.

The first is the ‘Neck Tape’ which is the bit just below the collar on a t-shirt, jack wills sometimes does velvet, weekend offender do a block multicolored pattern, we’ve decided to do a very simple and subtle broken stripe pattern which we use in many different forms around the site and in some of our designs.

Stay tuned for some more sneak peaks in the next few weeks as you can see more of the concepts behind what will hopefully be some very exciting finished garments.

Charles Frederick Goldie (1870-1947), born in Auckland, was already winning art prizes at the age of 15. He studied in Paris before returning to New Zealand in 1898.

He is best known for his meticulous portraits of Maori, despite also painting Europeans and Biblical scenes. Goldie thought he was capturing for posterity the Maori then seen as “a dying race”. For descendants of the sitters his portraits are today taonga (treasures).

I wanted to capture his idealogy as well as give respect back to Goldie for the respect that he gave the Maori. I am half Maori also and wanted to produce something that captured that heritage. I drew the design below from a painting by Goldie in 1905.

Materials: 200gsm Art paper, HB pencil, Lexmark scanner and editing software.
These tshirts are available for purchsase from our online store. There is a description about what “Mana” means to the Maori people under the picture.

Mana is defined in English as authority, control, influence, prestige or power. It is also honour.

Traditionally there are three kinds of Mana.
1. The mana a person was born with.

This mana is the mana that comes from whakapapa, or the genealogy of the person. This could be the rank of the parents, grandparents, great-grandparents right back to the people who came across on the waka (canoes).

There is also mana from being decendants of tupuna (ancestors) who are well known for their deeds.

Some whanau (families) are known for certain skills, traits and abilites, which comes from their tupuna. This is similar to how today there are familes who are known for their sporting abilites etc.

2. Mana that the people give you.

This is the recognition that people give for your deeds and actions. Just because a person is born from great lines does not necessarily mean that they will have great mana amongst the people. The mana a person is born with sets them off, but the way that they conduct themselves throughout life will either strengthen their own personal mana, and by that the mana of their tupuna, or weaken their own personal mana.

Humbleness is a very highly valued trait in the Maori world. Many of our great leaders are very humble people, hence part of their greatness. The people sing their praises, thereby heightening their mana. These great leaders you will never hear singing their own praises. It is not that they are trying to be humble, it is that they just are.

3. Group Mana.

This is the mana that a group has, for example the mana of a marae.

This is often enhanced by number 2 above. When people stay on a marae, are well looked after and are given great food, those manuhiri, when they leave will tell everyone about the great experience, how well they were looked after and the great food, which builds the mana of that marae and the tangata whenua there.

One the other hand, if the manuhiri were not looked after well, they would be fast to tell everyone about that also, hence weakening the mana of the particular marae involved and the tangata whenua there.

Other forms of group mana is the mana of a whanau, a hapu and an iwi.

Today there are people who seek mana and delibarately go around trying to gain mana by telling people about their own importance - these are called “mana seekers”

. There is a Maori saying:

“The Kumara (sweet potato) does not talk about its’ own sweetness”

You can get a sneak peak into the Spring Summer ‘09 Collection from RISE by having a flick through the online lookbook. Product will be in the online store pretty dang soon, with all old stock gone forever, so if there’s some of the classic old school RISE that you’re after, BUY IT NOW. Enjoy…

Not only does this wallet support the ‘go green’ campaign that everyone is ranting about because its entire body is recycled plastic; the JIMI is a twist in stylish accessories. Every color way is transparent and there is even a connect for keychain or lanyard attachment. On the inside things get more exciting. The JIMI is designed to hold 5 cards, folded bills and comes equipped a money clip. That is a lot to offer with the size of only 4? x 2.5? and 0.5? in depth. Amazing what a little old (pun-intended) plastic can do. I know this is not a usual wallet for you out there, seeing that there is not a familiar designer label, but trust me faithful RISE fans it is a must have. I’m ordering mine and writing at the same time. Vist oki-ni for a closer look and to order.

Faesthetic #9 dropped last week, and man, it’s a beauty. The theme of this issue is UFO’s…as you can see in the top photo there’s and AMAZING cover by MARS-1 (he did the back cover as well) and features over 25 artists including:

Mark Pilkington & Prate™ Computer Channel , Rachel Gottesman, Julia Heglund, Gluekit, Paul Sahre, Mark Rubenstein, Arbito, Blonde vs Brown, Garrett Vander Leun, Adam White, James Unwin, PEAP, Jan Kallwejt, Joel Speasmaker, Sam Gilbey, Daniel Cantrell, Think Faest with Brian Roettinger by Forest, Joe Van Wetering, SnakeHawk, Joshua Agerstrand, John Solimine, Adam Cruickshank, Zeroten, Matt Curry, The Artists Guide to UFO’s, Becca Kacand & Thomas De Santis.

You can get more info about the new issue of Faesthetic here, or to order it directly just click here.