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.

Today I came across a great video on Youtube called ‘How To Game Up a Girl At Church’. It’s a list of ways for a ‘player from the Himalaya’ to game up a girl from church, without even needing to be Christian. This may seem like a bit of a controversial way to preach, and that’s precisely what it is.

Pastor Justin Cox from the Passion For Christ Movement uses this list in a sarcastic way. The message is not to help brothers pick up girls at church, but to give a wake up call to girls in church.

I really respect the Passion For Christ Movement and I’d love to see more movements that fit in alongside these guys and Pastor Justin’s message. Step it up kiddies, lets get more bad-ass Pastors in our churches!

You really don’t want to miss this!

Believe.

Know this guy?

Lets indulge if not!

Amar Dehal IS Electric-Press. Based in Newcastle Upon Tyne (near my end of things) he supplies our UK needs by bringing across all those Limited Edish and exclusive brands you’ve seen and “wondered where is that from?”

Most of the items stocked on the site are not readily available in the UK, on the high street or online for that matter. Most of my brands originate from America with a few home grown British ones and a handful from across the Globe. It all started with a desire to see us kids wearing what were missing out on from across the globe. He’s not about the mass produced or plain tees or plain canvases and labels their wearers as vacant as their tees and so goes for the bricks and mortar approach stocking brands such as Terratag, CTRL and Kid Kandi.

We ALL HATE delivery charges don’t we? I see Electric Press as a solution.

We ALL know that “everybody wants what nobody has”

We ALL need to sketch over to Electric Press.

Believe.

…..and say “BRO, Where did you get that from?”

The usual answer is RISE! No lie. I don’t know how many times people have expressed their desire to get the RISE or DIE crew neck sweat but it seems the tradition has no passed over onto our newest selection of tees (if I may humbly say so).

After receiving my 3 personal favourite pre-releases I threw one on my back and the other in my Eastpak and trotted of back to Yorkshire collecting comments from train passengers, shop owners and a guy in the local Chinese. If this was a game, I’d be winning!

(photo courtesy of my twitter @AllThingsCommon …shame plug)

Turkish cotton, sick attention to detail, slim fitting extended length tees with a nice sleeve length….mmm.

I hear were near sold out too…..

SO CAN WE GET UP FOR THIS OR WHAT?

Believe.

Ever put on the radio in the morning, and found a song stuck in your head hours later that you didn’t even realize you had been listening to earlier that day? Well this happens to me consistently…except for Bring It All Back by S Club 7 which has been in my head for a good 4 years. You’ll hear me spontaneously singing it if you spending any time with me, my house mates hate it!

Well that’s how I think it works with the Bible. You get so stuck in to the Bible that you’ll find yourself remembering pieces that you may not have even paid much attention to before.

So, lately I’ve been searching for a new way to get some biblical teaching into my brain. Thank goodness my house mates have the smarts. Joel pointed me in the direction of a website that have audio teachings to download on MP3 for free, from a man called Andrew Wommack.

Of course I was skeptical at first, I can barely pay attention listening to biblical teachings when there’s something to look at, on a Sunday morning! Let alone plug my head phones in for an hour to listen to teachings! But I gave it a go!

Joel recommended I downloaded a set of teachings called ‘How To Fulfill Your Destiny’ first. So, I did and since doing so I’ve listened to each of them twice and downloaded thirteen others and listened to four in the space of the last three days! No lie, my iPod is jam packed with those teachings already!

My house mate Joel told me he once actually met Andrew Wommack at a meeting in Ireland. Andrew works over in Colorado Springs but I am adamant that if he comes back I’m booking a seat, calling a car hire in Ireland, buying a plane ticket, riding a bicycle, travelling however to get to that sermon. He’s an inspirational speaker and a devout spirit filled man. I recommend his talks as an impacting and easy way to get simple, interesting and humorous biblical teaching in to your daily life.

In admiration of the English mountaineer George Mallory, a group of men form an exploration party in quest of his camera that is said to be left behind on Mount Everest. Each collection unveils a chapter of this adventure. SS10 sees the men set off to get to the foot of their first mountain…

Designed in Japan by keen mountaineer Mitsuo, very little is known about this label. Available in just a handful of select retailers worldwide, ‘M’ is manufactured using traditional techniques in a small workshop in Japan. Natural dyed cotton is washed in the rivers by the workshop and dried under the sun on the riverbeds before being put into production; this ancient Japanese tradition is used by very few designers today. As well as their beautiful design and construction, garments have an element of purpose to them; the SS10 collection feels just right for a trek in the foothills but equally appropriate for the city too, with integrated backpacks on shirts, heavy cotton shorts and jackets forming the core of the collection.

Seriously, you all need to check out this totally exclusive brand. After popping into Coggles myself and getting the rundown from Mr. Jake Bancroft himself (Men’s buyer) I had to give him the upmost respect for scouting out these beauties. I mean, have you seen the shirts?!?!?! CRAZY.

Check out the Collection at Coggles NOW!

Believe.

Dubstep producer Starkey will be part of a special feature titled ‘Building The Beat’ on Mary Anne Hobbs Experimental Show on BBC Radio 1, Thursday 14^th January 2am-4am.

In an exciting musical experiment the Philadelphia based purveyor of street bass music will fly over to build a track from scratch during the two hour live show live from Maida Vale, using samples supplied by Radio 1 DJ’s, musicians and listeners. Vocalist Anneka and percussionist Reso will also join Starkey to collaborate on this unique recording.

Mary Anne Hobbs has received massive support for ‘Building The Beat’, compiling a wide spectrum of bizarre sound effects from various BBC Radio 1 DJ’s including Zane Lowe, Chris Moyles, Edith Bowman, Annie Mac, Rob Da Bank and Toddla T and several major Dubstep players including Sunken Foal and Vaccine. Each contributor has interpreted the request differently providing Starkey with a brilliant sample bank of disparate sounds to drop into the mix.  Some of the samples include:

· Chris Moyles - Recorded himself saying ‘go’ and ’stop’ to be dropped in at the start and end of the track to make sure he’s in it!

· Mistajam - Recorded the Meercat saying ’simples’ off the TV advert.

· Zane Lowe - Offered his favourite sample which is a helicopter sound effect

· Rob Da Bank - Recorded himself snoring

· Kissy Sellout - Recorded the sound of him scratching his beard

· Greg James - Supplied an audio clip he has of Elaine Page getting the giggles

· Edith Bowman - Supplied her favourite clip from the film Anchor Man

The final track will be available to listen to on Mary Anne Hobbs BBC Radio 1 webpage and will be broadcast on several BBC Radio 1 shows.

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.

Triumvir Hell is for Heroes Winter Collection drops tomorrow (Friday 11.13.09) at 9:00pm (PST). Click HERE to go directly to the Triumvir webstore.