Issue link: https://nbm.uberflip.com/i/1491555
8 G R A P H I C S P R O • A P R I L 2 0 2 3 G R A P H I C S - P R O. C O M S O F T W A R E T O S U B S T R A T E | L O N W I N T E R S A P P A R E L D E C O R A T I N G At 21 years old, Lon Winters was the production manager for Ocean Pacific and started his 30+ year career reclaiming screens. He's the president and founder of Colorado-based Graphic Elephants, an international consulting firm and apparel decoration studio specializing in screen printing technical advances, plant design, layout, troubleshooting, productivity, quality analysis, and complete apparel decorating solutions. Learn more at www. graphicelephants.com. Peace, Love & Volleyball Designing a retro feel with colors from the '60s or '70s T he original Volkswagen bus came on the scene in 1950. e VW microbus was a simple passenger cargo van with an engine at the back. It became a rebellious alterna- tive to mainstream station wagons. Volkswagen is resurrecting its iconic bus. e all-new ID. Buzz is an electric van with a modern take on the original Volkswagen microbus. Volkswagen first showed the con- cept in 2017 and finally pulled the cover off the production Buzz in 2022. It's for sale in Europe this year and in the U.S. in 2024. Despite 70-plus years between the first V W microbus and the newest model, the two vehicles are said to have much in com- mon. We'll see about that. e question is, "Will the electric Buzz have the same soul as the original hippy microbus?" Dude, where's my bus? We frequently work with equipment man- ufacturers, apparel brands, and suppliers in our industry, such as we did last summer at GR APHICS PRO EXPO (GPX) where the cli- ent planned to print live in the exhibit hall. Per the client: "is project needs to be a bit trendy. As far as the design, we're think- ing something a bit distressed. We've found that vintage tees are most often used in self-expression designs and classic graph- ics popular with hipsters and young adults. Ideally, We'd like to have a couple of ideas to pitch to management before we land on a final design direction." We've got it! Peace, Love & T-shirts… Says it all. A great self-expression concept. We can see apparel decorators wanting to wear it. We would go with retro theme, clas- sic, old-school V W style microbus. Vintage rock 'n' roll… again. It's what we do. e client liked our idea. "Like an old happy hippy design," they said. ey loved the Peace, Love and T-shirts concept. With the demo being in California, we would need the beach theme of course. is design project initiated the artwork development. A client was looking for a classic, vintage, retro, beach-style design for a volleyball clientele. We had just the solution: Peace, Love & Volleyball! Brilliant! (All images courtesy Lon Winters, Graphic Elephants)