My Creations In The Wild, Enabled By Financial Independence

Last year while on a bike ride something really cool stopped me in my tracks.  I passed a parked car with a bunch of outdoor sports-type stickers on it’s back window and one of them was my design – out there in the wild!  I was stoked! 

After selling literally thousands of t-shirts, stickers, hats, and other apparel with my designs in my graphic arts business it was the first time I serendipitously encountered one in the wild.  Here’s a pic of the car with my design highlighted:

 

That encounter had me smiling for months.  I felt like I had kind of made it.  Obviously the owner of that car is a very active an healthy person.  He or she is into telemark skiing, triathlons, and sailing among other things and is a Coast Guard veteran.  I love it that I’m helping to fuel the stoke of such folks. 

This is a selfish post where I’ll be celebrating my success bragging about myself.  The big takeaway is that financial independence and the free time it’s provided has enabled me to create thousands of designs and a business to sell them. 

So please indulge me as I highlight various instances of my designs “in the wild”.

 

My Stuff Is Out There

Once again on a bike ride a few months after the first one I saw another car with stickers.  This time two of them were mine!

 

The owner of that Subaru is a rock climber, and has apparently climbed in West Virginia and Arizona.  Nice.

A few weeks ago I was floored to see yet another!

That’s my Virginia Creeper design on the back window of a pickup truck, it’s a famous rail trail in southern Virginia.  That guy is a Steelers fan so whatever.. but thanks for buying my design dude!

 

My FI Friends

I’m lucky to have had the support of some great humans in the personal finance space who have done podcasts, videos, and social media posts while showing off one of my designs.  Here’s the one and only J. Money of Budgets Are Sexy wearing my Index and Chill (<– affiliate link) design for a video that he did for the sadly now defunct All Star Money.

Another original in the personal finance space and gracious friend is Joe Udo of Retire By 40.  Here’s Joe sporting my Poop In The Woods design (<– affiliate link) that he bought as a Christmas gift to himself.  Looks like it got wrinkled while he was pooping, haha.

 

At his talk for the Econome Conference, my buddy Doc G of the Earn & Invest podcast wore a shirt with my logo design for his podcast when it was called “What’s Up Next” in the early days.

And Barney Whiter, better known as the Escape Artist sported my Stoicism design (<– affiliate link) for his appearance on the Rebel School podcast.

 

One of the cooler designs I did was for a rock band called Estin & the 86’d.  I designed a logo for a banner they used for their first ever private party gig, seen here.  And here:

 

Lastly Mark Trautman from Mark’s Money Mind was gracious enough to send me a free t-shirt and stickers with the logo I designed for him.  While this pic isn’t a serendipitous encounter “in the wild” per se, I will be wearing it and putting it in the public milieu. 

 

I had fun creating Mark’s logo and he was super-kind to send me a shirt and stickers. 

That’s all I’ve got this week folks.  The experiences I’ve had of seeing my creations out in the wild are very rewarding.  And I’m no Picasso, if I can do it you can too.  The lesson is to just try to create things for others, and eventually they’ll probably gain traction. 

Lastly I will be taking next Tuesday off to celebrate Christmas.  I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!