The Designer Behind the T-shirt

Nov 20th, 2009 2:30 PM UTC
By Aaron Banks

Valerie Strecker, the winner of ONE’s Next Top T-shirt Challenge, was nice enough to tell us a little bit more about herself and her design philosophy in the email below. You can also learn more about Valerie’s work on her website: http://www.flyingfishart.com and become a fan on her Facebook page.

I grew up in Louisiana enjoying the rich cultural experiences of great food, nature, and family. Coming from an artsy family, mother & brother-artist and father-musician, provided me with an environment to imagine and create. My mom helped in teaching me design, composition, typography and the “hands on” art. As for the cg…that was self-taught!

Around age 17, I started airbrushing pixels with Windows Paint ’95. A friend then introduced me to Adobe Photoshop 5 and said “this is the magic wand tool”, “those are crawly ants” and “here’s the paint bucket”… now go for it! I had no idea of the “fun” that lay ahead, but stuck with it! I’ve endured all of the “fun” aspects of maxing out 3 computers (now on computer no. 4, “Big Mac”) and at 25 I’m enjoying a successful art career as a graphic designer.

My passion is working with bands to create their image – from album covers to graphic tees, starting my own clothing line, designing surfboard graphics, developing company logos and branding, and working with organizations that affect positive change in the world – both humanitarian & environmental.

I found out about ONE’s tee challenge through my friend Mike. I remembered ONE’s commercials inviting everyone to unite as one in the fight against extreme poverty and knew I wanted to take part in getting the message out. I researched ONE’s organization, their mission and their goals to see how I could best a design that would be informative and visually striking. The “newsprint” allowed me to bring awareness to the critical issues and highlight ONE’s goals attained and yet to be achieved.

-Valerie Strecker

TAGS: ONE, Spotlight