OX bold style tee

This design marks the beginning of the emoji project. At the start of 2022, amid the height of NFT super sales and in the midst of covid lockdowns I finally got around to having a look at what these NFTs were all about. I was impressed, but also not, by the majority of what I saw. So I though, what would happen if instead of making a collection of ten thousand or whatever versions of art that essentially stacking layers arbitrarily, I made an image that contained ten thousand variants in one image, and that when looking at the big picture of that image, a different image would manifest. Much like a photo mosaic.

So I looked at photo mosaics briefly, and also the code people were using to make NFTs, and kinda though, "yeah but nah" so I opened my preferred notepad (sublime text) and made a plan. At the time I had a business partner in this venture, and he liked the idea, but wanted to hire developers and artists to realise it. I pulled back from this, and said I could do it in a week by myself.

That week I worked all waking hours putting together the code, the first version, to build this monstrosity. I also recognised I needed to be able to test the code so I drew four layers initially, dollar signs in text, polka dots, and the inner and outer parts of the OX emoji.

The OX emoji is one of the missing emoji from the Unicode set, the expression is best described as a wince. By the end of the week, version one was complete, and the prototype giant emoji built. That story will continue elsewhere on this site at some point as I'll iterate into the history while releasing products. For the OX emoji, it mainly remained for some rudimentary testing until the algorithm was a bit further on, and I began to draw the OEM artwork.

Fast forward to perhaps the start of 2024, and the OEM project had/s not been launched and my business partner has walked. so I looked at the technology I've gathered over time, and having spent the latter part of 2023 starting to design clothing, I though I might flip the script a bit and instead of making completely custom clothing from the start, get some blank ready to print t-shirts and try out the vinyl cutter and vinyl press I have. previously I had done some experimental testing on different t-shirts, vinyl, techniques and designs (of mine).

So I thought, perhaps instead of the OEM artwork, what if I use some of my other drawings. The initial prototype, which I wear often, has both the inner and outer parts on both sides, albeit with the inside of the front on the back and visa versa. The effect is great, however as I am printing with HTV an area that large on both sides is somewhat restrictive, so after two variants with doubles, the next version, shown in the glitched image above, removes some of that restriction to give a more comfortable feel, and maintain the striking look the OX emoji has.