Greater>Than Clothing

When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty but when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.

–R. Buckminster Fuller

I came across this quote in a great article in GOOD Magazine* (which, incidentally, was founded and is published by a friend of mine from college). I thought this was relevant for Greater>Than because the article makes the point that Fuller was, above all, a designer. I love this quote because it reminds us that the “form follows function” idea doesn’t mean that we should settle for ugly, “functional” objects.

As Donald Norman argued in Emotional Design, attractive things actually work better. That book is very highly recommended, and I found that particular point both surprising and convincing. It’s not much of a slight to Norman to note that Fuller beat him to the punch by about 75 years, as most people are much farther behind.

For those of you not familiar with Fuller, here is a quick list of some of his notable achievements:

• The Geodesic dome
• The Dymaxion Car
• The concept of “Spaceship Earth“
• The Fuller Projection, a “one island in one ocean” map, which happens to be my favorite projection (I even have the poster):

Imagine living your life as an open-ended exploration for the betterment of mankind, with beauty as your compass.

*Look in the sidebar on the right for links to the rest of the Buckminster Fuller feature. The rest of the magazine is worth checking out as well. Its purpose is to chronicle and support the movement toward smart, sustainable business and life, a movement to which Greater>Than is similarly committed.

I’m an Atlantic reader and an unabashed word-nerd, so naturally one of my favorite features is the Word Fugitives column by Barbara Wallraff, (who wrote a book of the same name). Readers write in with requests for words to express particular situations or feelings, and other readers try to coin terms to fit the bill. Wallraff sifts through the results then writes her column, highlighting representative and outstanding examples. It’s fun collective nerdery and there are usually one or two gems.

In the most recent issue, answers to the following prompt are given:

“that happy feeling of kinship one feels for the driver of a car of the same make and model as one’s own”

My favorite answers included carma, carcissism, carmraderie and autobond. I told you I was a word-nerd.

Two Greater>Than-related things caught my attention while I was reading this month’s column:

I realized that Word Fugitives is just like Greater>Than

In fact, it’s an almost perfect illustration of the “curated crowdsourcing” model we use. The editor sets the rules of the game, a community member provides a prompt to focus the creativity of the group, solutions are submitted, the editor sifts through the submissions, then publishes the results back to the group. So simple!

Over time, the community becomes self-defining; the tone and quality of the output determined, is maintained and evolves over time through the collective efforts of the community. Think of an Ouija board. Nobody is “controlling” it, but everyone has a hand in determining direction. To put it another way, it is controlled by everyone and no one (no “one”).

One submission in particular blew me away Read the rest of this entry »

When I first became obsessed with the idea of Greater>Than screen-printing its own shirts, I knew that there was some significant equipment involved. I had an idea of what was needed but perhaps not the specifics of each piece of equipment.

Research was required…off to the Internet! I first came across some start-up packages of screen-printing equipment and I was getting pretty excited about some of the prices. It looked like there were some pretty good deals out there. I thought for sure we would find a great package solution.
 
Then I seemed to hit a wall. My searches started to yield the same results and I felt like I wasn’t getting what I needed (I think screen printing equipment manufacturers need a lesson in SEO ). I knew there was so much more out there that I hadn’t tapped into yet.

I had been sharing bits and pieces of info as I gathered them with Joey and he mentioned a great online forum I should check out called T-Shirt Forums (how obvious ). Upon checking out the site, I quickly searched the “Screen Printing” section to see if others had opinions on printing equipment. Sure enough, there was a plethora of great insight on multiple aspects of many types of printing equipment.

Most of the questions I had (and many that I didn’t) were already discussed and I eagerly read post after post absorbing all kinds of nuggets. Perhaps the best bit of info was some reviews of the exact equipment from the previously mentioned online start-up packages. Low and behold the deals were too good to be true.
Read the rest of this entry »

In addition to welcoming Ryan to the Greater>Than team, I wanted to follow up on the change in strategy he described in his intro post. My original plan was for Greater>Than to play a design consulting/curation role, working with designers to help them achieve their visions and selecting the most promising designs for production. We would then contract with another company to get our shirts made.

This had proven a bit frustrating, especially since the company I had chosen to work with was in another state, and we were conducting all of our business through e-mail. Plus, we don’t want to compromise at all on quality, and I felt like there was an element of risk involved there, since the quality of the print itself (a crucial component in overall quality) would be out of our hands.

While I was trying to force my way through the frustration, Ryan saw this problem as an opportunity, deftly demonstrating one of the key operating principles that I had set out for the company (but had failed to live up to myself): use problems to identify opportunities. This principle of ‘probletunity*’ is a reminder to bring creativity to bear on issues that hold us back, so that they can be not only overcome but transcended. Read the rest of this entry »

As you may have seen, Greater>Than is growing. I wanted to check in and say how tremendously excited I am to have Ryan on board. He’s a born problem solver, the kind of guy that every growing business wants to find. As he explained, he is going to concentrate mostly on production and operations, but he also has a designer’s eye and experience with vector software (like Illustrator), which I plan to take full advantage of.

I’m also very pleased at how organic this development has been. I’ve had the privilege of working with Ryan at the day job. Our friendship led to discussions about my nascent business, and I was glad to find that Ryan thought the idea had potential. I’ve received a lot of advice and encouragement from people whom I respect (Sarah and Halli in particular), but it’s hard to describe how great it feels to be able to offload specific tasks to someone in whom I have such confidence. (I’m always looking for more collaborators. If you want to get involved, drop me a line.)

His interests and expertise are nicely complementary to mine as well. As readers of this blog may have noticed, I have a tendency to get a little carried away with theory. I like to think about principles, strategy and philosophy; the “whats” and “whys” if you will. That’s just how my mind works. Ryan is much more tactical. He likes to think about “how”. He has a natural talent for logistics, and his involvement in the project is already helping me reign myself in a bit and concentrate on getting things done. I’m looking forward to seeing how our partnership develops.

I’m on the verge of gushing here, so I’ll end it there. Welcome aboard, Ryan!

Hey Greater>Than enthusiasts, I’m Ryan. I first heard of Joey’s plans for Greater>Than in early 2007 and loved the ideas and the enthusiasm that were presented. Since then I have not been able to stop thinking about it. After hearing what Joey had to say, I instantly knew that I could be a good resource for him.

I had spent the first five years of my professional career in manufacturing, specifically as a manager of a design team focused on creating designs for athletic balls. In that position I learned a ton about manufacturing and in particular the processes of transforming digital images into something tangible (a ball). In the ball business most of the graphics are, in essence, screen-printed. I traveled to China to witness this process first hand and I was shocked at how much of the screen-printing is done by hand…it was very impressive. That experience gave me a new appreciation for the work that went into our products.

Fast forward…When I came to understand that Greater>Than would be outsourcing the printing of its shirts, I saw this as an opportunity lost. I did a brief bit of research and encouraged Joey to consider controlling the means of production. (Disclaimer: I am a very hands-on do-it-yourselfer and there are not many projects out there that scare me) When you control production, you are able to ensure that the highest quality is achieved and that the best materials and processes are used.

With increased control, I believe Greater>Than will be able to set itself apart from being just another t-shirt vendor into something Greater>Than. Besides, it’ll just be completely awesome to hand-print a t-shirt . So I have agreed to join Greater>Than and bring my expertise to the production & operations side of things. I will put forth my best efforts to ensure that Greater>Than delivers only the best products possible.

In this post, I’ll describe the second of two prototype designs that are currently in the works, as mentioned earlier. The first can be found here.

Continuing with a theme of learnings from other cultures (I now realize), this tee is inspired by the Bushidō code of the samurai warrior class of feudal Japan. I have long appreciated the stoicism, honor, and discipline that the memory of these legendarily deadly men continues to evoke. I think a big part of what I dig about the samurai, as opposed to other fighters respected historically for their effectiveness, was their lack of blood lust. Killing was their vocation, and they went about it with the utmost seriousness. Much of the Bushidō code revolves around preparation for death, which couldn’t help but remind the samurai of the gravity of ending someone else’s life.

In that context, it makes sense that one of the seven virtues of the way of the warrior was “jin”, best translated to English as “benevolence”. Far from dispassionate killing machines, they were trained to maintain a charitable disposition, to live their lives with kindness in their hearts. On the other hand, of course, they were called upon to kill without mercy when the situation called for it. It is this dichotomy that I hope to explore with this design.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is the first of two prototype designs that I have commissioned (as I explained earlier). I present the idea here as part of my attempt to demonstrate (rather than simply explain) what Greater>Than Clothing is about. I am also a firm believer in the power of creative cross-pollination; I’ll be ecstatic if this idea inspires you in your own creative work (whatever that may be). Greater>Than is also committed to being open to new ideas, so if you have something to say about this design, please get in touch with me by leaving a comment on this post or by visiting the contact page.

Huginn and Muninn were the ravens of the norse god Odin. They would perch on his shoulders and keep him informed by whispering in his ears. Huginn represented thought, news, learning; Muninn represented memory, wisdom. Odin relied on them, and feared that something would happen to them. Without them, he would be cut off from the world, without the knowledge necessary to govern his people. As Odin explained, as much as he feared the loss of Huginn, he feared losing Muninn more. Remembering what you have learned is more important than learning new things.

I think this lesson carries new resonance today, as the blessed Interweb has given us access to so much raw information. In an age of RSS-enabled hyper-throughput, Odin reminds us to be careful what we retain. Not all knowledge grows up to be wisdom (Wisdom>Knowledge). The shirt is about this idea, and the design uses the ravens to deliver the metaphor. Read the rest of this entry »

I majored in Philosophy in college, so forgive me for this little conceptual digression. On the heels of the recent comment bonanza, a few more interesting “x>y” comments trickled in. A clever young man named Diego chimed in with “nothing is > god”. That statement seems simple at first, but as I thought about it more I became less and less certain that I understood it.

I’ll take Diego’s quote at face value first. I think he means it as a statement of faith: “There is nothing greater than God”. Indeed, for religions that conceive of their gods as omnipresent, it’s almost trivial. If God is everywhere, then of course nothing could be “greater” (read “bigger”). Even if we take “greater” to mean “better”, this reading still works. It’s hard to be better than an omniscient and benevolent deity.

But what of Diego’s mysterious non-capitalization of “god”? I’ll bet it’s a typo or a simple oversight, but what if it was intentional? Thinking about this, I realized that using a negative statement (nothing) in conjunction with “>” puts you on semantically shaky ground. If nothing is greater than god, does that mean that god is less than nothing? And if something is less than nothing, does that mean that it is not simply nonexistent but rather a net negative? Perhaps this is a way of expressing the nihilist’s view of God as a broken promise.

So, it seems that the statement works as intended if and only if the opposite statement can also be made: “god > nothing”. I can’t think of another sentence in English that could coexist so peacefully with its own negation. Can anyone?

Far be it from me to inject commerce into such an interesting theological puzzle, but I can’t help but think that this could make a great t-shirt experiment. How would the average person interpret a t-shirt that had a blank space, a greater than symbol, then the word “god”? It could be like a religious Rorschach test; what you think it means depends on your preexisting associations with the concept. I wonder…

Anyway, thanks for the puzzle, Diego. You packed quite a conundrum into three words and a symbol.

I have what you could call a cold-start problem here at Greater>Than. It’s hard to talk about what the company does, because it hasn’t really done all that much yet. I’ve been spending more time working on the company than I have working in it. Some would say that’s the right place for my efforts in the beginning, and I would agree, but honestly it’s just a tad frustrating that I run a company that doesn’t yet have any products.

I was out the other night and had occasion to tell an acquaintance about the company. She was encouraging, but threw me a little with her well-intentioned query as to why I wasn’t wearing any of my stuff. When I have something, I assured her, I’ll be wearing it every day. I’m looking forward to being able to both show and tell.

Toward that end, I’ve commissioned two designs. Ultimately, I don’t want to be the sole idea generator; I want Greater>Than to be a design catalyst, supplying a positive, rewarding environment in which designers can express themselves. First, however, I need to get the idea out there. Step 1: blog. Status: you’re looking at it. Step 2: prototypes. Status: In progress.

I looked at a bunch of print shop websites trying to find one that seemed like it would be a good fit for Greater>Than Clothing. I liked what I read at the Mammoth Printshop site, and started an e-mail correspondence (it helped that they list Johnny Cupcakes as a client - I dig a lot of their stuff). Mammoth does commissioned design work as well, so I sent them some descriptions to see what they thought and to gauge whether they could execute them for me. I liked the discussion; their responses made me feel like they knew exactly what I was looking for. Plus, the fee seemed reasonable, so they got the business.

So, the first two Greater>Than designs are in progress, potentially as I write this, which is very exciting for me. Stay tuned for the design descriptions I sent. I’ll post them as part of my effort to “show my work” (something I always got dinged for in middle school math classes).