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SEIBEI Interview

For the inaugural featured shop interview, we chose the relatively young company, Seibei. After only being around for a year, they’ve gained a large fan base and grown from only a few t-shirts to now fourteen and they’re getting ready to introduce their first hoodie – just in time for winter.

Who’s behind Seibei?
SEIBEI is me, David Murray, and my friend Lauren Hammonds is my printing assistant and design consultant. Unfortunately, due to conflicting schedules (mainly my keeping weird hours), we don’t get to work together a terrible lot these days, but if nothing else we still get to bounce ideas back and forth a decent amount. Of course, SEIBEI wouldn’t still be going if it weren’t for the support of our fans – I’ve had tons of crummy days where I get my car towed or I get scolded by the garbage man or I’m worried about the business or something but then I’ll get an e-mail from someone who got a shirt for their birthday and loved it, or something, and it’s all turned around.

What inspired you to start your company?
I think, like most of us, screen printing and design started off as a hobby that slowly turned into obsession. I was a Japanese literature major who had been working some job at a Mediterranean restaurant ever since I’d graduated, and I just knew I had to try and do something for myself.

What’s your best selling t-shirt?
There are countless Intramural Zombie Hunters roaming the globe – for the most part, I really like it, because it’s great that people seem to really enjoy this concept that I’ve created, and they’re usually pretty fun to make. We’re even going to be introducing a few more Intramural Zombie Hunting League products, but I’m not sure if I want to be making loads of customized shirts for the rest of my life.

What would shirt in your catalog would you like to see selling more?
I really like it when people order On Eating the 100% Perfect Sandwich One Beautiful April Morning, but I’ve actually got kind of high hopes for the hoodie we’re about to release, tentatively called Ice Wizard, so I’m really hoping that one takes off.

You print all the shirts you sell yourself, right? Did you teach yourself how to screen print?
I had always been a fan of stenciling, and actually briefly studied wood block printing while I lived in Kyoto – I actually really wish I had studied that more diligently, as the teacher was fantastic, but, and it’s lame to admit this, I had problems with two of my classmates and just ended up not going to class anymore. When I came back to the States, looking for something in the same vein to do, I taught myself how to screen print by messing around with Speedball kits and reading How To Print T-Shirts For Fun And Profit, but it wasn’t until I got a job at a commercial shop (where I’ve worked for about a year and a half now) that I really started to get a handle on it, and get a clear idea of what works and what doesn’t. I know plenty of self-taught printers whose work is fantastic, but, for me at least, I had a lot of bad habits until I had worked in the shop for awhile.

What’s been the most difficult thing to keep Seibei going?
It’s way too easy to second guess yourself when things aren’t going as well as you’d hoped. Also, I’m not terrific at managing money.

What’s been the best thing about keeping Seibei going?
The other day the Little Friends of Printmaking saw the Ice Wizard online and said that it was awesome – I idolize their work, and it was a nice reminder that I must be doing something right. Other than that, goofy things that I draw are worn by people and given as birthday presents all around the world. That’s pretty sweet.

Do you have plans to make this your sole source of your income?
Eventually, that’d be great, but I imagine I’ll try and keep my job at the print shop for as long as I can – it’s nice to be working side-by-side with veterans of the business who can answer basically any question I have.

You recently changed the brand of shirts you printed on to American Apparel. Has that had a positive effect on sales?
I think so. Some people have trouble looking past Dov Charney’s personal life, but, that aside, they have terrific fit, are consistent, and have the best color range of any company out there, which was really important for us.

You have a degree in Japanese language studies. What made you decide to go into printing shirts rather than pursuing a career in that field?
For years, my plan was to go to grad school for Japanese literature and work as a professor and translator, but there came a point where that had been the plan for so long that I had to reconsider it. I finally knew that I was going to stay in this game for good when I was up for a job with a manga publishing house in Los Angeles and all I could think about was how the extra money and networking possibilities would be good for SEIBEI. I guess I just wanted to do something exciting.

A lot of your friends seem to be inspiration for various shirts in your catalog? Is that going to continue further down the line?
Back when we first started, some guy sent me an e-mail that read:

“These shirts are fucking stupid. It’s fucked up that you blame them on your friends, either that or they must really hate you.”

So yeah, of course that’s going to continue. One of my best friends from small times is actually pretty bitter that I haven’t made a shirt about him yet.

Do you think that without a mention in Preshrunk‘s blog you’d be where you are right now? (That’s when I started seeing you seem to break out)
That was definitely a big break for us, and definitely gave us the momentum to push forward. I’m bummed that (for whatever reason) Jason seems to have given up on it, though there are some good t-shirt/hoodie blogs out there to pick up the slack.

How is the venture for brick & mortar shops across the country going? Where can someone go and buy the shirts in person now or in the coming months?
We haven’t had the opportunity to hit any of the trade shows yet (though I’m hoping we’ll hit Pool next summer, at least), so I’ve been hitting up individual shops – sending out samples, writing e-mails, calling, all of that, with some success. It’s kind of a bummer sometimes because we’ve had shops approach us after seeing someone in one of our shirts, and we’ll talk and things seem to go really well, and then I’ll never hear from them again. One shop seemed really psyched about our stuff, and even told me that they’d be placing an order, but never did and is giving me the cold shoulder. On the upside, there are some shops out there that like what we do and follow through on it – you can find the complete list of those at SEIBEI.

What makes you keep going with this? I see mentions of Johnny Cupcakes in your blog a lot. Is he a big inspiration for you?
There’s a point where you’ve put too much into something to be able to cut your losses and leave. We’ve got enough supporters and good reviews that we’ve got to be doing something right, and I don’t really have any other exciting options other than bankruptcy.

Seeing a feature on Johnny Cupcakes in NYLON about a year and a half ago was a big inspiration for me, and made me think that we could really make it. I think he’s definitely an inspiration for a lot of us – he’s living the dream, you know? Regardless of whether you like his work or not, he’s made it.

Are there any new designs in the works right now? Anything getting ready to be added to the shop?
Pretty soon we’ll be adding our first line of hoodies, which I think are going to do really well, and we’re going to work on getting patches and track jackets and scarves soon as well. A little further down the line, we’ve got a collabo with our friend Nate of the Unknown T-Shirt that should be something different for both of us, and we’ve got other artist collabos coming up that will explore the weirder side of the SEIBEI aesthetic.

You have a strange obsession with zombies and sandwiches? Could this be because you are, in fact, undead and just really hungry?
I think I have lots of strange obsessions, but zombies and sandwiches are two of them that seem to work well in design and have some appeal. No one wants to wear a shirt that shows how much I love the Pet Shop Boys or whatever.

What does the year 2007 hold for Seibei?
My girlfriend is going to teach me how to sew, though I’m not exactly sure what I’m going to do with that. There’s also a chance that I’ll be moving, which means that I’ll either have to find a new place to print, or start outsourcing the majority of our work.

Do you have any inspiring words to the folks attempting to start their own t-shirt line?
If you really want it and have a good product, get ready for a fight, and good luck.

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A Special thanks to David for answering these questions for our first ever featured shop interview. You can learn more about Seibei and visit their website at http://www.seibei.com.