Tell us a little more about the inspiration for this design.

So pretty much, I spent most of my summer being nocturnal and hanging out with my friends. And I mean that I was literally nocturnal. I would meet up with my friends at around 10:30pm then hang out til 4’ish and then wake up the next day at like 3pm.

While doing so, I began neglecting any responsibility to actually get a job. I was doing a lot of spending money, but not so much gaining money. So this t-shirt design was inspired by this. Instead of looking for a job, often times I would stay up late doing whatever I was doing and eating cup noodles.

But now, I have a job in New York, so I’m not a lazy fatass anymore, but I still miss those nocturnal nights.

First words that came to mind when you found out you took the top prize.

The first words that came to mind was “this is a joke.”

When I received the email, the first thing I read was along the lines of “what are you going to do with your $3500?” And I thought it was one of those pensive questions like, “if you had a million dollars what would you do with it?” But then I read further, and I realized that it was oddly specific for an email about a hypothetical situation, so when I actually realized that I won I nearly crapped my pants.

It’s pretty embarrassing, but I was at work, and I couldn’t go crazy in my office, so I ended up going to the bathroom and giggling like a little girl in the corner. I was going crazy and laughing to myself; I probably looked schizophrenic.

Do you have other contest wins under your belt?

No, this is actually my first contest win ever. I don’t enter many competitions, because I feel like my characters have a pretty distinct look to them. And most of the time, I like to keep this particular style for my own clothing brand, Lowdtown Friends & Freaks. But I really liked this design, and I didn’t feel like it fit the Lowdtown aesthetic, so I took a chance and subbed it here. I would’ve never even imagined actually taking the cake though, really glad I subbed it.

Tell us a little about Lowdtown.

Lowdtown is my own clothing brand that I’m very proud of. I started it at the beginning of 2009 and it’s steadily growing. Lowdtown is sort of like an awkward kid going through puberty; it still has a lot of potential to grow (yea, sorry for the weird analogy). But I’m definitely going to use a lot of this prize money to further Lowdtown along it’s way. I’m hoping to release my fall line by mid-September, and I’m already planning my Winter line, so I think it’ll be a good first year for Lowdtown.  I promise that there’ll be a lot of interesting new products for the remainder of the year.

Links you want to share.

Lowdtown Friends & Freaks - http://www.lowdtown.com
Lowdtown Blog - http://blog.lowdtown.com
Fuwa Fuwa Poo (It’s my portfolio that I haven’t updated in really long) - http://www.fuwafuwapoo.com
I’d also like to give a shout-out to emptees. Emptees is my addiction, and I definitely wouldn’t be half the t-shirt designer that I am today without it.

Anything else - other projects, what you had for breakfast, your choice.

My dream in life is to make Lowdtown a successful clothing brand that I can live off of and eventually have my own storefront in some cool city like Tokyo or London. And after I retire from Lowdtown, I’d like to start my own ramen shop, haha. I wasn’t kidding when I said that I really like noodles!