First and foremost, I would like to wish everyone a happy and blessed New Year from all of us here at Gridlyne. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your continued support.

For the new year, I wanted to include a personal anecdote on what starting at Gridlyne meant to me on a personal level and not just professionally. I wrote this as an introductory article a few weeks ago, but I thought sharing it on New Years Day was more appropriate. I would like to thank you personally for taking the time to read this little story:

As a new contributor for Gridlyne’s blog, Print or Dye, I thought I would reintroduce myself and the concept behind Gridlyne from a “new” perspective. I sat down with the founder/designer, Moe, to get the 411 on how Gridlyne came to be. As I was asking him questions, we were talking about something that no words can truly encapsulate. But he said something I related to instantaneously, Gridlyne was his baby. As a father, I understood immediately all the answers to the questions asked and unasked. The article changed in to something more personal to me, about what working at GridLyne meant on my journey, not just as a father but as one trying to build something for his son. A legacy.

I want to start by saying, I have been friends with Moe for a long time. In fact, I first met him in junior high school in Astoria, Queens, New York. Despite not being very close in those early days, there was a common bond that would follow us throughout, Art. After returning to his old school and I finishing up at I.S. 204, we found ourselves meeting again, through that bond, at the High School of Art and Design in 1997.

Upon graduation in 2001, I would go on to attend one year at the Joe Kubert School for Cartooning and Graphic Art and beginning in 2005-2008, I attended the illustration program at the Fashion Institute of Technology. I lost contact with most people, which I am prone to do, and began something of my own personal Hero’s Journey in 2008. Moe would begin the acquisition of skills and knowledge that would culminate in the incorporating of his own business in 2007, and Gridlyne was born.

Sometime in 2008, I began reading and writing extensively. I read hundreds of books and wrote hundreds of pages of material. What started as a coping mechanism for depression, ended up becoming something I would brazenly call my “Magnum Opus.” After the birth of my son 3 years later, in 2011, the story would finally have its hero. But a piece of the story, a part of the beginning, would not make sense without a very specific moment. Working with the Gridlyne Design Collective and utilizing Moe’s expertise in printing.

That’s right! 10 years before I became a writer for his blog, I had written working with him. In my story, a character creates a logo/brand but lacks the resources and knowledge to bring the logo from concept to reality. For this character, it would set off a chain of events that would change the course of his story. But I digress, I still needed to reconnect with an old friend.

In 2013, I attended an annual BBQ held by Moe, since our class graduated in 2001. I made a brief mention of my project but felt I had not earned his ear to listen to my grandiose plan. I enjoyed the company of old friends and made no mention of it again. Between the pendulum swings of emotions, from feeling on top of the world to the bottom of the barrel, I once again faded in to obscurity.

I let another 2 years go by before I started contacting Moe again in 2015. There was only one problem, I still only had a concept and the logo didn’t make its way in to my consciousness until 2016. It would take me another 2 years to finally reach out again, from a self-imposed exile so I may refine and re-imagine parts of the story once I designed the logo. And in 2018, I was finally ready to talk about my concept and utilize all the services Gridlyne has to offer.

On-demand printing on any garment of clothing or merchandise that can be sublimated, printed or dyed,
DTG or Direct to Garment printing services for immediate turnarounds,
Screen Printing, and
Branding Services

After years of writing and planning I finally found the place I could call “the Bat Cave.” Like Bruce Wayne falling in to the cave, I found my base of operations.

So, I am not only introducing myself as a contributor to GridLyne’s growing family, I am also a client. I truly appreciate you taking the time to read this deeply personal vignette and I can not wait to share the journey with you. In closing, I would like to disclose our mission statement:

We are trying to solve humanity’s problems, one t-shirt at a time.