🤳 new developments
sidewalks, tiktok, & heat transfers
this update was written on wednesday, november 29
still in the process of catching up.
i don’t think there’s value in skipping over any days i’ve written about now.
at the end of the day, this newsletter is where i document everything, and capture the space my mind occupies in each respective update. and i want the ability to look back on all these issues and laugh at myself for my naïveté.
next updates are juicy. good luck on finals if you’re having them this week, btw.
enjoy this update—
currently 6:31 pm.
i stayed way too long in the octavia lab, and almost missed the train.
almost suffered a huge fall speeding through the “sidewalks” of la.
these aren’t sidewalks. its like biking on an uneven trail with concrete chunks and potholes. the goddamn potholes.
look at this. jesus.
a little while before i almost fell, i picked up the bike from an la apartment complex.
i contacted my new friend jon[athan] to relay to the valet that i was coming to pick it up—
he was in the last update. he’s so chill. so so chill. we’re going to meet up again to work on a project together. i’ll write about it when the time comes.
but he was busy moving furniture through a tight corner, and i ended up going through his spouse to send the text.
it’s great knowing the security in the complex is very tight, which meant that the bike is safe while i work in the library, just two blocks away. literally two blocks away.
but it was incredibly stupid of me to stay later than expected.
was quite literally 30 seconds away from missing the last train.
if i didn’t make it, i would’ve been stranded for the night.
i have a contingency plan if that ever happens, which involves pulling an all-nighter and taking the first train home in the morning, at 4:21 AM.
not that I want to do that, but i’m ready if it happens.
anyway,
now i have the contact of his spouse, the fashion magazine editor i mentioned in the previous post. not going to text her though. that’d be weird.
today i attempted to record every part of my life, to make a “day in the life” sort of tiktok.
envisioning the first second, with the text above my head saying:
“day in the life of a 19 year old brand owner”
or,
“building a brand in la at 19 years old”
like this:
the rest of the video is probably going to be a voiceover of me going through what i’m working on that day. haven’t posted it yet, going to edit it at home.
i don’t like looking at myself in the camera. but i’ll get over it.
i guess it feels cringe to even declare what i’m doing like this.
putting a label on what i’m doing. declaring myself to be this thing.
but it sounds interesting to me.
i’d watch it.
from what i’ve gathered, the first second should be incredibly easy to understand. where you can look at the first frame, and already collect what’s going on. that way it doesn’t need to be explained, and viewers won’t scroll away.
the recording process is [obviously] not natural to me yet.
i go about my day, and forgot to record parts of it.
like grabbing coffee. or showing myself boarding the metro.
in all fairness though, these aren’t situations that i normally pull out my phone.
also the metro station can be a dangerous place.
3/10 people there are homeless, and i’d say 1/10 is on something.
speaking of on something,
on the way to the library, after i dropped the bike off in the parking garage, i was walking to the library and got cussed out by a homeless lady.
obviously tweaking, she called me the n word and other slurs in the most raspy, toothless voice you can imagine.
and i don’t look even remotely black i’m pretty sure.
for that reason i couldn’t help but laugh, since there were two black dudes behind me, but she was obviously pointing her comments at me. just kept walking. oh well
starting to get the hang of heat transfers:
cutting the vinyl, taping it up on a cutting mat,
creating a design in illustrator, then loading it on the silhouette software,
feeding the mat into the silhouette cutter, letting it cut, making it spit the mat back out at me.
weeding out the negative vinyl with a sharp tool,
warming up the heat press,
press the garment for a couple seconds to remove any moisture,
pressing on the vinyl,
and peeling off the heat transfer layer.
it sounds like a lot when i put it that way, but the process is pretty straightforward now.
i made a lil 13-second supercut of the process right here, if you want to see.
(recently i found out that playing the videos opens a new tab.
i wish it could just play in your email. seems like there’s no way around it.)
everything below this line was added on tuesday, dec 5.
i felt like writing today.
thought i’d include a new section. maybe i’ll continue this,
i’ll share a piece of interest I recently screenshotted,
and give a breakdown of my thoughts and how i think it was produced.
there are so many interesting pieces swimming in my camera roll, would be cool to see how my interest shifts over time.
today’s piece:
rust jacket by @palmisanowrld
this piece blew my mind on first glance.
the texture looks rough, canvas-like, looks like a work jacket
yet, it’s so plush-looking. i could only guess it’s 400 gsm inside.
(GSM stands for grams per square meter, which refers to the weight of a fabric.)i was onto this piece around a month ago. the way it’s distressed actually makes me so confused. how do you even produce that texture and color without completely destroying the fabric?
assumed it was sand-blasted or dragged on the concrete at first.
1 day ago, they posted more pictures about the piece.
all i can get from this is that it’s a knitted fabric,
haven’t seen something like this before
still leaning toward a really heavy canvas.
but here’s the cool part— look at this image below.
they’re brushing on “pp spray.”
hehe. peepee.
pp spray = a strong oxidizing spray, used to fade colors out of fabric.
with “pp” standing for potassium permanganate. that’s why it’s purple.
cuz potassium.in this case though, they’re brushing the solution around the seams. it’s beautiful.
here’s how pp spray is normally applied to jeans—
around the thighs and bum area,
producing the distressed and color-faded look.
potassium permanganate being used on garments other than jeans is a really new development in the clothing brand world, from what i’ve seen at least.
the brand iongaf by rick wang (you might have seen this dude on tiktok) also uses pp spray to give an artificial, sun-faded look his brand’s hoodie too.
if you think his shaved head looks familiar, it’s because i was a rick wang glazer and he was another inspiration to bleach-buzz my head at the time. he’s cool.
thats it for today.
1 more catchup update to go.
c u soon
— ryan
p.s. can you try voting on this poll? not sure how it works. looks fun though.
it’ll be open for 1 day after the time of posting update.