KONG HONG AND MACAU

Here's some photos from our trip. There's plenty more in this Flickr set.

Hong Kong

SO WE HAVE 24 HOURS AND 15 MINUTES LEFT. Soryi is in the hotel room sleeping, and I'm waiting another 14 minutes now so I can check us in for our flight online. We got back from a day-trip in Macau about 20 minutes ago, and we are both exhausted. This whole trip has been exhausting. Of course, because that's our style, we see the HELL out of a city when we visit. But it's also been a lot of fun. We'd definitely come back! And recommend it to anyone we see.

I can't post any photos just yet, no memory card reader, but I'll try on Sunday. We arrive at 06.35am, so I'll probably sleep a lot first before I do anything, but we'll see. Suffice to say, the photos are awesome. Literally! Some of the best I've taken. Hardly any photoshopping required this time.

Anyway, check-in is in 10 minutes now.
IESSO

WE'RE GROWN-UPS NOW!

IT ALL WENT REALLY WELL. You'll have to wait for stories untill after we get back from Hong Kong (early Sept) and I be able to put up more pictures too. But suffice to say, it was a nice day, a small affair, and exactly like we'd hoped for and nothing at all like we feared. Thank you to everyone who came, and apologies to everyone who wasn't able to make it. There's always VEGAS in 2011, which we're still planning on doing... why? WHY NOT!?

View the photos as a slideshow HERE.

IESSO

ONE

TWO

HOLGA MEDIUM FORMAT

THREE

FOUR

IT MIGHT HAVE SUNK IN NOW

WE'RE GETTING MARRIED IN FIVE DAYS! I can't believe it. It's really exciting. And it feels right. I'm not nervous (yet?) and I don't know if I should have any reason to be.

What I am though, is bored at work, so I threw this together in photoshop. And now I understand why all those kids were/are doing this style; it's totally freaking easy! Distressed scrapbookey-romanticy-crap is a peice of piss.

IESSO

FIVE

WE'RE getting married this weekend!

EIGHT

In front of the Louvre in Paris.

NINE

TEN

Soryi spots a giraffe at the Dublin Zoo.

ELEVEN

Sorry I missed 12, 13 & 14, I've been away from the internet for a few days.
IESSO

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

We're getting married in 17 days! YAY!

We've got it all sorted now;
- Dress/Suit: CHECK
- Venue for ceremony: CHECK
- Restaurant for reception: CHECK
- Invitations: CHECK
- Rings: CHECK
- Honeymoon in Hong Kong: CHECK
- Someone naive/crazy enough/actually willing to marry me: CHECK?

It's all sorted, and now that everything is organised I can finally get excited and look forward to Soryi being not just my girlfriend, but my wife. The concept is still crazy, but it's also extremely awesome.

Like I said, the ceremony is going to be very small, four of our super-closest friends, and our families. That's all. So don't feel bad if you didn't get an invite, nothing personal, and you can live vicariously through the photos if you want. And speaking of photos, we've got three cameras planned; DSLR, Holga (medium format!) and polaroid. It'll be great.

IESSO

Typography

TOP: Flies. BOTTOM: Leaves. For no real reason. Click images for larger sizes.

IESSO

Happy Little Vegemites

From mX (free newspaper) printed 01/07/09

If people ask why I want to leave Australia, this is the answer. I've encountered this attitude since I was nine years old, and frankly I am sick of it.

I wrote to the paper:
"I am not a Happy Little Vegemite either, but due entirely to your article. Get your facts right, and stop with the pointless America-bashing. If you don't like the politics that is understandable, but the people are generally not evil. Not all of us are fat, or greedy; as you seem to think. I've been confronted of this general attitude from Australians ever since I moved here when I was a little kid, and I can't understand why. If you don't like the new Vegemite, there is an easy solution; don't eat it. There is no need to turn this into some sort of "America is an evil imperialist empire, trying to take over the world, and extinguish our last glimmer of Australian identity" crisis. Lastly; for the record; Kraft has always been an American company, and Mel Gibson was born in New York."

IESSO

TUESDAYNE 2: TUES CONTROL

So Linus wants an epilogue. So here it is:

Things are pretty much back to normal now. Boring I know, but that's how it played out. It wasn't always back to normal though, something else happened in the time it took to return to normal.

After I was sent home, and had my wallet stolen I watched a lot of tv. For 2 days in fact. And then on Friday I was back at work. But I kind of wasn't feeling well. On Saturday Soryi got sick. Then I got sick properly on Sunday.

On Monday morning I went to the doctor to get some help. By the time the train arrived at the station I was feeling nauseous. Sea sick I guess. The doctor said I had a throat infection, a sinus infection and a lung infection. Which effects the bits in your ear that controls balance, explaining the sick feeling. He gave me some medicine and sent me home. So of course instead of going home I went to work. The files were still not recovered and looking less and less likely to ever get recovered.

The next day I felt weird when I woke up. I was still sick feeling, because the medicine hadn't worked yet. But on top of that I was also REALLY REALLY itchy. It was a different kind of itchy though. It was UNDERNEATH my skin. Not like a sunburn. Or a mosquito bite, but everywhere on my body. And deeper down.

I didn't know what it was, but figured a shower would help. I thought I over scrubbed myself when I got out and was all pink. But then I noticed that I was pink EVERYWHERE. I was pink on my eyelids. I was pink between my toes. I was pink behind my knees. And when I say pink I mean PINK!!! Pink like one of those old-fashioned erasers. And it wasn't going away.

I went back to the doctor. Trying to hide my skin, which looked like I'd washed my face with magenta ink. The doctor asked if I was itchy, I told him I was, he thought for a second, trying to figure out how to phrase the bad news. Did I have cancer? With two weeks to live? How was I going to tell my family? Or Soryi? We were supposed to be getting married soon!

Luckily it was only a simple allergy to the medicine. But before you let of that big sigh if relief, it's not just any allergy; I'm allergic to pennicilin. The worst allergy you can have. Oh sure, it only is the greatest medical discovery/invention of all time, but hey, Elliott, you should be allergic to it. Yippee.

Actually it could have been a lot worse. The doctor told me that if I hadn't come in, and kept taking the medicine my blood pressure would've dropped, my heart would've stopped beating and no epilogue for Linus.

He gave me some new medicine, without pennicilin, an injection of anti-inflamatories, and told me to go home.

Which I did.

On Thursday the itching hadn't stopped, but the original illness was almost gone (remember that one?) and I went back to work, with only the pinkness level of someone running a marathon. In the sahara.

The files were lost. For good. With no way of getting them. So it was time to redo everything, work late and get everything back on track.

After another day of that I was feeling worse again, but good enough. And that's how I feel right now. The pinkness is gone, luckily, the itch at only 5% of it original level, but not gone, and my suck feeling only slightly higher.

Work has returned to normal too. And in case you were wondering Soryi is completely fine, her sickness only lasting the one weekend.

IESSO

In other news: we're finally getting our act together about the wedding. YAY! It will be held in Brisbane some time in the near future. That bit isn't finalized yet. What is finalized though is our trip to Brisbane on the 18th of July to go to the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages to put in the paperwork and choose a date.

The ceremony is to be held at their ceremony room in the old printing factory in Brisbane. Which is good because it's design related. And heavens forbid we do anything that isn't design related!

Also, we bumped into Sebastian from Luveworm in Sydney. He's doing well, having spent a while in the states doing sone art thing. He's got an exhibition coming up, but he didn't say where or when it was, or any way of getting in contact with him, so we'll probably not get to go.

Anyway that's sort of all for now. I'd tell you about work, but it's painfully boring to do, let alone talk about. The only exception to that is: for once I am doing something fun for one project. With costumes! But the client will probably kill it and end up looking like crap. But I'll upload pics to Flickr if things work out.

Lastly: Where in the World is Linus? San Diego perhaps?

TUESDAYNE

LAST TUESDAY WAS A BAD DAY FOR ELLIOTT. Not life-threateningly bad, or bad in any grand, ultimate sense, no-one died, no-one was hurt, but nonetheless, tuesday was a bad day anyway. So what happened then that made the day so bad you might ask? And if you didn't ask, don't bother reading the next part, for I shall be explaining why tuesday was bad.

7.55am
I woke up late, as I sometimes do. Tuesday was different though. I had just gotten back from Perth, and Brisbane earlier in the week. And I didn't feel like going to work. More than that perhaps, I felt I shouldn't go to work. It turned out I was right, but I don't believe in premonitions, so I am hesitant to say I had a feeling that the day would go bad. I just didn't want to go to work and I didn't know why.

9.32am
I arrived at work early. I wanted to get straight into it, I'd missed a lot of work over the previous week, having only gone in two out the five days that week, because I was in Brisbane, then Perth. So I walked in, said hi to everyone and got started checking the work emails and that sort of thing. My boss suggested I swap computers around, because my computer was slow, and I have lots of Photoshop work to do, and the other computer is faster.

9.40am
I unplugged my computer and swapped it with the faster one. The faster one had the server harddrive attached, so I moved it along with the fast computer. It was dusty, but I didn't it was a big deal. But I guess it was, because when I turned the computer, the server harddrive was corrupt and everything was gone. Everything. Everything from the last five years, from the whole company was lost.

9.43am
I was sent home, unsure when, or indeed if, I would be coming back. Without the files, there was nothing to do. The harddrive was taken to a data recovery specialist, but they're still not sure if anything can be recovered. So without any work to do, and my mind replaying the event of 3 minutes earlier I went into the city to calm down, get some reading done and maybe go to the gym to blow off some steam.

2.16pm
I finished my book after sitting in the park in the cold. This part wasn't so bad, actually it would have been quite pleasant under different circumstances, but on tuesday it was distracting enough to serve it's purpose, but not enjoyable enough to give any sense of pleasure. On a side note; the book was The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. It's another Penguin book, I'm making my way through all the orange and white ones. This one was pretty good.

4.02pm
I went to the gym. Because I was in Brisbane/Perth I didn't get a chance to go, so I was a bit out of practice. First I did my usual stint on the treadmill, then the swingamajigg (it's almost a torture rack), then weights, then situps and more weights, then the swingamajigg again. Like I said though, having not been in nearly two-weeks I was a bit sore, and weak feeling. My arms were stiff, and I was out of breath. I figured it was best to go home.

5.30pm
It was time to go, I was going to meet Soryi anyway. I got changed, put on my jeans, and the shirt and jacket, I got my bag, and put my towel in it, and grabbed my train ticket so I would save time at the station. Except I didn't grab my ticket, because my wallet was gone. Gone where? I don't know. But it wasn't in my bag, I checked six times. It was gone. The thing is I made sure that when I locked it in the locker (of which I am the only one with a key) I put it on top. And I guess that when I opened the locker an hour and a half later, it wasn't on top, but the locker was locked. It's really weird, and I don't have any explanation for what happened, but my wallet is gone, along with all the cards and money in it.

Fun times for Elliott. Lots of fun. I went to the bank the next day, and the bank had lost my Visa account, so I couldn't even get the money out. They had lost all the money in the account on top of everything else that had happened.

IESSOmebody put me out of my misery

THANKS BRIAN ENO

FOR THE COOL, BUT UGLY 77 million paintings you've projected onto the Opera House. I know I complain about Sydney being boring, but when it's cool, like this is, it's actually not too bad. I like that the Opera House gets all this attention, and that I have a million photos of it, despite what _linus says. So I guess I should stay positive or something.

Also, check out the Flickr photostream for more photos of other light things going on in the city this week. There's lights all over the place!

IESSO

REDUCE. REUSE. RECYCLE.

ANATOMY OF A MURDER vs. THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM vs. PRECIOUS. Saul Bass, you've done it again! So the first two were done by Saul, but the last one is for a new movie starring MARIAH CAREY! So you know it's gonna be a heavy hitter. Without having seen the movie, and only hearing some reviews (positive though) I won't comment on it, but I will talk about the poster.

I actually like it. No, REALLY like it. It's great... I like the fact that is a clear Saul Bass ripoff. I like that because it's nice, and looks cool. I wish the influences weren't as obvious, but it still doesn't bother me. I wanted to say how annoying it was that new ideas are gone, and that rehashing old ideas are the standard now, but I really don't mind in this case.At least it's not Ultra Bold Gill Sans in red on a white background.

IESSO

MELBOURNE

SO WE GOT BACK ON SUNDAY NIGHT after three days of Melburnian fun. It was great.
I'm totally regretting moving to Sydney. Linus, if you're reading this: Don't move to Sydney, even if you wanted to be with friends. I take back all those things I said about it being ok. It is ok, but Melbourne is better. Move there instead and I'll come and visit!


St Kilda Pier through Soryi's glasses.


Me in St Kilda.


Having breakfast on our last day.


From Southbank facing the city. (Soryi is facing the Crown Casino)


From Federation Square facing the city.


Flinders St Station


An odd thing to see at 9.30 at night; some guy dressed like this doing tai chi. He wasn't asking for money either.


Just outside an amazing tapas place, across the road from Fed Square.


Wayne Brady and co in Fitzroy.


Zombies crossing the road. There were literally hundreds of them. More photos on Flickr.


Return to South Melbourne Beach to reshoot an old photo.


All the food we ate while there; breakfast x3, lunch x1, dinner x3.
I'd definitely recommend Movida, the tapas place. Try the chilled citrus and mint soup with cinnamon dumplings and melon. Also, try the pate with fennel and chocolate drizzle. Oh, and the anchovy with salmon sorbet! ALL AMAZINGLY GOOD!

Also, proof that Sydney is lame.
Backstory: I'm walking down the street in Bondi Beach and wearing a scarf.
SURFER: "You know what I really hate?"
OTHER SURFER: "What?"
SURFER: "Scarves. The next person I see I'm gonna bash."

What is the deal with the anti-scarf sentiment? I've heard things of this nature three times now. What is the deal!?
IESSOoWhat?It'sFrigginCold!

ANOTHER YEAR, ANOTHER DOLLAR?

IT'S MY BRITHDAY TODAY. I'm now 26 years old. And for the first time ever, I actually do feel older today than I did yesterday. Apparently 26 is late twenties, so I'm not in my late twenties. Is it time to get serious? I guess so.

Anyway, I'm off to Melbourne in a couple of hours, so I'd better keep this short. Suffice to say, when I get back I'm going to upload some photos onto Flickr, and this blog. I used to do that, and I think I'll start doing that again. Also, and lastly, about Melbourne; this is my fourth trip down there, and the previous one was actually five years earlier, to the day. I went on my 21st birthday with Dermo, and had a great time. Every time I go I go with someone else, I wonder who's next? Hopefully Soryi again.

Anyway, keep reading the blog if you want... I'll post more stuff to it.
I'mTwentySixNowYay?ESSO

PS. We bought a new camera (Nikon D90 [kickass!]) and some lenses for it, the moon photo was taken with a Sigma 70-300mm lens at full zoom and cropped in Photoshop. But you can see some craters, etc, so I'm pleased.

YESTERDAY

YESTERDAY was 3 years since we left Australia and began our lifechanging travels. 26,304 hours ago I was in Temple Bar sharing a pint with Dermo at the Porterhouse. I miss that. A lot.

So now I'm here in Sydney still. It's ok. Whatever.
I'll be going to Melbourne in 3 weeks from tomorrow (irony? no, I don't think so, coincidence perhaps). It'll be fun, hopefully.
First lot of travelling in 6 months, I am actually pretty excited.

Also, Soryi and myself have begun planning the wedding. I'll fill you in on the details, when they happen. It's looking like it'll be taking place in Brisbane. And a SMALL ceremony with immediate family and a few friends, nothing lavish and extravagant. We're saving that for Vegas the following year!

IESSO

MARCH UPDATE

Holga FOOD
Originally uploaded by Mondayne

So _someone has finally pestered me into updating the blog. So here goes:












1. I've started freelancing at some Sydney studios. Let's call them A and the other one M. A was good but the work wasn't enough of branding for my liking. It was at Bondi Beach though, so it was a nice place to have a lunch break and everything. Plus 10–5.00pm hours were cool. M on the otherhand does do branding, but a few of the people are kinda jerks. I'm not liking it all that much, but the pay is good. The hours are 9–6.30pm.

2. I've also started going to the gym. I'm trying to get fit by August. because....

3. Soryi and I are engaged! for the 5 people who didn't know, it's true, and official now. We've actually been engaged since August last year, when we went to Paris, but it was a secret of sorts.

4. We're still in Sydney. It's ok now, I've gotten used to being back in Australia so the general hatred has boiled down to a dusty sprinkling of extreme annoyance, but on top of a bland doughnut, so it's not too bad. Metaphor? Nope!

5. Our plans to move to NYC in o'ten are still theoretically possible. But we'll have to see what's the up. If we do go, we'll also be having a kah-razy Vegas wedding, but it's all a bit up in the air at the moment.

6. I've bought myself a HOLGA 120CFN camera. That's a big plastic camera that you put film in and it comes out pretty bad. The above image is just one of many taken so far, head to the Flickr page to see more. The link is to the right of this, just below the link to my portfolio book.

7. I've had 3 interviews at another studio for a fulltime job. I really want to work there though, they do all the cool stuff, with big name clients, and the people who work there are really nice, and enthusiastic, but also good designers. So fingers crossed. Plus, their office has a totally cool view of the Harbour and everything... WOOT!

8. I'll be visiting QCA in June to give a guest lecture. It'll be very boring and poorly planned, but hopefully fun. I've gotten loads of advice on what to talk about, which has given me some general ideas to discuss. More as it develops.

IESSO

SOME LIKE IT HOT

BUT I CERTAINLY DON'T. It's *only* 35ºC right now, but don't worry, that's set to go up to 40ºC in an hour or two. How hot is it? It'a so hot that I'm sweating in the shade. It's so hot I feel my skin cooking. It's so hot that I can't do anything. It's so hot that I can't think of a witty joke to make this post funny.

It's just to hot. To the folks in Dublin and London who are thinking "Well gee Elliott, you should consider yourself lucky that it's not like it is over here, we're freezing our asses off!" NOPE! I refuse to listen to that. It'd trade this 35ºC heat for 3 or 5ºC or even -2ºC. So yeah, make it cooler so I can go out exploring like I like to do.

IESssoooo....

MY MOM SAYS I'M COOL

SO I GUESS I'M NOT COOL. Me and Soryi have finally come to this realisation after noticing that no-one reads this blog anymore, and more that no-one looks on our Flickr pages. Also, we're not famous in the design community, and we don't talk to many people on Facebook. Worst of all, we don't have very many friends. And when we go to hostels we never end up meeting anyone.

And this is of course our own doing. We're not very proactive when it comes to emailing people, or striking up conversations with old friends, or joing groups, or contributing to society in any way. It's not that we don't care, we do, it's just that we don't do it.

I feel uncomfortable with making new friends. I can make new superficial friends, but longterm, meaningful friendships are difficult. And fitting into groups that are interested in topics we like is very intimidating. I hate meeting new people and talking about graphic design with them. I always feel they know more than me, and that I am some sort of idiot who is trying too hard to fit in, but clearly doesn't.

I apologise to everyone who feels hurt that we haven't stayed in contact. Please, if you read this, and feel wronged, let me know. We're in Sydney now and instead of not talking to people like we normally would, I would love to hang out or grab a drink or whatever. Just let me know.

I'm going to say that my REAL new years resolution is to be more proactive when it comes to talking with people. It only has positive results! The more people we know, the more we can all share our experience and have fun times together. My FIRST step was to join Flickr groups that have shared interests with me, and hopefully they'll accept me. My NEXT step is to call Jay and Lisa who are both friends of ours from uni, and actually HANG OUT like I said I would.

IESSOhcrap,whatiftheydon'tlikeme!?

HAPPY NEW YEARS!

Okay, so I'm not much of a New Years Resolution kind of guy anymore, if ever, but here goes nothing!

1. Be. I like this one because it's nice and vague and it's one of those hug-yourself-and-tell-yourself-you're-perfect-the-way-you-are™ kind of bullshit that people just love because it's really, really easy. But to just "be" means to live life however I want, and stop trying to change. Which is changing myself... OH CRAP! I can't even just ... be!?!?

2. Lose some weight. The first thing people said was "Wow, you're fat!", so that's got to change. I'm feeling less secure about myself anyway, and this will be good. How will I lose the weight though? When I get a job I'll buy a bike and cycle to work. That's about it. I've been doing some sit-ups as well, so I'll try to keep that up.

3. Stay positive. Not easy given Soryi and my spiralling AND crippling depression since being back, and because of being back in Australia. But we'll go to NYC soon, and things will be more fun.

4. Do less computer based design, and more screenprinting, film photography and stencils. I've gotten used to using the ol' mouse and chain, and have forgotten to use my hands and do some stuff Old Skool™.

5. Wear cooler clothes. Both literally and figuratively. I want ONE photo of myself that I can look back at in 35 years and say, "Wow, I used to look like that? What a dork! Check out those pants!" or something like that. You know how you see photos of people from the 70s and you're all laughing at their funny clothes? Well, I want that! Also, it's hot here and I'm sweating heaps!

I'll let you know how it goes, but no doubt it'll go badly. Even if it is super easy and vague.
IESSO

OPERATION CAST LEAD

SO ISRAEL is attacking Palestine again. And as a Jewish person, and an American it seems to affect me. Why American you ask? Well for some reason the USA is involved. People are burning American flags.

I'm used to being hated for being an American. That's a dull hated, unspecific and when people think about it it's usually not logical to hate a person because of their countries government action. The anti-American sentiment has been with me wherever I go; Australia, Ireland, UK, Europe. It was kind of refreshing to be in America, where the same anger is actually directed at the government, instead of me, but oh well. At any rate, it's nothing too strong, and I am used to it.

As for the anti-Israel sentiments; that's completely different. Being Israeli, and being Jewish are linked. I am not an Israeli. I have never been there, I have only met a handful of Israeli people. Am I a Zionist? I think I might be. The whole issue is obviously extremely complicated. I am for a Jewish homeland, but for reasons that I have personally never suffered for.

A lot of criticism of Jewish people is because they always bring up past wrongs done to them. Yes, they have had a pretty bad run over the last three thousand years. Not much luck. So they do deserve to be treated extra nice. And part of that means that Israel exists, and exists as a haven for persecuted Jews around the world. I read yesterday that before Israel was established Britain controlled Palestine, and during The Holocaust the British wouldn't allow Jews into Palestine and they died in concentration camps. So WE need Israel. There are plenty of other important and Holy places in the Muslim world, let us have this one place. PLEASE.

But back to the point; we tend to rely on guilt to get our way. And I am not happy about that. And as I said, I have never personally experienced these injustices. So what gives me any right to stand up and defend Israel? I don't have any right. I have no reason to stand up, other than the fact that I am a Jewish person and we should stick together. But do I agree that we should use guilt to convince countries to ignore going to far in retaliation? Or that Israel is justified by our past in treating resistance with an overly heavy hand? No.

Israel has it's purpose, and it stands for something that cannot be expressed. Hope? Safety? Home? I don't know. But don't we already have enough enemies in the world? By retaliating in this way are we not just making things worse? We are not able to destroy all of our enemies, so what are we to do? Even if we destroy the entire Gaza strip, and the West Bank, and kill every single person, then what? Syria, Egypt, Lebanon? The governments of those countries are the least of our fears.

I fear for the worst. I fear that Holocaust could happen again in my lifetime, but it won't be goose-stepping Germans leading us to the camps. It will be enraged Arabs and Muslim people from around the world who are sick of us dredging up the past, and using an extreme branch of Islam as a justification. I fear that America will take sides and Australia will too, and they will support Israel but Muslim people in those countries will not be happy about that and be looking for someone to blame. And that person will be me.

I fear that the only way to protect myself, and the people I care about is with high-powered automatic weaponry, and equal measures of anger, pride and terror. I fear that I will have to kill or be killed, and that WW3 is coming and it will all start very soon.

I can only keep my head down and pretend everything is ok for so long before I'll either have to chose a side, give up, or pick up a gun to defend myself. And Australia doesn't sell guns anymore.

IESSO

PS> I might be over reacting a bit. Maybe I should stop watching the news.
PPS> The post immediately below this post makes me look insane, like some sort of hyper-sensitive nut. But it also illustrates that Anti-Semitism as acceptable again, and being anti-Anti-Semitic, or being sensitive to Anti-Semitism is being crazy.

AM I CRAZY?

FROM AN EMAIL TO FRESHJIVE:

Hello.

I found one of your shirts in a store in Brisbane, Australia and was more than a little shocked. I think the shirt requires some explanation. Can you explain to me why your shirt features a graphic that shows striking resemblance to a swastika? I consider myself a reasonable person, so I think it's fair to assume that Freshjive does not actually support the Nazi Party, or any of it's current neo parties. Nor would I assume to believe that Freshjive actually condones the atrocities commited by the Nazi Party.

While it is true that Buddhist cultures, as well as some Native American cultures do use swastikas in their artworks and as decoration, I am not naive enough to believe that this shirt (or anything else for that matter) can use a swastika on a commercial product and think it is an appropriate symbol.

I am a graphic designer myself, I know that sometimes when creating graphics you can miss the forest for the trees. You can come up with an idea that seems cool, and totally loose sight of the bigger picture. That is a reasonable excuse. HOWEVER, it is NOT reasonable for a person in charge of quality control, or in any sort of position of approval to miss such an obvious mistake.

I would like to know what you plan on doing regarding this matter. And I think an apology for such a horrendous blunder is completely within reason. Finally I am going to assume that you will be pulling this shirt from stores, and whoever was responsible for this to be dealt with in whatever manner you see fit.

From
An annoyed FORMER Freshjive customer,
Elliott Scott