NYC Merch & Other New Work
Plus a little C.E.O. (Cold Email Outreach) talk
Happy pride month babes!
I hope your June has been going fabulously thus far. Over here I’ve been on the Cold Email Outreach train, which I realized three seconds ago abbreviates to C.E.O. (?!) I mean, it does feel like some highly executive shit, as it requires the criminally underutilized values-and-numbers part of my brain—or at least the “convincing you to invest in me” part.
One of the hardest endeavors in C.E.O. is finding contacts. I’ve tried a lot of options and my favorite right now is Apollio.io, shared by my friend Jessica Cao. It has a lot of functions, 90% of which I do not know how to use yet, some blocked by a paywall. But the free version helps you find company contacts—names, emails, roles—with a higher success rate (in my experience) than simple Googling or using sites like hunter.io. If you’re on your own C.E.O. journey, I recommend trying it.
A Raising Cane’s Design Round-Up
On to the fun stuff: art! I have been hoarding these projects in my Meta-free Internet corners for a while and I need to tell y’all about them.
Raising Cane’s NYC Retail
This project is a couple years old now, but it did take me that long to photograph all my samples and share it in my portfolio. In short: I created a bunch of designs for Raising Cane’s to use across their NYC-themed merch, exclusively available at their flagship Times Square restaurant. T-shirts, keychains, hoodies, stickers, postcards, pins—my art got used on it all. I also illustrated a NYC-themed coloring book for the collection (but I’ve had that on my site for ages now).
I feel compelled to mention: they had a huge event during the 2023 grand opening wherein DJ Chantel Jeffries played multiple sets, including one in which she wore a button-down I designed. (!!!) There is truly no gratification for my rotted-out brain like seeing a celebrity within 5 feet of something I crafted.
Cane & Friends: Coloring & Activity Book
In a very Highlights-themed project, I illustrated and designed a small activity book for Cane’s last year, which I believe they produced for giveaways at various marketing activations. I went with activities like picture search, word scramble, how-to-draw instructions, connect-the-dots… you know, the classics.
It would be cool to expand on this eventually and see it available for retail (so I could buy like 20 and distribute them to every youth I know) but we shall see. If you have witnessed these irl (I still haven’t), please send me a pic!!
Raising Cane’s x Houston Rodeo Shirt
Ok, last one! Earlier this year, Houston hosted their annual Livestock Show and Rodeo, which Cane’s sponsored. They asked me to design a rodeo-themed shirt for their local Crew, to which I obviously responded ‘yes!’ Any savvy lettering artist would recognize this as an opportunity to draw a lasso-themed script.
I don’t know what it is about a string-adjacent script that gets us letterers all excited, but we love it. Of course, I did have to provide a backup option (as we are often asked to do), but Cane’s opted for the rope script (woo-hoo!). The final shirt was produced in brown, though I still really like the initial blue color scheme. You can view the full project on my portfolio via the below button.
In other news… Cool Stuff to Click On
This website that lets you compare the true size of countries across the globe. Turns out maps have been lying to me all my life about the size of Russia!
A reminder that we have the power to create trends with our hands.
This podcast series about how an empire ends. Maybe “cool” isn’t the right descriptor for this subject matter, but I love this podcast and I’ve been waiting for a series like this from them. Terrifyingly relevant and brilliantly illuminating.
Well, that wraps it up for this week. If you are also on an outreach journey, I’d love to know what tools you use. And if you know of any businesses in need of merch or activity book art, holler at me!
As always: feel free to reply with questions, comments, or just to say hello. It’s great to hear from y’all!
Hasta luego,
Liz (: