CuriousInkling Graphic Shirts

Hello and welcome to Curious Inkling. I am the founder of our little company. My name is Tom Robinson and I thank you  for visiting us.

 

A Rather Uncomfortable Beginning

Since you were good enough to click the link to get to this page, I figure I should probably tell you what you want to know. In case you really don’t want to know at this point, you can simply click the model on the right to be taken from what might be a nightmarishly exhaustive expose on what I call a life.

It all began on a blustery day full of hope and adventure in Chicago, Illinois. A man that would soon be my father noticed little red-headed darling, Avon from across the room.

Okay, that’s probably too personal and entirely too early of a starting place. Alright then, lets begin in …well, where every story should begin…IN THE ‘80s! When I was a kid, I always got into art stuff. I think it’s because in school my classmates noticed me rather appreciatively for my exotic Halloween sketches I would draw for the autumn fair. Dang, now we are back in the 70s?

Ugh, this writing an “about us” page really isn’t all that easy and on the fun-scale it doesn’t win any awards either. I don’t normally like to write about myself and to be honest, there are and have been so many people involved with Curious Inkling that I feel kinda silly talking about it like it’s all mine. A truer vision of this company is that it’s a conglomeration of many folks who have the right to say it belongs to them in a significant way.

Still, I suppose I am the one that started it so lets continue. Yeah, back in the 80s I used to design shirts in my parent’s garage. It was a small operation, I think I only sold maybe 30 shirts before we moved and I lost the space to do it but since that time I’ve had a fire in my belly for graphic design.

Over the years, I studied graphic design and worked at various jobs that would allow me to work in it. I was a sign painter, a stained glass lamp designer, a jeweler, web designer, ad designer and eventually a publisher for several newspapers and magazines. In 1998 I began designing shirts again, just like when I was 16 but now it was all done on the computer.

And so Curious Inkling was born on the belly of the dot com bubble just before it was about to burst. It was a much smaller company then with only a few niche designs to support it but eventually, the customers would come, the partnerships grew and so did I. Its been a really exciting ride getting this company off the ground and for all those who took part in it, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

 

Why We Are Different

There are many shirt design companies out there these days. Print on demand services have created quite a boom and

the internet offers a boundless sales portal for any who wish to claim it so it’s only natural that such a business as ours, would see a magnificent renaissance.

That being the case, it’s imperative that a company differentiates itself from the norm. I feel we have done that quite well simply with our unique designs but also in our method of processing and fulfillment. Curious Inkling uses several print on demand services rather than just one in order to get the best possible print for each design. Our customers see the difference on each shirt or poster or mug they purchase. We only partner with the best manufacturers in the world to offer you the best possible name brand merchandise available.

Printing on trusted name brand merchandise is important because our art form is probably the only one that gets put through the tortures of a washing machine and to hold up against that kind of abuse, you need quality shirts. Our print on demand partners only print on the highest quality merchandise like American Apparel, Bella, Alternative Apparel to name a few. Theses partnerships ensure you will get a beautifully printed product processed quickly and securely and delivered in record time. In short, these partnerships allow our very small company to offer you a wide range of beautiful shirts and deliver them to you as if we were a billion-dollar corporation.

 

Unique Graphic Shirt Designs

There are literally thousands of shirt companies found on the net so it’s important to us that our graphic shirt designs stand out from the rest. Otherwise we really have no reason to do this. In our inventory you may find shirts with similar topics and meanings as our competition but we always design it with a new and fresh perspective.

This new perspective offers our customers something very special, the ability to purchase a shirt that’s truly unique and rare. We feel that’s pretty special.

We explore genre and fandom with more enthusiasm than our competitors as well. If you take the time to browse our designs, you will notice that even though we offer plenty of pop culture type designs like geek t-shirts, funny graphic shirts and the like, we tend to focus on general fan markets such as Hunter Thompson Shirts, Kurt Vonnegut T-shirts, Chili Pepper T-shirts, Bad Girl Shirts and the like. We love selecting a fan topic like the voracious Weeds TV fans and designing a small line of shirts around that particular subject matter and fans really do love it.

In the end, we are here because of our terrific customers. You allow us the freedom to create these shirts and with your continued support we will be doing it for a very long time. Please tell your friends about us, tell your family and by all means, step up to someone with an ugly shirt and tell them they need to visit our site…unless they look like they may be packing heat, then just leave them be.

Thank you so much for visiting our site and reading about who we are. 
About Curious Inkling
CuriousInkling Graphic Shirts
 
Shop

 

Community & Blogs

Information