THE ALIVE STORY Alive is owned and organised by me, Christian Lindemann. I´m a german Illustrator working from Hannover, in the north of Germany. In 2003 I was looking for an idea for my final exam at the HAWK university Hildesheim to eventually receive my degree in graphic design. For a long time I had this idea in mind of doing something with animals, t-shirts and a good cause. I wanted to make designs which are not looking on the first sight ecological but nice designed and adorable. So I came up with the idea of building a t-shirt brand. I liked the name ALIVE and things were getting started. At the beginning the whole thing was planned as a fictional brand. At first I came up with the logo, did the coprorate design and started to draw my first designs. From an early stage of the project I wanted to show with the design a very rare (but still existing) animal. I read about the nearly extinct Javan rhino in indonesia. So I deceided to make three designs for these threatened creatures. Next step was that I had to bring them on some t-shirts. Actually I wanted to print only a few of them for showcasing them at the university exam exhibition. But after I thought about it more and more I deciede to print 100 t-shirts of each design. I borrowed the money for the first row from my family and had suddenly a bunch of t-shirts to sell. Afterwards I had to set up a website. www.aliveshirts.com was born.Time was flying and eventually I received my degree. My teacher and the people liked the concept of what I did. Luckily they also liked my shirts and I sold the first 20 or so shirts to my fellow students and friends. That was a big „wow" to me, because it made me very proud that people liked my designs and seeing them in my t-shirts was pretty exciting. After my degree I worked in an local advertising agency in Hannover. The Alive website was still online and after a while the first online orders came in. I was thrilled. At first there were only orders through friends and my online network but after some promotion I had an order from spain and israel. ALIVE was running as a side project along with my dayjob for me at that time. But I felt that I could push things maybe a bit further. I walked into a local streetfashion shop (GoBäng in Hannover) and asked them, if they might be interested to sell my t-shirts. They agreed (that shop is now my best selling outlet beside my webshop). Step by step I managed to have some more shops carrying my stuff (in Berlin, Cologne, Chemnitz, Athens and Rome). I made some new designs (RED PANDA and SNEAKERBIRD were along them – two of my best selling t-shirt designs ever since), did some internet promotion and the orders kept going in. I shipped t-shirts in many european countrys, to the USA, Australia and New Zealand. ALIVE has become my very own little brand. Eventually I quit my dayjob in 2007 and went into my cozy office as a freelance illustrator. Now I had a bit more time to focus beside my illustrations which I´m doing for magazines and clients on ALIVE. My brand has grown to my affair of the heart. I´m doing everything myslef: design, shipping orders, answering customer questions, dealing with stores, making the paper works and so on. It´s still so great if I suddenly see someone on the streets of Hannover wearing my t-shirt. I love working on ALIVE. It´s not a huge business but it keeps me motivated to work on things I like and do hopefully something good with it. Christian Lindemann / August 2009 SOME FACTS • From each sale I will donate between 1,– and 2,– Euro to the WWF (World Wildlife Fund for Nature). The money will be used to protect the threaten animals that are shown on my t-shirts. Some of them are: Red Panda, Sumatran elephant, Indian crocodile (gharial) and the Mauritius Parakeet. • Donation will be made at the end of each year around mid december. I´ll inform about the donation in the NEWS. • All designs are printed on American Apparel clothes. See additional informations and sizing infos in the SHOP. • The designs are printed mostly in a run of 100 copies. After a design is sold out it will be gone forever (there might be some exceptions). But there are some classics who I will reprint regulary. These are: SNEAKERBIRD, RED PANDA, ROCKIN BIRDY, CHRIS CROCODILE and BIKING ELEPHANT.