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 |