Possible glow in the dark inks: http://www.allartsupplies.com/item.php?articleId=1152
I consulted with a friend who did corporate communications. He gave me some pointers that will make the job easier and the end result more effective. The take away was that I should keep it relatively simple. So for a start see if you can stylize / abstractify the sword fish to the same style as Sakila the Dolphin
.......... needs to be in this style 
I am currently thinking to use the abstract swordfish for the left front small insignia with
www.emarketbrasil under it. That's a relatively small and maneageable task. If you do that first we can see if we're on the same page.
The art for the back will be bigger and therefore possibly more elaborate. However it should not be as detailed as Nikki's masterpiece below. Its level of details is too high for this particular task. I like the concept of an octopus not for the things it can hold but the concept of the cephalapods flexibility and ability to use all 8 hands. That would be great but it can't be some way detailed vision like seen on some tee shirts that you could spend a day looking at to see all the details. The eye should quickly take in a logo and use this logo as a mneumonic for remembering the website.
I think I may be leaning towards taking the same stylized sword fish and putting a large version on the back. It will minimize time and labor on your part. I have a relatively short fuse as I want to get down there soon. I'm staying in a friends spare bedroom and he's probably moving to Texas in the not so distant future.
Fred, we are steeped in shit, but just for right now. Give us a week or so, and we'll post some rough sketches, and you can tell us what you like, or what you think. We'll expect you to be very critical, as this is your baby, and you can't be too picky. You should have exactly what you want! Also, if it is alright with you, I'd like to give Nikki the info to log on here so she can jump right in.
P.S. Thanx for the links!
SIMPLY SMASHING Work - this sort of spin where she takes the concrete items of her first workup and then abstracts it a little focus' the viewers mind on the concept of the dogs emoting. I'm convinced on the quality of her work. For the website shirt art I might want to go a couple more shades even more abstract like the MySQL dolphin with its very economical use of curved lines.
I see her signature as NO '06. Please make sure she signs the shirt design too. I'm trying to push the idea of user participation for future designs. This will let users know I really mean business on this point and will credit the artist.
OCTOPUS IDEA: I like any animal like subject. There is a series of books written by O'Reilly that all have animals on them. It caught on early in their publishing and its thematic of "code-heads" now. Their style is a little too concrete for what I want but you get the idea of the animal theme. No need to be so concrete as having the octopus holding anything. Just make it look good. Any Hindu influence where you can impute a sagacious or godlike nature ( lending personality of sort ) is a good spin. Art that invites a person to associate themselves as a concept will tend to get remembered.
REGARDING REFERENCE TO EMARKETBRASIL.COM = eMarketBrasil.com in 2 places. For example: Alot of T shirts have a small insignia on the front left chest. Under that would be in small letters scaled to look appropriate under the insignia. On the back there will be the larger graphic and a larger version of eMarketBrasil.com Lettering should be plain straight and easy to read so as to perform its function. Keep them in scale to maintain the attractive nature of the art. I hoping to make this alot of peoples favorite t shirt and get alot of press by duration of wear, not by being in their face.
REGARDING YOU DOING THE PRINTING: Let's just focus on the art first. Then hopefully you two will have time to experiment with your t -shirt printing kit in the mean time. If you have the name and number of your local guy go ahead and include next time you write here.
Regarding cottlefish called Globby: Maybe she should be reading Scott Adams blog at
http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/ Scott Adams actually was giving public lessons to a guy in 10 installments. If her stuff is good enough you might get him to repeat the exercise. He also has some really good insight into the syndicated cartoon biz..... Ask if she would consider to scan and place on www.emarket-usa.com ? If she sees there is a way to modify the website tool that would help the cartooning effort make sure to let me know. Its a decision as to whether to retain all rights for herself -OR- get exposure and maybe get a paying gig somewhere.
This is what Nikki Did first. The printer told us that it was too detailed for the cheap printing, so she revised it to the above.
FJR: The chin fuzz on the guy in the back makes him look a little like a beatnik. Me likey 
- We have zero experience at this. Nikki purchased a hobbyist's silk screening kit, and it's only a couple of days old, and still in the box. Long story short, at this point we are not totally confident that we could, or could not do the printing right now. It remains to be seen. We do know a guy locally who is reasonably priced. Nikki did a tee shirt for our workplace last year. The images are on disk, so I'm going to have to do some looking, but I'll be up loading the Images here soon. I'll gat back to this a.s.a.p!
My wife Nikki Does a fun cartoon about a cottlefish called Globby. About a month or so, she got very excited about designing and printing her own tee shirts. We've noticed that quirky, one color ink tees seem to be quite popular, and we felt confident we could come up with some fun tees that have potential. She has quite a few simple sketches that would be fun on a tee shirt. when I told her about your proposal, we immediately had some Ideas. If you like quirky, (quirky is eye catching, and attention getting) we thought of an octopus with out-stretched tenticles akimbo, holding products and services that one might find on your site. One step further, the octopus could be sitting on a lotus flower with his tenticles positioned Hindu god styled, with a plethora of goods and services. this is just off the top of our heads.
We have time commitments through next Monday, after that, we'll have a number of sketches to throw up on here for you!
This sounds super. Then maybe she can print too ? As long as I can see a sample after we do a design maybe
we can work out a deal that works for both of us on the money side. I'll be interested in quantities that range from
100 to 1000 at a time. I will supply the shirts as I want strict control over comfort of wear issues. ***see footnote
ART: I need something that is desirable to Brazilians and "computer - cool " that rolls in some themes from emarketbrasil.
For that matter if once you or her have digested the website I can back fit any additional art you can get me to like. The
site is pretty minimalistic on art and it will stay that way but certain critical art on hard core nurd sites has a HUGE
branding effect........ an example is shown below:
Anyone in web based design knows MySQL "Sakila" ( they had a contest to name the dolphin )
I have kind of used "sakila's friend" in the form of a swordfish :
*** I'm going to make a science project out of picking the Make / Model of tee shirt. Why is this ? because I have noticed
there is a HUGE difference in the amount I want to wear any given tee shirt due to how comfortable a shirt is. I have a few
gems that I found by buying a large pile from a thrift store. Some of the tee shirts from the same pile really SUCK. The collars
bite and itch. The fabric is stiff and lays like dead fish on the skin and are stifling hot. If I am going to spend significant
bucks on a promotional the shirts are going to be of the Magic Tee Shirt variety that once a person has it they are going to
want to wear it everyday.
Hi Fred,
What serendipidous timing. My wife has been very interested in tee shirt design as of late. She very recently bought some silkscreen equipment so she can get rolling. She has a note book of fun tee-shirt ideas she wants to do, I've thought of a few good ones, and we've collaberated on a couple. Long story short, we're on the case!
Hi Jeff
I need some art for a promotion tee shirt I want to distribute. Thus the art needs to be good so the shirt gets worn and thus my website promoted.
In case you are interested here are the details
- only 1 color of ink on white tee shirt ( costs ! )
- needs to be something people want to wear....thus the art has to be something interesting.
- I don't have a ton of cash but if its something I like I'll pay some money to say thanks. If I accomplish what I want with this later I'll come back and say thankyou in a more substantial way.
-Make sure to pitch the idea to me FIRST.....no need to do a bunch of work on something I don't like.
I'll get the shirts and print them up.
Let me know either way....I have to find someone interested either way.
Fred :)
Jeff Puccini
www.puccini-art.com
Page collaboration process notes: ( FJR )
1- need a lock out mechanism to prevent more than one person from editing at one time.
2-need collaboration style selection menu on original webpage
3- email to webpage? accrete at top of page : how to handle authentication?
4- webpage to email notification - how to only send out notification ONLY after the page has been finished? Notify collaborators WHO just finished EDITING to the webpage. Use some delay time period after last edit. Mark page with ICON that shows when one of the USERS is editing. A link with instant messaging tool might help this.
5- collaboration USER specification list
6- request for collaboration
7- request to be invited to collaborate
8- backout procedure for major goofs : local disk copies ?
9- dis invite feature with feedback system to grade production and eliminate the malicious people
10- hierarchy system : so someone can be named team leader to have final call in stuck arbitrations
This rocket makes very economical use of lines. Its pretty much exactly the style ( I think ) I am looking for. 
