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NiNTH WHEEL
NiNTH WHEEL aka Matt Leyen is a 29.77 year old boy, has been a member since March 23, 2008, has scored 46494 submissions, giving an average score of 2.32.
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  Jul 21 '09 by NiNTH WHEEL        17 Comments        Watch this      Share:  Share on facebook    Share on delicious    Share on digg    Share on MySpace    Tweet this    Stumble this    Share this on Kaboodle   
First and foremost, a big THANKS to all the members of this very welcoming community: to all the voters, bloggers, designers and to those of you that are the trifecta. In particular, thanks go out to those individuals that supported some of my very early designs such as zipperking, FRICKINAWESOME, againstbound and jaywalkergraphics. There have been many more over the time that I've been here, but those names stick out, so thanks guys.

And thanks, of course, to Threadless for printing it.

^That's the important bit^ Read on only if you're curious how the design came about.

---

About six months ago I'm digging through my parent's attic and stumbled upon an old typewriter. Not the same model as depicted in the artwork, but equally interesting. I've always enjoyed purely mechanically devices. They look neat and you can deconstruct them to see how they work...sometimes even put them back together. There isn't any of the hand waving magic that most of us have to accept makes modern electronics work.

It's not only the pleasing aesthetic of the typewriter itself but also the very specific sound the keys make when struck that I liken to wind up music boxes. So these two elements knocked around the brain for a good while and then this came out...sort of...

There is, of course, such a thing as a musical typewriter which has the traditional keys/letters/numbers replaced with musical notes/symbols. The idea was to leave the setup of the traditional typewriter intact, standard keys and all, but to color them like piano keys.

So five months later, I finally drew that concept up, scanned it in, fixed the line work in illustrator, colored it in photoshop and...voila...it looked like crap.

I tried a few different angles to see if that would improve the design before it became clear that just coloring in the keys didn't make the image read the way I had hoped, no matter the perspective.

So I was just going to scrap the idea, but tried it once more with actual piano keys. And that seemed to work. I went through the same process as before,added in the sheet music as the last step, as was very pleased with how it all turned out and submitted it for scoring. So that's that.

Sorry, that was pretty long winded.

Anyway, I'm thrilled an honored to have had a designed picked up, so thanks again everyone.


andyg
   andyg on Jul 21 '09 at 4:10pm
Great design! Congrats!
adorablepancreas
adorablepancreas on Jul 21 '09 at 4:12pm
Congrats, man, really well deserved.
almozline
almozline on Jul 21 '09 at 4:12pm
Congrats! Amazing design that really makes me want to make a reservation.
ArTrOcItY
ArTrOcItY on Jul 21 '09 at 4:12pm
Congrats, you deserve it!
sonmi
   sonmi on Jul 21 '09 at 4:12pm
so amazing! congrats!
jess4002
jess4002 on Jul 21 '09 at 4:13pm
congrats!
Krakaboom
   Krakaboom on Jul 21 '09 at 4:14pm
Yay! Congratulations again, and welcome to the club!
opifan64
   opifan64 on Jul 21 '09 at 4:15pm
Congrats! An awesome first print!
ISABOA
   ISABOA on Jul 21 '09 at 4:16pm
matt is a giving lover
randyotter3000
   randyotter3000 on Jul 21 '09 at 4:19pm
well done man!
emilymmkay
emilymmkay on Jul 21 '09 at 4:26pm
congrats
I may not have won a tee, but congrats nonetheless :)
NiNTH WHEEL
   NiNTH WHEEL on Jul 21 '09 at 4:38pm
Haha. Have to save some threadbucks for my own addiction, emily :)

Thanks guys.
Krakaboom
   Krakaboom on Jul 21 '09 at 4:46pm
ISABOA on Jul 21 '09 at 4:16pm
matt is a loving giver
k-proj
k-proj on Jul 21 '09 at 6:12pm
congrats!! fantastic idea :)
6 days later
NiNTH WHEEL
   NiNTH WHEEL on Jul 28 '09 at 11:17am
Received mine in the mail today. Really great printing job, Threadless!
60 days later
dschwen
dschwen on Sep 27 '09 at 10:20am
This is so cool.
Congrats man!
NiNTH WHEEL
   NiNTH WHEEL on Sep 27 '09 at 11:57am
Thanks!
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Great illustration B 7 made for me: