My first job out of art school was as a production artist for Colores International, a windsock company. I did a lot of preparing artwork for silkscreening (including using a stat camera, who know’s what that is?). One day early in my job there, a sales man came into the art den and said, ‘I’d like to pitch a unique idea to the NFL, something more than putting their team logos onto regular windsocks…anybody got any ideas?’ Well, a few hours later he came back and I had drawn a sketch for this idea. The next thing I knew I was working with our sample/prototype maker cutting patterns and preparing art for the silk-screener. Soon after that, we these were in production and I started seeing them in stores and at tailgate parties (I still see these everywhere I go, 20 years later). At their peak of sales these were displayed, in 8 foot tall versions at the Super Bowl.

Then we started doing NCAA teams. I see Washington Husky versions about 8 Saturdays a year and it still kind of freaks me out. I need to take a picture of one in ‘action’…for now here is one from the national champs…

We came up with the funny little name Windjocks, and we started to make other sports and characters. Funny note giving some perspective, back then we didn’t even have a computer in the art department and did the letters on the tag by hand. Then I did sales sheets where I set up the photo shoot and took the pictures (except for the one they wanted me to model in =) ). Seems like a lifetime ago.