With the launch of The Good Ones, not only is OLG developing some sweet design work on fabric, but we’re also creating a story of a brand from the ground-up. If you go through the site, you’ll quickly notice the interweaving of cartoon dogs. These aren’t just random mutts, they’re The Good Ones themselves—a fictitious band of young pups that play rock n’ roll because that’s what they love. These characters were the result of a lot of brainwork here, figuring out the best way to engage not only the young’ins who might wear these clothes, but the people that buy it too.
When the name The Good Ones was chosen, the concept to have characters was born. Why have ’em? Well, think of any products you enjoyed as a kid. There’s a good chance some of those memories revolve around a world of something imagined. Although we think the clothes themselves stand out, we wanted to develop a storyline that could enhance the brand and give it some longevity–if done properly.
Like everything OLG, the made-up band came from our love of music and the opportunity to create something unique down the road. Concepting started with figuring out not only how many characters to have, but what they were—goofy monsters, aliens, animals, inanimate objects, kids? The answers ultimately came from late-night sketching. After all the decent drawings were looked through, it became pretty clear that The Good Ones represented a more down-to-earth group of dudes—dogs, actually. Dogs that each had their own personality, played their own instruments and went to school. Oh, and they had a friend that showed up once in a while too. Not long after, they had names; Stuart, Adrian, Franklin, Bullfrog and Paulie. They would create original music and live in a place called Bricktown (that’s the name of the borough OLG and Matilda Jane reside, ha).
As far a art direction, there’s a lot of ways we could’ve went with the guys. We could’ve done the Gorillaz thing and “went all 3-D” or illustrated them up in a Disney fashion. Instead I took the honest approach that I always appreciated in Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes. Black and white can still emphasize character traits more than you think and I’ve always loved the line effects done with an inked nib. Also, I figured the black and white would look good next to the brightly colored clothing. The contrast between characters was important to me as well. I tried to have Frankin (the bassist), tall and large, as a difference to Bullfrog (the drummer) that was small and hyper.
Once everyone was happy with the character development, we started coming up with more personality traits. You can read about them (and hear their sweet theme songs) on the Meet The Good Ones section of the site. We also started developing the characters for use on other touch points like album covers and swag. The best part was printing off “life size” versions of the band to be incorporated into the music videos and photo shoots.
We think the friends will be playin’ music long into the future.
