We recently connected with AThoughtfulGuy and have shared our conversation below.

AThoughtfulGuy, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

I might be something of a special case, or at least, It might feel good to believe that I am somehow unique and separate. I say this because I am much more a mission based individual and much less a mission driven company or traditional small business owner. This mission of mine is open-ended as the Goal is to live as authentically as life will allow me. Initially, the more obvious mission, I believed, was to inspire as much creation as possible. I was a hobbyist cartoonist at first who soon evolved into surrealism, combining poetry and storytelling alongside vivid imagery depicting the fantastical and sensory overloading perceptions through the eyes of my alter ego, “Huey Anderson”, A thoughtful cartoonish black man with purple and pupil-less square eyes that almost resemble two windows leading into a universe within his soul. I spent most of my 20’s searching for liberation through obsessive and arguably aggressive exploration of various art mediums. I released a book, I started a band; I threw legendary house parties, I used my talents to bring people together and build community. I inspired others to express themselves and believe in their own creative intuition and ability. I became a street artist and transformed into “AThoughtfulGuy” Showing up in places you would never expect with an empty canvas, inviting you, a complete stranger, to paint with me, randomly outside of a club, or in the median of a busy street, or at a bus stop, or in a bustling parking lot of a local gym in the evening. During my years of chasing artistic liberation, I learned that my lifestyle and unique perception IS the brand and that simply living in my truth IS the marketing plan and business model. This realization catalyzed the launch of my “Business” that is AThoughtfulUniverse. An open ended artistic blog/public display of thoughts of ideas that evolves as I live and grow.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

The Point here that I’m attempting to drive home is that my life and my persona is my brand and so I could not describe how my brand developed without describing, in some way, my life story; since they are so deeply intertwined. At a very young age, before I even could remember, I was drawing to pass the time and find an outlet for the sensations and emotions that I did not fully understand. I was a sensitive child and I would always doodle in the back of the class to avoid social interaction since my anxiety had reached crippling levels. Later in life, To compensate for my lack of social skills, I became immersed in art with a young dream of one day launching my own creative studio. So I began self-learning various artistic mediums and software, such as photoshop, photography, videography and combining these skills with my love of storytelling, illustration, and poetry. In 2016, I began painting here and there until finally in 2019, I began my life changing career pivot, taking on the name of AThoughtfulGuy and became a full time street artist. Although I was primarily painting at this point, my time spent mastering other mediums proved to be complementary and I had eventually achieved a remarkably high level of intuitive and potent content creation that could inspire change and affect lives in my own unique way. I believed at first, that my purpose was to help bring other people’s dreams to life; and so began taking commissions of all kinds and quickly learned that I absolutely hate commissions. Something just wasn’t right, I was trapped in what I liked to call “commission hell” where I would feel guilty while working on my personal projects when I had paying clients waiting for me to bring their ideas to life. I was unable to balance personal and professional work. Soon I learned that denying commissions and freeing myself up to work on strictly personal projects was much more synchronous. But my ideas and creative impulses were all over the place and I could never focus on any one thing. So I decided to develop an “open ended” brand that would serve to encapsulate all of my creative pursuits under one name and that name became AThoughtfulUniverse. I no longer focused on solving creative problems or serving clients in any form and focused more on how to express myself as freely as possible while also systematically developing my free expression into physical products that can be sold sustainably as I expressed myself further. My career path is not a typical one and it is hard for me to define concisely, what I do or who I am. You could say that I sell inspiration or creativity in its purest form. Art, for me, Has become something like a performance, I am a Guerilla artist who shows up when you least expect it like some kind of art batman. The results of this free expression are collected and systematically developed into an online shop of prints, comics, original clothing as well as stimulating words. Enjoy my stream of thoughts and ideas, I am AThoughtfulGuy and I present to you AThoughtfulUniverse. My life of living artistically free and fearless is my brand and my business entirely.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Nearly everyone that I have connected with online is someone who I have met while street performing or vending or live painting. I am no expert on hacking any social media algorithms but one thing that I will say is that nothing can compare with physically putting yourself out there to be seen. As an artist, I’ve never waited for the acknowledgement of any gallery or art collector. I will literally set up on any sidewalk at any time of day and force you to see me. My approach to getting myself out there and building my brand has been through foolishly and aggressively showing up physically in real life with a product in hand and letting my product speak for itself. This may not be the best way for some but this has certainly worked wonders for myself.

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

So as a painter, as you might imagine, for the most part, yes I do manufacture my products since I am typically hand painting my designs/concepts or doing so digitally in photoshop. After the designs are completed, I take the best of the bunch to turn into merch such as clothing, key chains, stickers etc, or typically I will create smaller reprints of my designs and paintings to be sold at a much cheaper price.

For the Clothing, at first, I was using a popular 3rd party called printful.com. They use a DTG printer to print my designs onto clothing and the result is high quality but I found the cost of using a 3rd party to be pretty high. Eventually, I invested in a sublimation printer so that I can print my designs from home and currently I am now dabbling with DTF printing, a cheaper alternative to DTG.

The reprints of my art I make myself as well. I take a decent and print the design at office depot and print from and slip the reprint into a plastic sleeve with a matte backing. It is simple and has been very successful and empowered me as an artist since I can now profit from a single design or painting forever.

I have learned that even though you technically do save money in the long-term when you decide to manufacture everything yourself, typically the process of doing so is a tedious one and your time is valuable as well.

Contact Info:

• Website: athoughtfuluniverse.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/athoughtfulguy