A few years back I designed a canvas spec for a company called IKONICK — motivational prints, basketball fans, startup offices, that world. The concept was Brick by Brick. I liked the phrase. I thought I could make something that fit their catalog.
The original mock
I sent it cold. Short email: here's the piece, here's the idea, do whatever you want with it. No ask, no contract, no follow-up plan. I hit send and moved on.
They never replied.
About a year later I was on their site for something unrelated. There it was:
Same concept, same title, sitting in their store like it had always been there. I wrote them again — not to ask anything, just to say I was glad the thing existed. I meant it.
It's on someone's wall right now. That's the whole point.
Most of the things worth making don't come with a permission slip or a guaranteed byline. You see something that should exist, you make it, you send it out. Keeping it in a folder helps exactly no one. Sometimes nothing happens. Sometimes it ends up somewhere you'd never expect, made real by someone you'll never meet.
Ship what you make.
— John Loughrin