Let’s jump right into my favorite fact about Charles Akins. He rocked the dinosaur fad in the 1990s like nobody’s business. Since I have such a soft spot in my heart for all things early nineties, Charles is without a doubt immediately, the man. A graduate of Georgia State University in Graphic Design, he leans more toward illustration even terming himself a “graphic designistrator”. Charles comes to us from an impressive background creating works for MAD magazine, American Express, Nike, & the U.S. Olympic Committee, amongst many others. He’s now showcasing designs within his partner shop you can check out here!

Mr. Akins grew up in Atlanta, GA with parents who immersed him in art. At the age of 3 he was awed by his father’s representation of “Dick Tracy” via sketch and always took part in creative camps and classes with his mom as he grew older. Charles has always felt drawn to art and creation yet kept himself well rounded with athletics, music, and acting. With a refreshingly positive attitude he continues to push ahead into the creative world and is now bringing his works to Larger Than Life Prints.

Charles is undoubtedly happy to  have found a place to bring his experimental and side projects to the masses. He can now show all of his work to the globe and it is reviving a wide expanse of opportunity for ideas not always used for contract or commission work. We’re delighted to have such a creative, motivated, and genuinely excited person offering their work through LTLPrints.com!!

Charles promises lots and lots of new looks and themes, which he describes as a plethora. Dinosaurs and the use of the word plethora (not to mention his substantial art work) make Charles Akins of HelloWally the perfect featured artist! If you’re interested in checking out more of his work take a look at AkinsStudio.com and Illoguy.com . He can also be reached at CAkins@akinstudio.com .

Tags: charles akins, dinosaurs, hellowally, LTLprints.com, Prints, surf

I’ll be the first to admit I love Larger Than Life prints (and not just because I get to write for them!).   They not only look and feel incredibly cool, but they will stick just about anywhere.

So when I took this photograph on a recent trip, I immediately                                                                        thought about how it would look as a Larger Than Life print up on my guitar-playing son’s wall.

Now, all of my previous Larger Than Life prints have been designed by their immensely talented crew, but this time I decided to play designer myself.   A few quick clicks later, I had my account set up and was ready to click on the “Create” tab.  The instructions were clear and easy!   I uploaded my photograph, but you can upload any design (as long as you own it!) - a photograph, a drawing, sketch, anything you can upload from your computer.

Then came the fun part! - Since I wanted just the guitar and not the background, I used the painless Cutout Tool to outline the guitar.  A few more clicks and I had checked out, paid for my print and received an email confirming that my order was being processed.

True to their commitment to produce your print within 24 business hours, I got an email this afternoon letting me know that my print was done!  Here it is coming out of the printer!

Now my 17 year old Guitar Nut has a 4 Foot Multi-Colored Seriously Cool Guitar to hang on his wall!  And I have earned Cool Mom points for months!  Best part - I will be uploading this photo and a bunch of my others to sell in the Larger Than Life prints catalog.  I get paid whenever someone purchases one of my images from the catalog.  You can too!

So, like the title says - If I can do it, ANYONE can!   Go find that picture you really love or the design that you have always wanted to have on your wall and quick and easy, you will have your own Custom Larger Than Life print!

(This post brought to you by Gloria Bell on behalf of Larger Than Life prints.  Any questions can be directed to gloria@ltlprints.com)

Tags: custom, Design, Prints, Wall Art

Dear Internet Friends,

It is with great pleasure that we are here to announce the winners of the first ever Larger Than Life prints design competition.  Before we jump into it, everyone at LTLprints wants to sincerely thank each and every one of the designers for their submissions.  We are humbled by your creativity and vision.  Thank you!

During the past few weeks we got thousands of visitors and over 2,000 votes.  The leader changed multiple times and resources like multiple facebook fan pages were useful in helping some artists gain more exposure.  As internet junkies we love to see facebook pages (shameless plug - have you joined ours yet?)

Third place goes to Paul Hamilton with his ‘Lambo’ design. Paul wins a 3ft  (38”x24”) custom print.

Second place goes to Brett Mogavero with his Octopus design.  A 5ft print goes to you!

.

First place goes to Alisa with her ‘Anchor’ design!  She receives an LTL - Larger Than Life print of her choice!  FTW!!!

We really appreciate all the submissions, voting and support. We got so much
posititve feedback that we’ll repeat pretty soon.

Stay tuned for interviews with the 3 winners why the came up with the design
and what they’ll do with their prints. Also check back to see real pics of
the winners with their images.

Congrats and thanks to all of the participants!  You guys rock!

Sincerely,

Carsten Petzold & Kendall Schoenrock
Founders, LTLprints.com - Larger Than Life prints
@LTLprints on twitter

Tags: Alicia Silfies, Brett Mogavero, Carsten, Carsten Petzold, competition, creativity, Design, Design Competition, Facebook, Hamilton, Kendall, Kendall Schoenrock, Larger than Life, Larger Than Life Prints, LTL, LTLprints, LTLprints.com, Mogavero, Paul Hamilton, Petzold, Prints, Schoenrock, Silfies

We’re excited to have loyal customers who love our products.  Over and over again our team hears how amazing our prints are and are impressed with the ease of installation and durability of the prints.

After discussing it in the office, we came to the conclusion that more people should be able to see and feel our prints.  Here’s the deal.  At the end of the week we’re giving away a large print.  It can be for a person or an organization or anything, really. It could be for a good cause or no cause; we just want the ideas on where it goes to come from you.

Leave us a comment and tell us who should recieve a LTLprint. Friday, January 30th we’ll post the winner and their story.

We’re open to influence as well.  Leave a comment if you feel one submission is better than the rest.

Sincerely,

Kendall Schoenrock & Carsten Petzold
co-founders, LTLprints.com

Tags: Carsten Petzold, Kendall Schoenrock, Prints, Prints and Posters, Shopping

Dear Nick,

I read about your Yahoo – Taco Hiring Event on TechCrunch and was impressed.  The paper TokBox logo you taped to the truck, however, grabbed my attention.  I thought I would use this opportunity to introduce you to my company, LTLprints – Larger Than Life, and show you a better way to put your logo on taco trucks and walls in the future.

A few months ago TechCrunch asked us to print some wall decals for their August Capital meetup.  We had your logo on file from that event and thought, in the holiday spirit, we would send you some LTLprints love.

For your next event feel free to use our TokBox prints. Or if you’re really pumped we could print one that’s up to 7 feet wide and 4.5 feet tall.  Don’t worry, our prints won’t damage your walls and the prints can be pulled down and moved over and over again.

Please contact me directly or visit LTLprints.com for any custom print needs TokBox might have.

I wish you Happy Holidays and continued success with TokBox in 2009

Carsten Petzold
Founder, LTLprints.com
Twitter: @cpeLTLprints

Tags: August Capital, Jobs, LTL, LTLprints, LTLprints.com, Print, Prints, Tacos, TechCrunch, TokBox, twitter, Yahoo

As Carsten mentions, LTLprints had the pleasure of attending IgnitePhilly, a series of speakers with five minutes each to talk about inspiring ideas. It’s truly a great idea - the room buzzed with creative and innovative minds. In my opinion, anytime you can get great people, innovation, and a few beers in the same room, it’s guaranteed to be a good time!

LTLprints was there in full force - we actually provided the prints for all the speakers at the IgnitePhilly event. I hope everyone got a chance to see how neat the material is - if you missed one of our handouts for “IgnitePhilly,” just contact Kendall or myself and we’ll be happy to mail you one. I dare you to test the material - take it off the wall, crumple it up, and put it back on a different wall, good as new. Go ahead, I dare you. Or you can watch Alex’s video!

Much credit is deserved to each of the speakers last night. My personal favorites included Pamela Zimmerman from Park(ing) Day Philadelphia. Pam, great idea and concept - it shows just how creative this city really is and I loved the pictures! Credit is also due to Stu Hankin and Will Robinson from IdeaBlob. My favorite quote of the night came from this presentation; “You shouldn’t be afraid of somebody stealing your idea. You should be afraid of no one ever seeing it.”

ArtSphere and MakePhilly rounded out my favorites (which by the way, I plan to attend the ArtBuggyDerby), but a round of applause goes out to each presenter. Hearing each of your presentations was an inspiration to wake up and get back to work this morning:)

Tags: ArtsBuggy Derby, ArtsSphere, Carsten Petzold, IdeaBlob, IgnitePhilly, Kendall Schoenrock, Larger than Life, Larger Than Life Prints, LTLprints, MakePhilly, Pamela Zimmerman, Park(ing) Day Philadelphia, Petzold, Prints, Schoenrock, Stu Hankin, Trisha Noel, Will Robinson