Hell’s Kitchen Designs for… Pickleball

Am I talking about Hell’s Kitchen on the map in New York or “Hell’s Kitchen” the show starring Gordon Ramsey? Trick question, I’m talking about my very own version of Hell’s Kitchen, a play on words my brother-in-law suggested for our pickleball team a season ago. Did we finish at the top of the league? Hell’s yes we did!

I designed the “Hell’s Kitchen” shirts we used as jerseys and since then I’ve come up with a few more. Here’s the latest and I might have to admit it’s my favorite:

I love the use of “kitchen” as a pun for pickleball on shirts and hats. Check out the sports section of my Etsy shop for more pickleball gear. What’s your favorite pickleball pun? Drop it in the comments below and hey, maybe it’ll show up on a shirt one day!

-Out of the Wilderness

The Chasing Waterfalls Commercial for the Lincoln Navigator – Who Sings the Song?

When I’m designing shirts (here’s my Out of the Wilderness Etsy Shop), I’ll often have the TV on as background noise and yes, I love watching Let’s Make A Deal hosted by Wayne Brady. Between hilarious audience interactions, I heard an ad that took me right back to high school. I was often driving around lost in Miami, Florida as a young man who just got his driver license. But I was king of the world. With music like TLC on the radio, and I distinctly remember listening to Club Nuveau’s “Lean On” A LOT, why would I stop to ask for directions, anyway?

Fast forward 30 years and Lincoln has an ad on TV featuring “Waterfalls” but not by TLC. Take a look and a listen then scroll down for the artist info…

Covered By… The band behind the music is UK’s Ten Fé. What year would you guess their version of “Waterfalls” came out? If you answered 2019, you’re right! Since you found my site about the commercial, you’re *probably* thinking the same thing I am… this cover is really good, huh? Some covers and remakes are pointless (Luke Combs “Fast Car” as exhibit A) but this one, although it’s been 7 years since it’s release and I haven’t heard it till now, is so pleasant. Kudos boys. Or since they’re British, should I say, cheerio boys!

What are your thoughts about the commercial and the song?

-Out of the Wilderness

College Football Custom Designs and Learning about Trademarks

What began as a project to make a shirt design for my niece’s birthday swelled into a collection of shirts that I’m really proud of. I’ve learned a lot, too, about design and trademark infringement. Yikes! Did you know that colleges have a trademark on their school colors? Maybe I was naive but wow, that one spun me for a loop. At the time of this post I’ve got about 10 variations for well-known colleges. Check out my Etsy shop– Out of the Wilderness –to see them. What you WON’T see is this one for the University of Florida.

The famous blue and orange was revised to this:

One of my favorites featured a snake, a design for Florida A&M fans. Here was the first one.

But that great combo of green and orange would’ve been an immediate red flag for trademark infringement. To be honest, I like this new version EVEN BETTER. What do you think?

Some designs went from bright and colorful…

To monochrome and interpretive.

But if that’s what it takes to avoid using the likeness of any school, of course I’m going to play by the rules. For the rest of the my college designs, click here. A few schools included are Ohio State, Texas, Florida State, Ole Miss, and Florida. Did you favorite school make the cut? If not, comment below and I’ll put together a new design for ya. Not in school colors, I’m sure you understand. 😉

-Out of the Wilderness

Manhattan, New York City, Love!

Along the timeline of my childhood and into my adult years, I’ve lived in quite a few places. My life started in Key West, Florida and because of my father’s career in the military I’ve been as far west as Hawaii, north to Rhode Island, and east to well… Rhode Island. One of the stops, though, was a city without equal. I’m glad I was old enough to appreciate (for the most part, at least) living in New York City. It was only for 6 months and technically it was on Governors Island, but you get the point.

ferry to Manhattan, another to Staten Island for school, and back and forth I went

I literally had to walk to school in the snow UP HILL!! On top of that, I had to take two ferries and if I missed one, I basically missed a half day of school. Yikes. But as I look back, there are fond memories of a place I lived in for only half a year. Many years later as an adult, I visited New York a number of times and the city still fascinates me. It’s with that in mind that I wanted to make a design highlighting the city and its surrounding areas. One thing that came back to mind, and from living a lot of years in Florida I have an appreciation for water (lakes, ocean, etc), New York City has a LOT of water. I don’t know if I fully appreciated that back then. Maybe because the ocean there just felt different than what I’d been used to in Florida. Back to the design, though… lately I’ve been interested in maps. I made this design for a private beach in north Florida and then I thought, why not New York? That Florida coastline was hard to do so I was sure New York would be a pretty big project. Now that it’s finished, I love how it looks! I went with “Manhattan” as the title because I figure there are a million New York City shirts out there. Manhattan needs some love, too! Check it out on my Etsy site (OutoftheWilderness.Etsy.com) and a few screenshots below. If the city is special to you or someone you know, consider picking up a shirt or two and I hope you love the shirts as much as people love NYC!

  • Screenshot

-Out of the Wilderness

Us vs. Gnats in North Florida!

There’s a lot of chatter about the swarms of gnats in Tallahassee (and I’m assuming much of the southeast U.S.). I don’t even know if swarms is the right word. That sort of makes it sound like there might be some areas were there AREN’T gnats. But no. They’re everywhere. So it’s more like just one huge swarm encompassing the south as one effective unit of annoyance. I recorded a video a few days ago… just sitting in my truck with the windows down for a few minutes and there were soooo many gnats. Take a look…

There are some DIY suggestions for combatting the little flying monsters but if I were you, and this is what I literally did, I’d buy a personal fan. There are some inexpensive options out there but I went with the Torras COOLiFY handheld fan. And no, I am not being paid by Torras to promote their product… although, if they want to have a spokesperson, I’m available 😎. Here are a few pics of my newest gnat fighting fan.

-Out of the Wilderness