Joystick Junkies interview Chris Birch

For the people following us here longer than 5 years you might remember that nisute and joystick junkies have gone a long way. And since we’re into gaming lifestyle, we figured it would be nice to pay our friends at Joystick Junkies, one of the ground-breaking game T-shirt designers of europe, a second visit. Chris Birch owner and Founder of JJ will be answering our burning questions today. Have fun reading!

NiSuTe: Hey Chris.
Chris Birch: Hi mate.

NiSuTe: Can you tell us something about the company and the start of it all?
Chris Birch: Back in 1999 I was wondering why no one was selling cool tees based on video games. It was strange that with such cool graphics no one had taken advantage of the imagery to design tees. Finally after talking about it for maybe a year, people got fed up of me dreaming and I decided to just do it. I drew the logo in a bar on a napkin one night, walked in to the office the next day and said: “Hey we’re starting Joystick Junkies”.

NiSuTe: Did you start on your own, or did you have a partner?
Chris Birch: Back then I had a public relations company working with a lot of games companies. So I got some friends at the trade paper CTW to sponsor us with some advertising. We invited everyone in the industry to a launch party including people from TV, film, model agencies, advertising and other PR companies. Then we designed some cool clubbing style t-shirts based on some classic gaming graphics. And our first party was a roadblock. 30 arcade machines on free play, marshall jefferson the godfather of house music DJ-ing and a self confessed gaming addict. I dreampt up the idea and started it with a couple of other guys – one who did the t-shirt production for us- another who owned the arcade machines we used for the parties. But we re-launched the company with new partners a few years later.

NiSuTe: Wow that is really cool. So JJ is more like a hybrid between the gaming industry and the fasion industry?
Chris Birch: My challenge to myself was to make gaming so cool that non-gamers would want to wear the designs. I loved the idea that I could bring together to different industries that at the time were so far apart. While gaming parties were traditionally full of guys, we threw the hottest parties in london with a nice mix of girls and guys, great music, arcade games, 80′s vibe. Read more

Joystick Junkies shows of their Autumn T collection!

Joystick Junkies is a fun filled fashion testament to the video games and digital culture that rocks our world. Their inspired by the energy and styles of the 70′s and the bold colours and attitude of the 80′s. Today their new Autumn collection went online for us to buy and drool over. This time JJ has chosen for a more Punk style.  So here are some T’s and for more just visit their site Joystick Junkies