Snazzy Rips is a brand that I created centered around the pursuit of rebuilding my childhood Michael Jordan card collection by opening packs of basketball cards from the 80’s and 90’s. The purpose of this project was to help me do something that was fun, but that I could also film and present as content with a quick turnaround. The building of this brand was also a wonderfully creative endeavor that allowed me to conjure up every nostalgic fiber of my being and present it in a 2-D image.
I used this project as a means of practicing some new AI tools and to explore the extent of what I could do with them.
The first idea was to place myself in a Charlotte Hornets Starter jacket from the 90’s. I was looking for some iconic pieces that triggered nostalgic memories for myself and others. I recently saw a meme on Instagram that featured this jacket and how popular it was. It struck me as funny, because I remember one day in our small church out in the country one Sunday a kid showed up in that jacket and he was instantly the coolest kid in that church. Fortunately it wasn’t just the jacket, everybody loved him, but the jacket didn’t hurt either. I never had a Hornets Starter jacket, but that memory has lasted into my 40’s.
The jacket provided the color palette of teal and purple. I ended up throwing in the yellow from my Snazzy Thoughts brand, because it was needed, but also some crossover is fun.
Next I needed to land on an art style to cartoonify myself with. After digging through several 90s cartoons and not getting anything that resonated with me, I finally thought of my other childhood passion - G.I. Joe.
I grabbed the art from a memorable G.I. Joe action figure box from 1990 and used the figure to influence the image of myself for the logo. I also liked the decorative pattern behind the character and decided to recreate it in my color palette.
I created a generic foil pack much like the ones I used to open in 1994 and put the 2-font text over it and there it is!
I was able to do this very quickly and even printed out a few stickers and poster to act as a backdrop for the videos.
