Refining The Vision - The Geek Who Tried to Be Chic

Updates to the store!

We are in the process of refining our vision for the store and apologize for the wait! We have partnered with a few print-on-demand folks to get one of our designs off the ground while we add additional designs and create our own supply chain. 

So, while you wait here's a story!

The Geek Who Tried to Be Chic

Carl, whose name has been changed to protect privacy, was the quintessential tech geek: blue light glasses that perpetually slid down his nose, a hoodie that hadn't been upgraded since his military days, and a deep love for anything that could be coded, hacked, or upgraded. But one day, after scrolling through endless "Make Your Side Hustle Dreams Come True" articles, Carl decided it was time to branch out. The world didn’t need another exceptional cybersecurity expert—it needed Carl’s clothing brand, "Simply Sleek Geek," where tech met trendy.

Carl had big dreams. Hoodies with witty tech slogans like “Ctrl+Alt+Delete Your Problems,” socks printed with binary code, and even t-shirts that lit up like a CPU on overdrive. But Carl’s pièce de résistance was supposed to be his custom logo—a stylish mashup of a motherboard and a cat, because cats are obviously the universal symbol of the internet.

Carl confidently fired up Gimp, a program he’d never opened before. “How hard could it be?” he thought. He began by drawing what he envisioned as a sleek cat outline. After an hour, it looked more like a very tired potato with whiskers. Undeterred, he tried adding circuitry details, which only made it look like the potato had tangled itself in holiday lights.

Frustrated but determined, Carl turned to YouTube tutorials. Five hours later, his screen displayed an explosion of neon lines, text that read "Logo Placeholder," and, for some inexplicable reason, a poorly cropped stock photo of a penguin. Exhausted, he posted his creation in an online design forum for feedback. The top comment read:
"Is this a logo for a dystopian penguin cult?"

Realizing he was in over his head, Carl decided to outsource the design of his logo, maybe penguin cat wasn’t the best idea. He hopped onto a freelancing platform, where he explained his vision. A week later, the designer sent back a polished logo: a spikey haired “Geek” with QR Code lenses and words that made sense, better than what Carl had envisioned and obviously couldn’t create.

Carl laughed as he stared at the masterpiece. “Stick to your skills, Carl,” he muttered. From that day forward, he focused on the tech side of Simply Sleek Geek, leaving the design to the professionals. And though the store hasn’t gone viral, it could maybe gain a small cult following if he keeps posting blogs—maybe geeks like Carl who appreciated the binary code socks and the fact that their t-shirts didn’t look like they’d been designed by a potato.

Moral of the story? Know when to Ctrl+Z your ambitions and outsource to someone who doesn’t think MS Paint is a professional design tool.

Hope you enjoyed it! It's a labor of love while we turn this dream into a reality. I hope you all stick around and enjoy the ride!