Happy 5 Year Anniversary, Aaron Jay!

We love you.

A variety of things happen within five years. Newborns transform into walking, talking humans. Vintage furniture becomes cool and then uncool and then really cool and then breaks. Twinkies remain edible. Including the twinkie discovered in the cushion of the aforementioned broken vintage sofa, left forgotten by a previous owner, that is now approximately 300 years old. Also, artists become Threadless all-stars. Like Aaron Jay. HOORAY!

The man himself! Check out that adorable face.

That’s right, SOUND THE HORNS! Today marks our very own Aaron Jay’s five year anniversary as a Threadless member, and we’re going to shower him with a smorgasbord of virtual invisible streamers. You’ve seen his work: full of quirky characters, his drawings manage to be both cute and morbid, two words that stare each other in the face and laugh at their complete and

Aaron’s “Octosushi” chops his own limbs for lunch.

total opposition. Aaron isn’t a dark dude; he actually starts his work with a whole bunch of warm fuzzies. Until… the path diverges. “Somewhere along the line, I begin to think that one of the characters should be bleeding, or that this cuddly goat doesn’t need a face,” he says. And alas, a bleeding, face-less goat is born, and somehow it’s a terrific delight.

An artist since the beginning of time, Aaron found initial inspiration for his characters from Pokémon. In fact, one summer, while the rest of the neighborhood youth kicked cans and chewed Bubble Yum, Aaron drew 450

Aaron’s childhood Pokémon drawings. The colors! The emotions! Put these guys in the game’s cast of characters, already.

characters for the game. He called it his “Summer Project”. We call it “You Were a Really Motivated Kid”. He followed his interest in illustration to Coventry University, where a friend introduced him to Threadless. “It seemed like a great place to showcase my work and maybe make some extra cash; plus the scoring system gave me an idea of whether I was improving,” he says. Then, he let the doodles commence.

An Aaron doodle… becomes Aaron magic.

His journey of 36 printed designs (and counting) kicked off with “Clear Your Head”, which he immediately felt good about. In fact, he had such a good feeling about it that he told his rather skeptical mother all about his good feeling, and then he continued to tell her about his good feeling, until she demanded a subject change. “She understandably got fed up with my arrogance,” says Aaron, in his adorably good-natured way. When he heard

Aaron’s first printed design, “Clear Your Head”. It cleared the community, although it almost didn’t clear Aaron’s mom.

he’d won, he rang up his mom at 3 a.m. with the good news. She called him a lucky bastard, and went back to sleep. Aaron laughed about this story. So did we.

Since then, Aaron has submitted 703 designs to Threadless, scored over 68,000 designs by fellow artists, and helped over 1,000 designs get printed (what a guy!). In 2011, he won the Threadless New and Noteworthy Artist Bestee award, and in 2012, after taking top honors for our Mother’s Month challenge, exercised his hard-earned bestee cred by palling around with Will Ferrell. He went on to win 2013’s Cut&Paste event in London, and then ran drawing and design workshops at the Chicago Children’s Museum upon winning our Real Play challenge. Oh, and since graduating from Coventry, he’s built a career in freelance illustration, and in his free time, religiously submits new tee designs. Ugh, Aaron, you’re so unaccomplished! Er, wait — you’re awesome.

Aaron’s design “My Mama Gave Me Life” won him our Mother’s Month Design Challenge; the prize included bonding time with Will Ferrell. “It seemed like such a surreal moment,” he says. “While I felt comfortable and he was really cool, I kept thinking I was there because I drew a donut.”

So, in the spirit of Aaron’s big five year anniversary, we hope you’ll all gather in a virtual manner to celebrate. If you’re lucky enough to run into his actual

A moment to be remembered. Aaron nearly in tears while eating an American burger. Happy anni, friend!

physical person, please issue him five hugs and a swift high-five, followed by five Take Five candy bars straight to the palm. Aaron, from our Threadless headquarters in Chicago all the way to your pad in Southampton, UK, we thank you for being such an inspiring member, awesomely awesome dude and religious tee design maker! You’re really the best, you lucky bastard.