The Martinez Design Project was created in the summer of 2006 by twin sisters, Emily and Leslie Martinez. They were born in the Rio Grande Valley, but were raised mostly in Dallas and currently live in New York City. Emily, the co-conspirator, co-owner and critic, currently attends the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at Cooper Union and Leslie, the designer, graduated from The Cooper Union School of Art in 2008.As the story goes, the twins were both super broke that summer and had to brainstorm around the idea of selling art to eat and pay the bills. They figured they should create a brand of well priced functional items that focused on the significance of the graphic images with function as the bonus. In essence, it is an offshoot of Leslie’s paintings and drawings. This project functions as a sort of bridge back to that work in order for both to promote each other.In the beginning Leslie hand painted one-of-a-kind designs onto plain cotton tote-bags because the original aim was for the uniqueness of each one to be the selling point. It didn’t take long for them to realize too much time was spent on making them precious that many people who bought them were afraid to use them defeating the purpose of their public presence. Only 30 one-of-a-kind hand-painted tote bags were made and sold to friends, friends of friends and friendly strangers spanning the four corners of the U.S. and even abroad, in Paris and Buenos Aires.Much learning has taken place since then for improvement on every aspect of this project. Mass production and computer aided design is the next big step making spring of 2009, the debut of the first screen printed designs on tote-bags, patches and apparel. Out of respect for the uniqueness of the previous designs and their buyers, none of the first 30 will be recreated.SOLDavailable!soldsoldsold
