Keep taking your medication.
Our Olympic visitors must suspect nothing.

Screenprint poster, sticker, T-shirt etc. July, 1999

  
 

This is a poster I made in 1999.

I'd been thinking about it for about a year, but hadn't worked out the words.

Then one night I stumbled on the answer and the next day at art school I printed up a bunch of posters.

I put some posters up in the street and gave a few to friends. And that was pretty much it. I'd more or less forgotten about it and had moved on to other ideas when I was contacted by AvantCard who had seen the poster and thought it would make a good card. I liked the idea, but thought nothing would come of it.

The postcard however, was released in October 1999. I'd given the idea of the postcard so little thought that it was only on the day of the deadline, when asked for my e-mail address, that I realised that "bnicholas" was a hopeless e-mail address. I rang my provider and, more or less without thinking, asked if "heynick" was available. It was, and Heynick was born.

The postcard had an immediate effect. I began to get e-mail from people wanting to know if there was a T-shirt. To cut a long story short, I had T-shirts made and began to sell them.

I approached the Pop shop on Oxford street, and they agreed to try them out. They also agreed to put one of the posters in the window. I thought this was the best bit, as there was no way I could have stuck a poster in such a location.

The Pop shop recommended me to some friends and soon I had T-shirts and posters at King Street Chemist in Newtown and at the Museum of Sydney.
As the Olympics geared up, I found that more and more people were aware of the image. I had been approached by publications to reprint it, and one of the postcards had been featured on the Channel Ten's "The Panel".
Then, in early April 2000, with the help of Pat Mackle at Avantcard again, I approached "Gowings" a Sydney city department store.

They also agreed to try them out and after a successful month, ordered some more.

And then some more. And then they asked if there were any more T-shirts. Other designs.

I decided, what they hell, and took the other art and signs I's done in the intervening time (the poster was now a year old) and turned them into T-shirts.

By the time the Olympics came around, Gowings had decided that all their staff would wear the T-shirts in their stores during the Sydney 2000 Olympics and had ordered around 2000 T-shirts for their various stores to sell.

The end result was far more exposure for the poster than I had imagined possible.

Even now, I still get e-mails from people all over the world about it.

  
 
 

In fact, only recently (May 2004), I was approached by a genuine Athenian called Alexandria (she may not want her surname mentioned) who thought the sentiment would be ideal for the Greek Olympics.

As one of the unsung battlers responsible for making the Sydney 2000 Olympics the "best games ever" I was naturally exited by the possibility of undermining the Greek effort.

I immediately gave her my permission.

Just the other day she sent me some of the stickers in the mail.

Sure, "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts," but never underestimate the chances of an Australian saying "Sure, whatever."

And, no, I don't have any "spare" Greek stickers.

© Nick Bleasel 2000. All rights reserved. Unauthorised reproduction is stealing.