Nicotine Panda, the saga begins
Koalapop started as a simple project to sell designer clothes, but quickly became more than that. It was started by me (Allen J), an independent filmmaker and graphic artist whose been creating art practically all my life. The site came to exist from simple beginnings, after I graduated from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and was doing various freelance work and studying psychology and neuroscience. I decided not to go the grad school route and instead teach myself different subjects and work on art full time.
Keeping it real like 25AD
The brand quickly added a myspace page which became popular and is continually growing, followed by some print art, stickers, lots of links and music and such, and finally an e-zine which has been a lot of fun to contribute to. By this point, Koalapop became less about me and is now more an interesting amalgamation of diverse subjects, themes, influences, art mediums, and contributors. Some of my college friends, and old hometown buddies, expressed an interest in the site and have been around ever since. No one design or part of site is distinctly Koalapop; instead, the brand is slowly evolving, incorporating new influences, and trying new things. It's my hope that the result is a place which feels cohesive but can still surprise you and offer new things over time.
What doesn't it mean?
Tisch was a fun experience full of like-minded artists, but lots of pretentious assholes as well. I created various films (mostly digital, but some 16mm, too, and I worked with 35mm), wrote some fiction and philosophy essays, took thousands of photos, did some web design, sound design, recorded some bands at the school's studio, and visited lots of museums. Art was observed there, but also in the streets and other places. NYC is an incredibly diverse place that contributed a lot to this site's art philosophy.
When I film things it makes peoples' dreams come true
What are the true origins of Koalapop? Well, the name was registered long ago for secret reasons, but the project really began in August 2007. Around that time, I had been been experiencing crazy flashes of electric light that pulsed across my field of vision. These painless flashes would only last a few seconds, and occur maybe 20-40 times a day randomly. I began to think I might have TLE (temporal lobe epilepsy), but a worse fear was confirmed when my doctor said my left eye's retina was detaching, leading to permanent blindness. Total blindness can come within a period of days, so we all found it pretty surprising that I was experiencing these flashes for months on end. I had a ridiculously invasive procedure during which a buckle (think rubber band) was placed around my eye, and high tech cryo-lasers and shit were fired at the back of my inner eye, burning little holes in order to stop the detachment. Pretty fun. After that, I was on vicodin for a couple weeks and still experienced an intense amount of discomfort.
Yes, that's as scary as it seems
During that first night after surgery, I was playing around on Photoshop as I had done so many times in the past. But I hadn't really created much in the past few years, because I was into film, sound design and photography during NYU. I quickly remembered why I liked graphic design so much, and felt a bit depressed that I might go blind just as I was starting to get back into designing static images. There was something very soothing about listening to Aphex Twin and creating static art. As the weeks rolled on, I learned to live with the fear of going permanently blind. I kept creating new images, thinking that I'd get a lot of ideas out of my system incase I wouldn't be able to design in the future. Now, months later, my eyesight is fine (I have a massive blind-spot, which I've learned to ignore quite easily) and the joy of graphic design has stuck with me. I'm more content doing this presently than I would be doing film, which I consider extremely stressful.
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Frosted Romneys, now with 25% more hair gel
Another huge contribution was the San Francisco scene. The site is sometimes referred to as comprising various punk, street art, rave, iconic art, pop art, cartoon and skating fashions into one truly unique creation. We hope you'll agree. We're also into electronica, ambient, trip hop, some hip hop, and downtempo and try to sprinkle that around the website.
Where the magic happens
The collaborative spirit is alive and well here, not only in our insane lists of influences and friends, but in our willingness to collaborate with other indie artists and create something together. It's been fun and rewarding to bring together some of my favorite artists I personally know all to one place. I've been (and continue) working on this project between 50-65 hours a week to make it a reality. Countless sleepless nights were spent caffeinated, for the sake of the dream. It's been one of the most rewarding experiences of my postmodern life.
My best jew friend, who's woefully addicted to prescription meth, is a constant source of inspiration
Koalapop's irreverent, eccentric style comes from many sources. You can look around the site and figure it out for yourself. A lot of it comes from my previous years spent on planet Earth. Nicotine Panda, for example, comes from a graffiti stencil and some random ideas etched on concrete in sharpie beneath an overpass. The graffiti spirit is thriving in the Bay Area. Street art is a respectable medium which'll surprise you if you look a little deeper. Lots of other Koalapop characters and ideas come from past experiences and projects, but I'll leave it at that. I won't explain every last thing. It's better to let the brand speak for itself and inspire its fans in new ways. Many of the things on this site are intentionally ambiguous, because one of my favorite (and intentional) things about my art and fashion is that it can mean something different to each new person who comes across it.
Mitt taking questions
The future of Koalapop is limitless; we're only just beginning. We hope to offer tons of new designs, plus more hoodies, hats, belts, maybe even shoes, to round out the collection. We're always on the look out for new talent so drop us a line if you've got anything to report. Well, that about does her, wraps her all up. Hope you've had fun reading it. It's not the most in-depth story, or even the most interesting, and some parts were kinda dry. The middle section could've used some work. But, all in all, I'm sticking with it.
- Allen J, San Francisco
Large photos I release under the pseudonym "Snow Polygon"
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Koalapopology 
