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Hello, and welcome back to our Excellent Exhibitors blog series as part of Tofu Cute DigiFest. Today's Excellent Exhibitor is Genki Gear, who truly live up to the 'Excellent Exhibitor' title, routinely bringing high quality, ethically produced garments and a huge variety gifts to conventions over the UK, as well through their own amazing online shop. We missed seeing them at conventions as we usually do, so of course we had to include them as part of DigiFest.
We spoke to Lydia and Phil, the dynamic duo behind Genki Gear, about all the reasons why Genki Gear is changing the game when it comes to cute and fun gifts. As always, we've also included an excellent offer for Tofu Cute followers to use at GenkiGear.com! |
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Genki Gear is a name that actually fairly effectively describes what they're all about - 'Genki' being the Japanese word for 'lively', 'energetic' or 'vigour' (and in some contexts, 'healthy'!), which accurately describes the 'lively' and 'energetic' nature of their unique designs, and 'gear' which of course refers to all of the various types of 'gear' which they produce, from T-shirts to gifts!
Like many of the groups we've spoken to as part of Excellent Exhibitors, Genki Gear had humble beginnings, but has since grown into something much more extraordinary. As Lydia from Genki Gear describes it:
"We started Genki Gear when we wanted to create fun and funky products using Phil’s great art and we thought that there was so much opportunity for t-shirts that were quirky and geeky without being attached to a specific licence. We chose the name Genki as we wanted a name that reflects our energy and enthusiasm, as well as reflecting our love of Japan. It is now our 15th year anniversary and during that time we have had a great time attending many conventions, meeting lovely customers and exhibitors and working with great companies."
"We started off producing a range of original t-shirts, but have expanded our range over the years to include many original gift products including badges, cosplay ears, greeting cards, bookmarks and many more. As well as t-shirts we now also produce hoodies, kid’s tees, and vest tops. Everything we produce is unique and stands out with cute, fun and colourful designs that range from Creepy cute, through to DnD designs onto the offbeat and downright adorable." |
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Of course, Genki Gear is well known for its vast range of T-Shirts and clothing, which include designs that as Lydia has described, take inspiration from a vast range of sources. From cute animals to Lovecraftian horrors like Cthulhu, you're sure to find a design that fits your specific interest at Genki Gear.
It's clear to see that Genki Gear puts a lot of humour and fun into their designs: "a dash of unique humour, which has become our trademark", as Lydia describes it. "Phil has a very distinctive style that really stands out, and we work with some great artists."
Furthermore, Genki Gear's garments are ethically produced, and all of their products and produced within the UK, so if you buy from Genki Gear, you're supporting responsibly and ethically produced clothing! Neat!
If you're perhaps looking to get your first Genki Gear shirt or just looking for an interesting gift, the new space Kitty t-shirt designs which you can see to your right come highly recommended - it 'shows the joy of feline space exploration', which I think we can all agree is something truly incredible indeed.
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Genki Gear also has a remarkable range of other gifts, from vinyl stickers that are perfect for decorating all sorts of things, to greetings cards which provide an excellently quirky alternative to the uninteresting kind you'll find elsewhere.
According to Lydia, 'My favourite products as a book reader is our range of bookmarks.', and it's easy to see why, as Genki Gear's bookmarks contain just as much charm, colour and style as all the other products on their website, imbuing what would normally be a boring and functional item with some 'genki' magic!
Genki Gear always has new gifts in the work, and they share information on upcoming designs on their social media. Right now, they're working on 'a new range of spooky stickers which will be great for all year round, not just Halloween!' - we're looking forward to it! |
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As you know by now, it wouldn't be a Tofu Cute Blog unless we asked about Genki Gear's favourites when it comes to the really important stuff.
Do you have a favourite Japanese snacks or drink?
"For me I love the Caramel Corn snacks, but Phil is a huge Hi-Chew fan, and he also loves the Lotte Mallang Cow Soft Candy Chews."
Who is your favourite cute character?
"We are both huge hello Kitty fans!"
What's your favourite colour?
"Mine is definitely Purple, Phil's is Blue."
What's your favourite animal?
"Currently squirrels for me and Hedgehogs for Phil."
These are some suitably fun answers from Team Genki Gear. I'm sure Team Tofu's Laska will be pleased to hear that Caramel Corn is mentioned here, and I think that squirrels and hedgehogs are pretty cool choices for favourite animal. They clearly have good taste.
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We here at Tofu Cute have some personal favourite items from Genki Gear. Maybe we're a little bias, but we obviously dig the 'Tiny Tofu Terror' shirt quite a lot. This cute design
comes in a range of vibrant colours and features an adorable little tofu character declaring that 'world domination will be mine!'. Our personal mascot 'Tofu-Kun' isn't fully onboard with world domination (yet), so it's fun to see a more assertive and grumpy tofu character. We love this T-Shirt, and it's currently on sale, so grab it while you can!
As a big fan of Kaiju, I am of course drawn to the Kaiju Coffee design which you see to the left, which appears on a T-shirt design that blends a fire breathing Kaiju (a Godzilla style large monster) with a similarly gigantic cup of coffee. Apparently, this fictitious brand of coffee that the design presents is 'atomic roasted for a fuller flavour!'. Sweet.
To give one more recommendation, I'm also a big fan of the 'evil fluffy bitey things' design, which appears on a number of Genki Gear products, but I think it looks particularly good in mug form. We're all about 'fluffy things' here at Tofu Cute, and occasionally fluffy things that have the capacity to bite, but rarely evil fluffy things, so it's nice to be able to recommend a design that focuses on something like this - a little menacing, a little cute.
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With an extensive history in creating cute and fun merchandise, one that predates Tofu Cute by five years (!!!), I asked Genki Gear what it is that enjoy most about it, and what sort of things they hope to achieve with Genki Gear in the future.
What do you enjoy most about running Genki Gear?
"We love meeting people and interacting with customers, artists and exhibitors. The whole experience of being able to be around such a wide range of like-minded enthusiastic and passionate people makes us really enthused and is so uplifting!"
What would you like to do with Genki Gear in the future?
"We are hoping to keep growing and building more and more diverse products so that we can keep giving our customers cute and vibrant designs. Phil would particularly love to bring out a range of Art Toys."
Well, there you have it folks. If there were ever an example of how passion for what you do can bring you long-lasting success, then Genki Gear certainly proves that. We're certain that they'll continue to be around for a long time to provide you with adorable and funny gifts. We're excited to see them at a convention again, one day!
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But that's not all - we're happy to confirm that for the rest of DigiFest, Genki Gear are offering 10% off for Tofu Cute customers - just use the code tofucute at their checkout! This lasts until the end of September, so go and check out their website and show them some support, and save some money whilst you shop with them!
That's all for today's edition of Excellent Exhibitors! There's still a bit more excitement left for Tofu Cute DigiFest to go, so check out the main page for more info. Don't forget to read the other parts of the Excellent Exhibitors blogs if you missed them, and be sure to follow us on social media for more updates on other DigiFest happenings!
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Hello, and welcome back to our Excellent Exhibitors blog series as part of Tofu Cute DigiFest. Today's Excellent Exhibitor is Genki Gear, who truly live up to the 'Excellent Exhibitor' title, routinely bringing high quality, ethically produced garments and a huge variety gifts to conventions over the UK, as well through their own amazing online shop. We missed seeing them at conventions as we usually do, so of course we had to include them as part of DigiFest.
We spoke to Lydia and Phil, the dynamic duo behind Genki Gear, about all the reasons why Genki Gear is changing the game when it comes to cute and fun gifts. As always, we've also included an excellent offer for Tofu Cute followers to use at GenkiGear.com! |
|
|
Genki Gear is a name that actually fairly effectively describes what they're all about - 'Genki' being the Japanese word for 'lively', 'energetic' or 'vigour' (and in some contexts, 'healthy'!), which accurately describes the 'lively' and 'energetic' nature of their unique designs, and 'gear' which of course refers to all of the various types of 'gear' which they produce, from T-shirts to gifts!
Like many of the groups we've spoken to as part of Excellent Exhibitors, Genki Gear had humble beginnings, but has since grown into something much more extraordinary. As Lydia from Genki Gear describes it:
"We started Genki Gear when we wanted to create fun and funky products using Phil’s great art and we thought that there was so much opportunity for t-shirts that were quirky and geeky without being attached to a specific licence. We chose the name Genki as we wanted a name that reflects our energy and enthusiasm, as well as reflecting our love of Japan. It is now our 15th year anniversary and during that time we have had a great time attending many conventions, meeting lovely customers and exhibitors and working with great companies."
"We started off producing a range of original t-shirts, but have expanded our range over the years to include many original gift products including badges, cosplay ears, greeting cards, bookmarks and many more. As well as t-shirts we now also produce hoodies, kid’s tees, and vest tops. Everything we produce is unique and stands out with cute, fun and colourful designs that range from Creepy cute, through to DnD designs onto the offbeat and downright adorable." |
Of course, Genki Gear is well known for its vast range of T-Shirts and clothing, which include designs that as Lydia has described, take inspiration from a vast range of sources. From cute animals to Lovecraftian horrors like Cthulhu, you're sure to find a design that fits your specific interest at Genki Gear.
It's clear to see that Genki Gear puts a lot of humour and fun into their designs: "a dash of unique humour, which has become our trademark", as Lydia describes it. "Phil has a very distinctive style that really stands out, and we work with some great artists."
Furthermore, Genki Gear's garments are ethically produced, and all of their products and produced within the UK, so if you buy from Genki Gear, you're supporting responsibly and ethically produced clothing! Neat!
If you're perhaps looking to get your first Genki Gear shirt or just looking for an interesting gift, the new space Kitty t-shirt designs which you can see to your right come highly recommended - it 'shows the joy of feline space exploration', which I think we can all agree is something truly incredible indeed.
|
|
|
Genki Gear also has a remarkable range of other gifts, from vinyl stickers that are perfect for decorating all sorts of things, to greetings cards which provide an excellently quirky alternative to the uninteresting kind you'll find elsewhere.
According to Lydia, 'My favourite products as a book reader is our range of bookmarks.', and it's easy to see why, as Genki Gear's bookmarks contain just as much charm, colour and style as all the other products on their website, imbuing what would normally be a boring and functional item with some 'genki' magic!
Genki Gear always has new gifts in the work, and they share information on upcoming designs on their social media. Right now, they're working on 'a new range of spooky stickers which will be great for all year round, not just Halloween!' - we're looking forward to it! |
As you know by now, it wouldn't be a Tofu Cute Blog unless we asked about Genki Gear's favourites when it comes to the really important stuff.
Do you have a favourite Japanese snacks or drink?
"For me I love the Caramel Corn snacks, but Phil is a huge Hi-Chew fan, and he also loves the Lotte Mallang Cow Soft Candy Chews."
Who is your favourite cute character?
"We are both huge hello Kitty fans!"
What's your favourite colour?
"Mine is definitely Purple, Phil's is Blue."
What's your favourite animal?
"Currently squirrels for me and Hedgehogs for Phil."
These are some suitably fun answers from Team Genki Gear. I'm sure Team Tofu's Laska will be pleased to hear that Caramel Corn is mentioned here, and I think that squirrels and hedgehogs are pretty cool choices for favourite animal. They clearly have good taste.
|
|
|
We here at Tofu Cute have some personal favourite items from Genki Gear. Maybe we're a little bias, but we obviously dig the 'Tiny Tofu Terror' shirt quite a lot. This cute design
comes in a range of vibrant colours and features an adorable little tofu character declaring that 'world domination will be mine!'. Our personal mascot 'Tofu-Kun' isn't fully onboard with world domination (yet), so it's fun to see a more assertive and grumpy tofu character. We love this T-Shirt, and it's currently on sale, so grab it while you can!
As a big fan of Kaiju, I am of course drawn to the Kaiju Coffee design which you see to the left, which appears on a T-shirt design that blends a fire breathing Kaiju (a Godzilla style large monster) with a similarly gigantic cup of coffee. Apparently, this fictitious brand of coffee that the design presents is 'atomic roasted for a fuller flavour!'. Sweet.
To give one more recommendation, I'm also a big fan of the 'evil fluffy bitey things' design, which appears on a number of Genki Gear products, but I think it looks particularly good in mug form. We're all about 'fluffy things' here at Tofu Cute, and occasionally fluffy things that have the capacity to bite, but rarely evil fluffy things, so it's nice to be able to recommend a design that focuses on something like this - a little menacing, a little cute.
|
With an extensive history in creating cute and fun merchandise, one that predates Tofu Cute by five years (!!!), I asked Genki Gear what it is that enjoy most about it, and what sort of things they hope to achieve with Genki Gear in the future.
What do you enjoy most about running Genki Gear?
"We love meeting people and interacting with customers, artists and exhibitors. The whole experience of being able to be around such a wide range of like-minded enthusiastic and passionate people makes us really enthused and is so uplifting!"
What would you like to do with Genki Gear in the future?
"We are hoping to keep growing and building more and more diverse products so that we can keep giving our customers cute and vibrant designs. Phil would particularly love to bring out a range of Art Toys."
Well, there you have it folks. If there were ever an example of how passion for what you do can bring you long-lasting success, then Genki Gear certainly proves that. We're certain that they'll continue to be around for a long time to provide you with adorable and funny gifts. We're excited to see them at a convention again, one day!
|
|
But that's not all - we're happy to confirm that for the rest of DigiFest, Genki Gear are offering 10% off for Tofu Cute customers - just use the code tofucute at their checkout! This lasts until the end of September, so go and check out their website and show them some support, and save some money whilst you shop with them!
That's all for today's edition of Excellent Exhibitors! There's still a bit more excitement left for Tofu Cute DigiFest to go, so check out the main page for more info. Don't forget to read the other parts of the Excellent Exhibitors blogs if you missed them, and be sure to follow us on social media for more updates on other DigiFest happenings!
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