We love Nathalie, (and you’ve seen here often on Poketo). Aside from her love of printmaking and cookies, she’s also a San Francisco wanderer on her trusty bicycle.

When we asked her for a great bicycle-themed graphic for our shirt, she whipped up an awesome vintage-inspired typography that we just can’t take our eyes off of. We love the bicycle silhouette embedded onto to the word “Coolin’”–not to mention the slightly upturned, happy angle of it. Seeing this just puts us in a good mood.

Such a great design probably has a great story, so we asked Nathalie to share a bit of her bicycling history with us.

Hi, Nathalie. When did you first learn to bike?
First learned to ride a bike in the yard of Fairburn elementary school alone by trial and error. I just kept trying until I finally got it.

How did you get hooked on cycling?
I got hooked riding down a big hill in Santa Cruz on a starry summer night. That refreshing breeze on my face was irresistible.

What’s the best part of riding for you?
Freedom to go where I please at my own speed.

Could you share one of your favorite memories of biking?
Riding around the monuments at night on a visit to DC wth my friend Chris. The weather was mild, so many bike paths, no one around, we had all the statues and fountains to ourselves.

If you could take your bike anywhere in the universe, where would it be?
I would like to ride on the astral plane.

Check out Nathalie’s shirt on poketo.com. Or, if you are going to be cycling this Sunday in LA for CicLAvia, you can get this on the route!
Find more of Nathalie at headphonerecord.com

As most of you all know, Echo Park, a vibrant, ever-changing neighborhood in Los Angeles is home to us. Both Angie and I live here. When we first moved to Los Angeles, this is where we settled and ran Poketo out of our house for the first couple of years. We made the living room an office, our garage the warehouse, we’d work day and night, with occasional taco truck breaks and a stroll around the park. We love this neighborhood and it’s diverse mix of ethnic and cultural communities, the nightlife, the colors, the food and business’ that grow and thrive here.

Upon launching our new tees, hoodies, and pullovers for Fall, we were brainstorming ways to highlight our new collection. You’ll see some new things you haven’t seen before…. we are introducing women’s, roomy boyfriend tees, v-necks, men’s super soft tees, organic fleece sweatshirt, and our ever popular organic, relaxed pullovers. We wanted to evoke the feeling of chilling out, a casual weekend of listening to records, hanging out with nothing much to do, but anything possible. As long as the possible was not straying too far out and feeling at home.

So, we decided, lets shoot in Echo Park… lets shoot in our living room (yes, that is our living room), lets share what we would do on a normal weekend around the neighborhood. What you’ll find here is a fun, simple, graphic collection set in our favorite locales in the neighborhood, in some of our favorite stores in the community. When you are here, we are taking you to get a coffee and browse books at Stories Books and Cafe, expanding your imagination at creative writing workshop 826LA, getting your music fix at Origami Vinyl, enjoying a sweet, cold treat at Pazzo Gelato, and strolling through Elysian Park. Over the next week, we’ll be posting more pics and even some short profiles from the owners of these awesome places. Check out the collection, enjoy!

Those of you that have bought our Secret Tee Packs in the past know that they’re the best deal around. The shirts are selected at random, from our past, current, and out of print lines, as well as selections from our one-of-a-kind samples that no one else will have but you. You’ll see that we’ve cleared out a lot of shirt styles on our apparel page, we spent a good portion of last week making each pack super special!

It’ll be a surprise which shirts you will receive, but they will all be super rad fan favorites. This is a prime deal for the upcoming gift-giving season, so don’t miss out! Click here to get to the goods!

All Women’s small shirts are up to 70% OFF!