Talking to The 2013 Sundance Merchandise Designer, Todd Oldham

The Sundance Film Festival; one of the largest independent film festivals is due to hit Utah in January, 2013. Founded in Salt Lake City in 1978, there is a certain reverence attached to the laurel of 'Sundance Film Festival Winner' when you watch a new trailer.

Given the popularity of the festival, it's no surprise that a number of creative minds are behind myriad aspects of curating and design, and that extends to the merchandise, which is a vital aspect of any independents organisation's financial future.

The designer of 2013's merch, Todd Oldam, has been talking to Paste Magazine about his history of design, and the undertaking of such a prestigious project. "Design has always been something of great interest to me since I was very young because my parents are very talented artists and builders and spend a lot of time making sure all four of us-their children--knew how to do everything that they knew how to do," Oldam explains. "So I'm very grateful that we spent time learning how to wire lamps, rebuilding sinks, those kinds of things along with all the arts and crafts we learned."

A rumour that Todd had to borrow $100 to get his design career is a romantic one, and thankfully, it's (kind of) true! "It was $50 actually," he says. "At the time, I could never find what I wanted, but I found some thermal underwear that was really terrific. But it was in white and I didn't want to work in white. So, my grandmother had found a drugstore that was going out of business and bought all the dye that they had. So I was able to make the clothes and dye them the colors I wanted. It was a great start, and it was for a collection that Neiman Marcus eventually bought. So. Neiman Marcus was one of my first big customers and it kind of took off from there."

Todd's full line will be available from December 7th ahead of the January festival, and if you're reading this Sundance guys, we love the sweatshirt!