Life is Good co-founder John Jacobs spoke Monday on the inspiration behind his company’s now iconic shirt design and its positive effects.
Jacobs visited the new Life is Good store on State Street as part of his Life is Good Tour. He said his company has always tried to promote optimism and creativity through clothing and said they continue to do so even as a multimillion dollar company.
Jacobs’ tour consists of visiting 40 different communities with the goal of raising more than $1 million for kids in need.
He said he and his co-founder brother dealt with family problems growing up and this partially inspired his commitment to children’s charities.
Jacobs began selling shirts with his brother Bert in the early nineties and by 1994 the now iconic “Life is Good” T-shirt design, featuring a beret wearing stick figure, was born.
He said the two wanted to see how people would respond to positive messages about nature and sports.
Jacobs, a towering yet approachable figure, said his company’s positive messages come as a sort of counter to the predominantly negative worldview portrayed in the media.
The biggest and most unexpected change he said he experienced as his company gained traction was the number of letters he received from people had been touched by his clothing. Jacobs said these letters almost always came from those who experienced great adversity.
“People who were going through chemotherapy, who had lost loved ones … they were teaching us that optimism is at its most powerful in the darkest times,” Jacobs said.
He said the impact they had on people inspired them to start their children’s charity for those who face serious problems.
Even before this, the company had always tried to support charitable causes through donations of money or products, he said.
“Anyone who is aware of the world knows there’s an imbalance in the world, and we thought there must be something we could do,” Jacobs said.
Jacobs said the biggest milestones in the evolution of his business were moving it out of the apartment he shared with his brother and the decision to form a team more capable of running a successful business.
Jacobs said he and his brother had always wanted to pursue art but they disliked the idea of having their work displayed in a gallery. He said they were not quite sure how to turn their creativity into making a living.
“T-shirts were an accessible way we could try it out and it wasn’t as intimidating as getting something hung in a gallery,” Jacobs said.
The two struggled to get by for quite a while, but each time they failed he said they learned something and slowly adjusted their process. He said for some time he and his brother would have to sleep in their van while on the road in order to save money.
He said his current position at Life is Good is “Chief Executive Optimist.”