Back in February (pre-Quarantine!) I had the pleasure of photographing my bud Johnny Earle, C.E.O. of Johnny Cupcakes, at my studio! We had a blast experimenting with different lighting, outfits, and even some new kaleidoscope glass. Learn more about Johnny, his work and his family below, or follow along on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Please do not use photos without permission.

“Hello, my name is Johnny Cupcakes.  I like to bring out the kid in everyone.  Not in the sense of getting loads of people pregnant, but you know, I enjoy making other people feel happy.  I do so through my culinary themed t-shirt brand where my retail shop is set up to look and smell like an actual bakery.  Graphic t-shirts are displayed in refrigerators and packaged in pastry boxes.

I've opened over 1,000 pop-up shops around the globe where we bring retail experiences to our customers.  Through keeping things fun, transparent, and person –– I've been blessed to be able to do this for almost 20 years and counting.  I've met thousands of customers who have my brand's logo tattooed on them or who have camped out for our special edition t-shirts.  Some of them have met their best friends or significant others through the brand.

In this odd string of events I have turned into a secret weapon for some of the largest brands in the world where I'm booked to speak to their teams to teach my blueprints on building brand loyalty, creating unique experiences, and inspiring innovation.”

“My day-to-day of what I do consists of changing diapers and dancing with my daughters;  idea powwows with my Johnny Cupcakes team;  conference calls with my clients who book me to speak at their conferences/meetings to plan the fun details that deliver their themed messaging;  writing my book which has been a love-hate relationship;  and growing our custom merch program where we act as a mini branding agency for organizations and come up with brand activations, concepts, designs, production, and fulfillment of special edition collaboration t-shirts that they use as corporate gifting or marketing assets.

Now, with many employees working from home, we've been helping organizations boost morale by mailing the custom collaboration merch we create for them, to the homes of their clients or each individual on their team.  So in a way, we are like Santa's workshop!”

“My interest in fashion spawned at an early age.  When I was a little boy I was at a Montell Jordan, TLC, Boyz II Men concert.  There was a guy in front of me with a windbreaker jumpsuit and he just looked like the definition of cool.  He inspired me to attempt to dress better.  The next week I went to school wearing my dad's Marlborough Miles windbreaker jumpsuit and I got sent home from school.  Outside of that, I've always been fascinated with feelings.  You know, that feeling you have when you open a Cracker Jack or cereal box and find a surprise?  Or when you get a handwritten note in the mail from an old friend?  I want to bottle that goodness up and release it in the world of retail.”

“Determined to make more time with my loved ones, I started 16 businesses before I was 16 years old.  From lemonade stands to having yard sales…when my parents weren’t home, to being a magician, and selling candy in high school while my peers sold drugs––they were my number one customer because they had the munchies all the time!

Although I had a difficult time focusing in school, I certainly hustled when I found my passion.  Eventually, my risk-taking curiosity of starting businesses, coupled with a goofy nickname from coworkers at Newbury Comics, led me to creating Johnny Cupcakes, The World’s First T-Shirt Bakery!  This even allowed me to start employing my family and spending more time with the people I love, which is all I ever wanted.”

“Since my name is Johnny, my coworkers would give me random nicknames like; Johnny Appleseed; Johnny Comelately; and Johnny Cupcakes––which sounded like a funny mobster name––so I put the Johnny Cupcakes name on a t-shirt to advertise a bakery that didn't exist.

Anytime I wore a JC t-shirt to work, miserable strangers that had never made eye contact with me began smiling and asking about the t-shirt, so I made more t-shirts and sold them out of the trunk of my beat up '89 Camry.

While my friends were hanging out with cute girls at parties, I was hanging out with cute old ladies at craft fairs where I'd hustle my t-shirts.  My early days were also spent touring with the hardcore metal band that I was a DJ in, On Broken Wings.  I'd sell wrinkled t-shirts out of my suitcase in different cities we'd tour through.  I eventually made the tough decision to leave the band to focus 100% on Johnny Cupcakes.We don't sell t-shirts, we sell memories around merchandise.  From the way my t-shirt shop is designed, to our releases.  We've sold Halloween t-shirts packaged in VHS tapes and we even made movie trailers for each one!  For the opening release of this, we showed movies in the windows, we rented a popcorn machine, and for $220. I rented a real hearse and coffin from a creepy guy on Craigslist in which I got delivered in.  We received hundreds of thousands of dollars of free press as Channel 7 News covered the event, and all humans walking by the big commotion still talk about it to this day!

Re: Speaking - Other speakers and writers were sharing my brand's story in their presentations and books and case studies, so I decided to let people hear it from the horse's mouth.  I'm asked to speak at over 500 events each year, and out of those I will accept 50 of them while bringing in some elements of the Johnny Cupcakes experience so they leave with a thorough understanding of the importance of surprise and delight, customer loyalty, and the art of crafting unique experiences.”

“I get inspired by the alluring labels in the olive oil section of Whole Foods; orange lit bookstores on days where you can smell the rain outside; I'm inspired to come up with my million dollar ideas when I make my fifty thousand dollar mistakes.”

“My favorite part of my job is helping other people realize their potential by letting them be leaders.  I try to teach people to approach problems with solutions instead of panic.”

“The landscape of retail changes by the hour.  While this is challenging, it keeps me on my toes and never bored.  Another challenge is learning to say no.  Sometimes you get this itch of wanting to pile on more projects and I have to remind myself that I define my own version of success.  It's not how many things I can get done, but it is the quality of the few things that matter.”

“Every day we trick hungry people who think we sell actual cupcakes.  One April Fool's Day we sold real cupcakes and hid all of our t-shirts.  Because of how much business we give to nearby bakeries, I might someday open up a shop across the street called "Johnny T-shirts" that only sells cupcakes.  We have terrible reviews on all of those food review websites.  This April Fool's Day we put one of those bad reviews on a t-shirt and sold it for $40 and we made more than $10,000. in just a few hours!  I believe that when you realize you're able to troll a troll, a baby unicorn is set free from a dark forest far away.”

“The first time I met my now wife Katie was when she was getting Indian food at the restaurant below my 279 Newbury Street shop in Boston.  Her friends were running late and we started talking.  We exchanged information but I didn't hear from her for 3.5 years when she called me up to ask me out to dinner.  We've been eating ever since!

For better or for worse, I'm a creative who trusts everyone.  Until I met my wife.. who is an auditor.  She has taught me to wear my business hat, which has inherently saved me from many disasters.

Katie turns down 99.9% of my ideas.  When we first started dating, in my mind I was like, "Why can't you just love me for me?!" but after 24 hours go by of her questioning a business idea I have, in my mind I'm like, "Whoa, this is the only person in my life who cares to this extent."

She means the world to me and inspires me every day to be a better version of myself.”

“Parenthood is still relatively new!  My wife and I adopted our twin daughters from South Korea and we brought them home on Christmas Day –– BEST CHRISTMAS EVER!!  We're extremely lucky and we pinch ourselves every day.  There's now a new purpose and priority to life and it's difficult to keep my heart in my chest.

Being a dad to our little cheeseburgers has been the most rewarding thing in my life.  Parenthood has already changed my work and mindset.  My time has become more limited and more valuable.  I've learned to say no.  I've raised my speaking fees.  I've set work boundaries.  Overall, the output or my work, while limited, has been extra sharp and meaningful.”

“I think when you have a small business and are close with your family, it's inevitable that they'll be involved in some aspect.  As graphic t-shirts avalanched out of the cardboard boxes and closets at home, I was lucky to have their help when things became overwhelming.

Opening my flagship Boston shop was the turning point for my brand.  It was the big scary risk that paid off.  I was soon able to hire my mom full time to be the CFO of Johnny Cupcakes.  Shortly after, when my sister Linsay graduated from Bryant for Business, I brought her on to wear many hats, as well as her best friend/our neighbor Kelley, who is family.

There is a sense of pride, passion, and comfort having family look after all of the nooks and crannies of business.  After 14 years of my mom being with us, she has retired from JC and my whole team has stepped up to carry on.  Teamwork makes the dream work, and I'm proud of all that we've done and continue to do together.

Recently we were able to raise over $100,000. AUD that we donated to Australia for disaster relief.  We had our Australian customers submit charities that they support and we split it up between three of them!”

“I love cluster of culinary, crafts, and community that Bow Street Market in Somerville has built, esp Vinyl Index and Jaju Pierogi; Trident Booksellers has the ultimate magazine section, daily events, and they're open until midnight every night; Cambridge Typewriter in Arlington is where I bring most of my friends visiting from out of town; Sean Quinn runs Soulelujah every Saturday night at The Sinclair in Cambridge, where DJs spin retro soul and funk on strictly all vinyl 45s!”

“When I was fourteen years old I would take two busses and two trains to trot around the city with enough money for a hot slice from Little Stevie’s Pizza where their slices were larger than most faces.

I fell in love with the sounds, the Sherlock Holmes-y red bricked buildings, and window shopping in stores I couldn’t dream of affording anything in.

Shoebox memories consist of smelling hot candied cashews and Cool Water Cologne scented incense being peddled from the Hynes Convention T stop, and stepping out to a Tower Records where I was greeted by a pretty woman with no arms who was smoking a cigarette with her toes.

Stores like Allston Beat, Ozone, Biscuit Head Records, and The Otherside Cafe were hubs of culture and rave flyers and learning about music from what the cool employees were listening to, like Kool Keith or Fugazi.

I cherish the sense of wonderment and nostalgia from gallivanting with my Charter School buddies.  While Hull is a beautiful tiny peninsula, as a teenager, Boston was an escapism from being trapped in the sleepy suburbs during the winter when people would resort to partying.  Being straight edge and having a hard time sitting still, Boston was my North Star.

While Boston is small, it packs a punch and has more pockets to explore than a pair of UFO pants.  In particular, I relish in the walkability and neighborhood feel, the restaurant scene, the history, the seasons, and smelling the salt water in the air.  Plus, you can't beat being surrounded by a gaggle of small town apple orchards slingin' cider donuts every year!

From a business point of view, you can't beat the influx of students who come from all corners of the world each year.  The city is small enough that when something new is popping off, everyone knows about it.  Maybe some of the same psycho sports loyalty rubs off on being loyal to supporting local, ya know?”

“Something that most people don't know about me is that I collect vintage typewriters.  I own 20-something clunky word machines.  Their sound and smell help me focus when I'm mashing my fingers against their buttons.”

“My dreams for the future are to start a publishing company, finish writing my book, and maybe be a professional ice cream taster.  More than anything, I'd like to be a swell dad.

Follow my adventures in life on Instagram and Twitter at @johnnycupcakes or if you enjoyed these words, pick up a graphic t-shirt at johnnycupcakes.com

<3 Johnny Cupcakes”

Photos by Diana Levine / dianalevine.com

Behind-the-scenes Photos: