Today is the official start of this year’s NEXT BIG THING, hoorah! Please tune into this blog every remaining day of June for mini interviews with this year’s 27 finalists. Lots of rad awesome things this year! We’re kicking off the festivities with Dee and Ricky Jackson, 21-yr old twins from Staten Island who make these freak-out amazing pixel heart pins. Or perhaps you recognize their work from the Marc Jacobs runway? Read on to learn more.

Hey guys! We’re so excited you’re our first featured interview of this year’s NEXT BIG THING. Tell us about the heart pins you made for FF.
We made them out of love… Actually, they’re made out of LEGOS, haha. They can come apart and you can build other stuff with them if you want or just leave it as a heart.

You’re also known for the LEGO belts and accessories you did for the Marc Jacobs Spring 2008 show. Everybody’s been asking us how in the heck did these two super young dudes from Staten Island hook that up? Can you give us a step-by-step on how that came about?
Yeah, Dee and Ricky made that show really pop with those accessories, we killed em. They didn’t even see us coming. My Boy Matt Bananas threw this party in the Hamptons for Camp Beverly Hills, Dee and Ricky rolled there & we met this boy Jay Peezy (Jason Preston), dude be chilling with Marc Jacobs & such… Jason saw some belts we were rocking & he placed an order. We dropped them off to him the next day. He call us back later that night like, YO! Marc loves the belts! He wants Dee and Ricky to style the runway show at the Armory. We were like whoa! Also his show was like in the next 8 days so we had to work really fast & hard, We made a bunch of samples & a couple of special pieces for the models. Everything we brought in they loved. Marc was going nuts.

That’s so awesome. Seems you’re rather inspired by things from childhood. What was your childhood like?
Our childhood was crazy. We are actually tripets, two boys and one girl. Nobody knows that tho. Shh, haha! Wish I could make up a word to define it. We lived on Staten Island our whole lives. We stayed with our Gramz. Our Momz lived up in Brooklyn, Brownsville to be exact. We were always different, not your average kids, always getting into some next type of trouble. When something happened people would always go, “it was those twins!” Ha ha.. Our childhood consisted of trouble, candy, rollerblades, Bart Simpson, skateboards, tag & making up nonsense words with my boys.

How would you describe your personal style?
(Dee) Chilling! Comfy Womfy, TightPants. I dress like a giant kid. I’m Coolin, That’s my style. (Ricky) Ummm, haha let me see… I’d describe mine as a Spontaneous Combustion of Coolness & tightpants. Ha!

Having made something for Marc Jacobs at such a young age is a terrific achievement. What kind of advice can you give to our younger readers who make rad things?
Don’t let people try to tell you what you do or how you dress is corny. Just keep doing what you do and definitely don’t let Haters get in your way.

What’s the best thing about working with your brother?
(Dee) Ricky’s a hard worker… (Ricky) Dee executes stuff well & comes up with crazy ideas!