And so that’s 2020 just about done with - a few hours to go so lets not tempt fate. ; )
Its been an odd year. If you’d told me what would happen and all that that would mean I would probably have predicted that Doric Skateboards wouldn’t survive. Although I generally sell online I do a lot of Pop Ups each year and we’ve got used to doing our own events too. But amazingly we’ve churned out designs that have resonated with people and grown. I think the world is learning by force that retail is changing/has changed.
But lets set that aside. Here’s a wee run down of what went down for us this year!
January
In Jan we invested in all new Screen Printing equipment. This was a 4 screen carousel that would enable us to screen print clothing that uses up to 4 colours on one design. Now up until that point i’d only screen printed clothing with 1 colour. As with a lot of stuff i’ve done with Doric Skateboards - i made the plan but would worry about the actual details later.
February
And so in Feb we started screen printing the newest design - Donuts for Daze by Chris Graham. Big up grade for me:
5 colours on the deck;
3 colours on the topside logo;
3 colours on the tail - i’d never printed tail graphics before.
Clothing - committed to 4 colours across a variety of clothing!
And so on February 29th we launched the decks and clothing.
March
Earlier in the year i’d signed up to a course via RGU/Grays School of Art/Look Again called Creative Entrepreneurship. For some unexplained reason we had to do the whole thing online via video conferencing….
Anyways - it was really enjoyable. I had gotten to know some of the other people on the course over the past few years which helped but there was also new people to chat to and share ideas with too. One of those ideas was to do a design competition via our social media pages. And so..
April
We kicked off the Doric Deck Design Competition.! The initial idea was to pick one winner and produce one deck for that winner. But the competition grew arms and legs - or Tee Shirts and Stickers to be more precise.! See our previous blog post for lowdown and keep yer eyes peeled for another one next year!
May
What happened in May? Honestly have no idea. We did spend time with Stu Allan discussing our upcoming collaboration.!
June
Then we launched it! : ) See this blog post for the lowdown on that. What a design. Up to that point most of the Doric Skateboards designs had been fun/colourful so it was great to see some darkness come along!
July
Muddled through. Does anyone else remember? Was it sunny?
August
Dan! We added a new member to the team. Dan has been a big support to us from early on and we’d always earmarked him to be on the team. Stoked to have you onboard buddy! We will hopefully find one or two more to add next year - one already earmarked! ; )
September
This month we got back onto screen printing some new Skyline decks. These were inspired by the fading sun and some of my favourite skate brands - Alva and Dogtown. I used 3 colour spray paint to give them all a fade and then screened the Doric Skateboards Skyline design over it but only in outline - that way you could see the fade behind it. This was of course the opposite of what I did previously - blank deck with the Skyline having a 3 colour fade.! Really enjoyed doing these and thats all 10 of them gone, I’ll play around working with spray paint and screen printing together next year.
October
The Gull Has Landed! When Neil sent his design in for the competition in April I knew this one was going to be popular. I asked two other people to judge the competition and was glad that they also picked this one! I think its a belter of a design and the Tee Shirts have been really popular too. Well done Neil!
November
Peep Peeps Tee! Really loved this from the competition too. - nice one Phil. Babycham Blue coming soon…
December
Well this month got off to a flyer when the Look Again team asked myself and Big Up the Deen if we wanted some window space for some advertising. Absolutely delighted with it. Thanks to Sally and the team there - not just for this but for all they do in Aberdeen! Go check it out on St Andrew Street before we take it down. : )
Then of course there was the Christmas Market at the Bon Accord Centre. Can’t thank Aberdeen Inspired and Charlies House enough for this. Best one i’ve done in terms of sales. And so chuffed that the majority of the 100+ customers we served were known to us or us to them.!
And we managed to squeeze in a wee interview for local media giants in waiting Post! Read all about it.!
And thats 2020. Although just when I thought i was clear i ended up in A&E for the first time since i was young lad. Asthma is not fun. Either is getting old. : (
So take care of each other and hopefully see you all next year in some capacity. Sincerest thanks for all the support. I hope you take an ounce of the pleasure from it we do.
