Doric x Fit Like at Fierce Beer Bar Aberdeen

Well that was a fun night. Next morning wasn’t too clever but thats a distant memory now,.!

We decided to do something a little different with this launch - firstly we revealed the full graphic a couple of weeks before release. By the time we’d announced the collaboration we’d already sold nearly half the stock of decks and tees. When we revealed the actual graphics we had to do another run of tees and were left with just 3 out of the 20 decks. Really pleased with that and can’t thank people enough.!

So on the night at Fierce we sold the remaining 3 and a few other bits and pieces but also got a chance to have a chat with some new people and some friends who’d come down to have a beer.!

Its pretty gratifying when folk from the local community support what you are doing - i hope i do the same for them. I try to share other peoples stuff on the Doric page and on my own page. It really can make a difference.

Coming up to Christmas you’ll see a load of posts about supporting local and F Amazon (the website, not the jungle - i hope). I say support what you can. If you can’t afford to buy bespoke clothing or hand made something or other then lets not guilt each other into debt. Sharing a FB post or re-tweeting or commenting/recommending is a fantastic way to help out your local business’s. Buying stuff is obviously welcome but not everyone’s budget stretches that far. I’ve definitely benefited from both and very much appreciate it.!

And talking of appreciation - big thanks to Fit Like for this collaboration. And to the team at Fierce Bar Aberdeen for hosting us.!

So whats next in terms of collaborations? Well we’ve almost definitely got 3 lined up for next year already. Some artwork locked, some not even thought of! So watch this space!

Fit Like? Nae bad, yersel?

As promised in the last blog, this one will have a look at the most recent collaboration.!

This one is between myself and local street artist Fit Like Art.

Fit Like came up with a concept very early in the year but due to its subject nature we had to keep it until November 2nd!

Once this design was locked it was over to Fit Like to use stencils to throw up some graphics on the nose and tail of each deck. Screen printing on the nose and tail will require a bit more development in equipment for me but doing it this way made perfect sense. FL used a variety of stencils to recreate his collectives logo and his own logo along with liberal splatterings of ink.! This makes each deck unique.

It was then over to me to screen print the run. I’d already done a dry run of the main graphic and at the last minute decided on the green, white, red fade. Originally i had thought of just a white undercoat.

But first the topside logos needed done. They can be a right bugger to do - you are screening with the concave and need to be quick, firm and steady.! It can lead to mistakes….

Once done it was time for the main graphic. Using the 3 colour fade for the undercoat can be messy - you might need to clean out the screen every now and then. The wee detailing is done with a sliver and then the main black outline - its amazing how it all comes together.

I took the opportunity to produce the whole run of tees and totes for this collaboration. I had messed around with printing on other mediums but this was a whole new thing. Thankfully i got through it with minimum waste.! Its a different ball game doing it on clothing. Screening on a curved, shiny surface of a skateboard has its challenges but so does clothing.! Ink consumption being one - didn’t really factor just how much it would eat up!

Super stoked with the response to this one so far though. We have a planned launch night at Fierce Bar on Nov 1st. Hopefully we’ll still have something to sell! 😃 I’ll make sure we have a few extra tees.!

From this we jump on to the next event at Transition Extreme. Head over to the Facebook Page event for more info. Really looking forward to this one.!

To keep in touch with where we will be this year (Chr*stmas) check out the websites Whats Happening page.! I’ll hopefully be adding an event or two to that soon.! And maybe another collaboration to sneak in.! ??