What I've Learned Part 5 of 6

Part 5 - No Better Time.

Continuing what I’ve learned/what I’m learning. Here’s some of how I’m learning.

I regularly listen to a fantastic podcast called Creative Rebels. A pair of talented chaps talk to each other and a guest each episode about their creative endeavours and their speciality. I highly recommend it - it’s pulled me out of the doldrums on occasion but also full of inspiration and good ideas.

One thing they have often said is this:

There’s no better time than right now to launch a business.

And I totally agree. If you have an idea or more importantly a passion - then with WiFi, a phone with a camera and some creativity you can get that idea/passion seen. You can attract attention. That doesn’t mean to say that it has to be a “business” per se. But it can be something that you do that feeds your soul while your day job feeds your belly.!

Maybe eventually it would be a main source of income - I’m sure that comes with its negatives. I’m not sure I ever want to pay my mortgage with how many tees I sell a month!

But setting aside the money. When I was in my teens and twenties it never really occurred to me that I could explore anything creative. You went to work, went out with yer pals and that was that. But after going to Uni in my 30’s it awoke something in me that took a while to manifest. Once that did I realised that we are in an age just now where we have access to so much information - much of it free (setting aside laptop/phone/WiFi).

I listen to podcast and audiobooks across a wide range of subjects but try to take something from each.

As mentioned in a previous post - creativity goes hand in hand with problem solving. With resources like YouTube at our disposal we have so much out there to take from.

But I think it’s also important to give something back. I’ve done videos on screen printing decks, plenty of social media content about that sort of stuff and posts like this. I hope someone finds it useful.

So what’s actually stopping you from doing that thing you wanted to do? Obviously there are some things that would be financially challenging! But whatever the subject you can get involved and get going. Start a FB page - jump on Tik Tok. Tell people what you are about. For better or worse you no longer have to quit your job, cash in yer savings (does anyone actually have savings?) and chase your dream. You can do it from the comfort of your bed, living room or even on the toilet....

Go for it, definitely no better time. And as long as you manage your own expectations then you’ll look back and wonder why you didn’t do it sooner.’

What I've Learned Part 4 of 6

Part 4. Despondency and Perspective..!

Carrying on with what I’ve learned, what I’m learning and what I’ve observed.

I think it doesn’t matter who you are or how successful you are, you will feel despondent at some point.

Sales slowed down?

Lost a bit of fire in your belly?

Believing everything that everyone else is posting on social media?

Wandering what in gods name you are actually doing?

And on and on.

Generally I just ride it out. Let it take its course because somewhere deep down I know I’ll come out the other end and be ok.

Sometimes I feel like quitting but then I feel like I’m in too deep. Easier to swim on and take a rest at the next stop than turn and go back.

Gotta keep perspective. It’s easy to do nothing, take no risks, snipe from the sidelines - God knows I’ve done a lot of that in previous years.!

But If you’ve got up and put yourself out there then you’ve done something that a lot of people want to do but don’t quite get there.

So if that’s you? Give yerself a break. It’s easier if you are doing things for the right reasons. Not so easy if you see yerself as the next “insert famous rich person here”.

So go have a pie and look at what you’ve done.

What I've Learned Part 3 of 6

Part 3.

Social Media.

Before I set up Doric Skateboards i set up a Movie related page on Facebook so that I could learn the very basics on how to post, how you respond as the page, how to build an audience etc. If you’re setting up a business page I’d highly recommend doing this.

I also set up my social media pages way before i launched. This gave me the chance to build up some content so that when we went live there was actually things for people to look at straight away.!

Again - I’d recommend that.

Something that people talk a lot about is the “algorithm”. How each app decides what it’s going to show your followers.

Personally I couldn’t give two sh*ts about the algorithm.

Here’s my take:

Not getting the usual “likes” you used to get?

Don’t worry - you can try again tomorrow!

Not getting any/much engagement on your posts - i.e. no comments/shares?

Really take a look at what you are posting. Have folk seen it before? Is it informative? Is it even mildly interesting? Be honest with yourself.

Go back to the drawing board and see what you can come up with. Be creative.

Obviously I sell stuff. But I know that when I put a post up about something for sale it generally won’t do very well. That’s not necessarily the algorithm - it’s just human nature. We don’t like the hard sell.!

So we tend to scroll past them. They aren’t that interesting unless it’s something new for sale perhaps.

Giveaways. Seen as the saviour for all social media accounts everywhere! Share. Like. Comment. I’ve done it. We’ve all done it. But what does it actually get you? People genuinely interested in what you do? I don’t think so.

My advice for what it’s worth.

Be happy with the followers and engagement you get. And make sure you engage back!

Don’t worry about having tens of thousands of followers. Hopefully that can come with some hard work, creating interesting stuff for people to read and share, and with some time and patience.!

Also - be generous to others. If you are hoping for likes, shares, comments - then remember to reciprocate.

What I've Learned Part 2 of 6

Part 2.

Carrying on with things I’ve learned, observed and am still learning with Doric Skateboards.

Make Mistakes and Don’t Be Afraid to Change Your Mind.!

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes.

This doesn’t just mean in the field/medium you specifically work in. I think that should go without saying - you will NEVER get things right all the time, particularly when starting out. Mistakes are just practice.

But also don’t be afraid to make mistakes in your approach, strategy, ethos etc. Worst case scenario you are a hypocrite!

Best case - you’ve found a way to work and an approach that feels right.

Plenty of people will want you to do things a certain way, maybe even produce certain type of work. Now that can come from two opposite ends of the spectrum! The friends who are genuinely enthused and the non-friends who shout at the internet all day. Try to listen to your own voice.

I’ve had to learn that it’s impossible to keep everyone happy - including myself.

Nothing is written in stone though. And I find that trying to screen print clothing and decks myself can be a huge strain/impact on a variety of things:

• Quality

• Skill limitations

• Time

And so I’ve needed to use more 3rd Party help than I ever thought I would. But I’m ok with that.

So make mistakes, don’t worry about what you said before, did before - look ahead. If the last 9 months has taught us anything it’s that we should stay loose and flexible because you never know what’s coming.!

What I've Learned Part 1 of 6

As promised.

Over the next wee while I’ll share some of what I’ve learned in the last 4 years and some of what I’ve been doing to keep the brain active over the last 9 or so months.

Problem Solving.

To create anything you need to solve problems.

From my point of view there were loads:

• How do I screen print?

• Where will I get blank decks from?

• What will my logo be?

• How do I do a website/social media?

And a 100 other.

Most of which NEVER GET FULLY ANSWERED.

And that’s ok. Doing anything that involves setting up a business and doing something creative is a constant challenge - even if you don’t take into account the current circumstances.

But the answers are out there.

My one piece of advice that I would give is this.

Use the vast amount of content on the internet, in books, in podcasts etc to help you solve your problem and get over those hurdles. If this leads to mistakes then so be it.! That’s a really important part of learning.

I get asked a lot of questions about various things. And for the most part I’m happy to answer (apologies if I’ve not answered some yet though!).

But for me the process is as satisfying and important as the outcome. Probably more so. It’s where you learn what works and what doesn’t. It’s where you really understand how things go together.

So get your hands dirty. Be curious. Solve problems by doing, not just asking.

And make mistakes! It’s all part of the fun.

2020 Review

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.

What's New?

Its been a while for a Blog Update (what blog doesn’t start with that?) - so here goes.

What’s new?

Well we’ve got 4 new designs coming soon. One that will be for Deck and Tee and the other 3 for Tees/Clothing only.

Read on to here about them!

Back in April we did a wee design competition and got some amazing stuff. We already did a couple of them as stickers and donated that money to Mental Health Aberdeen.

But the standard was so high and the reaction to some was such that we had to do a couple more - its taken a while but here we are.!

First up - a T-Shirt for the Aberdonians of a certain vintage.

Peep Peeps design by Phil Lyon.

This was a notorious bar down by the harbour in Aberdeen and the subject of that classic Sky TV show Britain’s Toughest Pubs. I was in once - eventually getting chucked out. Here’s Phils take on his design:

'I'd been reading about the Dada art movement when I seen the competition pop up on Facebook, figured I'd kinda draw some inspiration from that and go for a collage approach but simplify it a bit to make it easier to screen on boards/tees. I've seen a few other brands using that sort of thing with collages of random stuff but wanted to put a local twist on it. Always loved proper pubs with lots of character and characters and thought that Peep Peeps really summed up that working class pub that we seem to have less and less of these days so I decided to combine Chris' infamous hardest pub appearance with an art style I doubt he ever heard of and the result was the graphic I submitted. Still so stoked people liked it!'

Big thanks to Katy from Katys Studio for the assistance with this one and to Lee at Milk Print Studios for printing them. Both are creatives in Aberdeen doing their thing - go follow them. These Tees will be online in November with very limited numbers - no preorder!

Cull the Gulls

And here was the ultimate winner of the design comp. Initially we were just going to print one deck for the winner but after a chat with Neil we decided to do a full run. And its looking great.! Pre-Order for Tees are online soon and decks will follow very soon.! We’ll also have a chat with the designer Neil to talk about the inspiration.!

Spider From Mars T-Shirt

Not part of the comp but from the mind of Chris Graham aka DFunkt Robot - another local loon making his name and someone we’ve worked with before. A wee revamp of the Spider from Deep Fried Mars design will be coming to tees soonish!

Street Dreams Tees.

When we started this nearly 4 years ago our original design was of local diva Annie Lennox and a play on the song from her Eurythmics days Sweet Dreams. We went with Street Dreams being that thats where we learned to skate - no one said it was a clever play on words. ; )

We’ve threatened tees before. These are coming in November/December.

We’ve also got new beanies and a restock of Donut ones plus some Buffs coming soon! : )

Going back to Basics

Its sometimes easy to get carried away with adding new designs and associated merch. Its probably a product of excitement and trying to please everyone.

But i’m beginning to get a hold of things now and hopefully this will mean a few goals can be achieved:

• Less waste.

• Slightly more exclusivity.

• Migration to more eco friendly material and process’s

All printing of clothing has now migrated to an Aberdeen based DTG printer and screen printing from myself - whichever suits the design best. So that means less delivery time between printers, suppliers and myself = smaller carbon footprint. It also means i’ll always have my hands on all merchandise we sell as always. I’m not keen on third parties sending out stock on my behalf - albeit that would be less work.

All of this comes at a cost of course. The basic price of a blank t-shirt has doubled, the price of printing DTG is higher too but i think that for £20-28 for these tees (depending on style etc) is still good value for money when you consider it also includes 1st Class Postage and that these t-shirts are premium (regardless of whats printed on them).

And so now we’ve launched the new old tees.! These were the first ones we ever got printed and truthfully i never even thought about printing tees - thats changed.!

Really happy with the colours we’ve went for - i’ll be unveiling some of the real articles very soon for folks to see. Pre-order is online now and aim to deliver these by 1st/2nd week of August.

Going back to basics - less is more sometimes.

www.doricskateboards.com/?category=OG+Logo+Design