rise & seek

Woah, a whole year has passed and I’m just getting round to writing a second blog post.

With a year under my belt, it’s time to rise and seek out the path in which I’m heading along with my small business.

With a distinct lack of blog posts, I guess that shows a few things. It’s something I really struggle to do, I’m not a good writer and I don’t have the best relationship with typing words, in any sense. Also, I’ve been busy. It’s been a super busy year, creating new work, commissions, preparing for markets, trying to keep up with the endless onslaught of social media posts. My to-do list is incredibly long.

It’s been a positive year overall. I’ve made lots of new friends, thanks to markets and social media. I’ve networked with lots of cool creative people and picked up a tonne of tips and ideas along the road. I’ve grown as an illustrator, developed my ‘style’ further, made loads of mistakes and learned from them.

This little blog post is primarily about the launch of my clothing brand, which will hopefully be ready to go in July.

It’s been at the back of my mind pretty much since I started the business. Initially, I really wanted to work alongside brands, to create graphics and designs for their clothing or products (just to clarify I would still like to do this!) but after a while it got me thinking that maybe I could launch a small collection using my own personal drawings.

But, I needed a brand name. No one wants to wear clothing with ‘Jack Spowart’ as the brand name on it. The name needed to reflect the company, what it’s trying to achieve, the values and ethos, that much was obvious to me. Adventure, sustainability, happiness. The name didn’t come to me suddenly out of the blue, it took hard work and a lot of frustration. There were even a few potential names that I loved, but after some research online they had already been snapped up. The word ‘rise’ has connotations of movement, journeying, changing. ‘Seek’ is exploring, discovering, looking. The name needed to be short and easy to remember, ‘rise and seek’ ticked all the boxes I was looking for. I didn’t need to mess around with fonts as I wanted to use the same font as my logo. A special shoutout to Tom and Rosanna Costello here for the huge, huge amount of work they put in to create the initial launch of my website and brand last year, not mention the countless other things they’ve helped me with a long the way. It was time to get to work on these designs!

Samples of the design on test material

Testing different colours of inks

Back at the start of this year, I created some digital mock up designs. I have a good knowledge of Photoshop, even if I am still running CS4 on my 2009 Macbook (I desperately need a new laptop…).

They looked good digitally on a screen but I needed samples made so I could see what they really looked like. 

I emailed a local printing company in Inverness, The Sign Centre, to get the ball rolling. Al was very helpful and even though they were on skeleton staff due to Covid restrictions, he was always quick to reply and answered all my questions. 

I learned that The Sign Centre also had an embroidery section. After receiving samples of my embroidered logo, I knew I wanted to go done the route of an embroidered logo on the front of the design.

Embroidery logo testing

From the outset I knew I wanted to use quality garments with a sustainability factor built in. The brand Patagonia has had a huge influence on both the design of my t-shirts and my overall ethos behind using sustainable materials. I didn’t even consider using a cheap garment, the first sample was organic cotton.

text embroidery test, too small and can’t read it!

After quite a few months of back and forth emails, sample making, design changes, garment changes, I’ve honed in on the garment I want to launch with. It’s 100% Organic ring-spun Combed Cotton, 220gsm (heavy). It’s super soft, washes well and keeps its shape. The embroidered front logo adds a touch of class and the design on the back is bold and strong. What more could you want!

Final logo and text design embroidered

I’m not 100% ready to launch with the designs just yet. I’m still working on sourcing garments and with covid disruptions there are always hurdles to jump. But, I’m close. Keep an eye on my website and instagram (@jack_spowart_illustration) for news regarding the launch of this new avenue of Jack Spowart Illustration.

Also, thank you for reading! Please comment below if you have any questions, tips, feedback or anything at all.

Cheers ~ Jack

Stuart modelling a sample of ‘Bealach na Bà’