Austin & Ives
2013
Full of big ideas, inspired by self help books, dissatisfied with my current job all led to a crazy few months of embarrassment, failure and lots and lots of self teaching.
Austin & Ives is first a foremost an apparel brand inspired by nature and kind to the environment, the concept was that you were buying more than just a t-shirt, you should feel like your purchase is making a difference around the world.
The brand evolved so much within a short period of time as I changed my mind on certain aspects of the brand, such as the logo, the values of the brand and the type of designs on the clothes, that I have struggled to pull together a complete project.
The brand started out simple, with plain designs that I actually had printed and sold to friends (I sold 8 in total which covered printing costs). After the first batch I was determined to really take A&I to the next stage, I had all these big ideas to make an eco friendly 'Norse Project' style brand which you see below.
Extract from website:
"When it comes to clothing we generally buy what ‘looks nice’, but with Austin & Ives you get so much more. Inspired by natures design our products are one off clothing garments to talk about, they do more than just ‘look nice’, they tell a story, whether that be about the design on the t-shirt, what the t-shirt is made of or how the purchase of your t-shirt is making a difference all across the world. Every Austin & Ives product carries with it a sense of pride and ownership that you are making a difference in the world."
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Online Store
This is where most of my time was put on this project, below are a few snapshots from the unfinished HTML file.
Sadly this version of the site (the most complicated and one of many) never launched due to my over ambition and lack of proffesional coding skills at this level.
The website which was based on a template was fully responsive and was very slick, complete with animations and high quality images.
As you can see, it was still very much in progress with mockup images.
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The T-Shirts
Below is a selection of the various t-shirt designs, some were printed while others were just experiments. Earlier designs use the previous logo on the tag.
Design by myself, printed and for sale.
Design by myself, this design was printed and for sale.
Design by Tyler Dale for Austin & Ives, sadly never printed.
I was in discussion with a proffesional photographer about the getting designs such as this printed. Also note sewn badge 1/100 another ambitious idea.
Mockups for collaborations with local ametuer photographer.
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Promotional Photography
Some very early designs were printed and I had some friends help me model and shoot them. We also shot a full promotional film on set with the photography, however I really too embarrassed to share that.
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Other Experiments
T-shirts were just a small part of the Austin & Ives brand, I had some hugely ambitious ideas and side projects I was working on. Social media, packaging, I even contacted Earthwatch to see if I could negotiate a deal to share profits from t-shirts with them, needless to say, they never replied.
Fun visuals for social media.
I bought £70 worth of natural card boxes and a stamp which gave the packagaing that natural handmade feel.
Illustrations of nature inspired designs that looked better as posters than t-shirts.
