Wolf Child is an indie fashion t-shirt brand designed around my fine art illustrations. Mysticism, archetypal symbolism, nature, cosmic awareness, meditation, and ceremonial rituals inspire my work. I started Wolf Child in 2012 and although it was my main career for many years, it has now become a side project as I build my career in UX/UI Design.
Raised by wolves, fierce and compassionate, Wolf Child was born from the darkness and raised by fire. Calling upon 1970s motorcycle culture, hellraisers, and wild creatures living outside of imposed societal limits, Wolf Child is an unwieldy thread unraveling from the tapestry. The name embodies both animal and man and reminds us that they are one.
The cosmic serpent is a reoccurring vision of mine and is in much of my work. Snakes are associated with the power to heal, poison, or provide expanded consciousness. As snakes shed their skin, they are symbols of rebirth, transformation, immortality, and healing.
Subtle, neutral colors and lots of black define the brand’s colors. The neutral palette allows the screen-printed art to stand out. Wolf Child tees are worn with just about anything, dressed up or down. The brand style is rooted in vintage rock and roll fashion, with a touch of goth and heavy metal.
I design the Wolf Child brand around my fine art illustrations. All of my work starts as a series of rough thumbnail sketches to work out my ideas and composition. Once I have a thumbnail I like, I start drawing a full-size version.
I draw all my illustrations the same size as the desired print size. Once I finish the full-size sketch, I am ready to move on to inking. I ink everything by placing my final sketch on a light table and inking on a new sheet of paper. That way, all the inked sketches are as clean as possible for the digital clean up needed to create files ready for burning silk screens.
To prepare art for print, I clean it up using both Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. Depending on the art, how many colors the screen print is, and if I am adding typography, I often edit and manipulate the graphics. Marketing materials, website graphics, brand collaborations, and social media posts are the other times I use my graphic design skills for Wolf Child.
I design the garments based on my favorite vintage t-shirts and tanks. I start by taking measurements and then grade measurements up or down, depending on the vintage garment size.
Once graded, I compile the measurements in a size chart. Next, I use Adobe Illustrator to draw a digital flat sketch, which is a technical sketch of the garment.
After compiling all my information, I create a spec sheet which includes the graded size breakdown, flat sketch, a specified sample size, notes for specific stitch patterns, and other garment construction or finishing details.
For manufacturing, the spec sheet is part of a larger tech pack, which is essentially an assembly manual for the garment. The tech pack includes fabric content, Pantone color choices for dying, wash and care instructions, labeling, graphics for printing, and specific garment details outlined in the spec sheet. All of this together provides the factory detailed information on how the garment will come together.
The factory starts by making a sample from the information provided in the tech pack. They produce a sample based on the measurements of the requested sample size. The sample is made of PFD (prepared for dye, undyed, white) plain cotton. Fabric content sample swatches and Pantone color swatches requested in the tech pack are shipped with the sample for approval.
Once received, I make multiple revisions to the sample and write a new tech pack reflecting the changes. Back and forth revisions continue until the factory manufactures a sample that meets my expectations; this usually is achieved in three to four revisions of the sample. Depending on the fabric and color swatches, I may request more swatches from the factory until I settle on fabric and color.
Once the sample is approved, the factory then makes a sample in the fabric content and color requested. The final pending approval of this sample is needed to start full garment production.
I create all the marketing, advertising campaigns, and run the social media for Wolf Child. For social media, I organize collaborations with other designers and Instagram fashion accounts. My creative friends or I shoot all the photography, lookbooks, other fashion photography.
Additionally, I release seasonal wholesale seasonal line sheets, which are like magazines for the brand, to email to boutiques nationally that stock Wolf Child. For four years, I had a national sales rep who handled all my wholesale accounts, about 72, mostly female-owned small businesses.
Tailored to creatives, Easel gives users a more efficient way to connect through their work. The tools creative professionals need are available all in one app.
Easel gives artists and creative professionals, better collaboration, and organization. With user-generated tags, grouping starred items, mood boards, and slide deck templates, Easel makes it easy for users to keep their content highly organized.
By creating profiles that act as personal portfolios, direct messaging, and sharing content directly to social media, users can ease their creative workflow and share content with others and the world.
The process of developing Easel was an exciting and rewarding challenge. By analyzing the market and seeing the lack of cloud storage options for creatives, I created an app that is highly useful and stands out amongst the competition.
To determine the MVP for Easel, I studied the competition. I found that for Easel to be competitive, it needed to have the same, or similar features that other cloud storage organizational apps offer in addition to new features explicitly aimed at creative professionals, our target audience.
Through user surveys, testing, and multiple iterations, the needs of users informed essential features and the app's evolution. I was able to determine what features are most important to users and design an intuitive product to meet those needs.
I learned to trust the development process throughout the project. Learning to trust the process was especially true regarding the brand direction. Branding is very subjective. Initially, I set out on a specific vibe for Easel. By being attached to something that wasn't working, I found that personal attachment to my idea was getting in the way of reaching our target audience. Once I let go and became more open and flexible to the brand identity, I was able to create a visual direction that suited the user's needs and appealed to our target audience.
Overall, I learned the importance of surveying, testing, and iterating, all while staying open and flexible throughout the process. The evolution of the product from beginning to end was an excellent experience. The strength of any project lies and extreme attention to detail and learning to love each part of the process.
