New Year New Studio

Around February last year I approached Mark Kemp of FortyTwo Studio about the availability of one of the spaces in their new office - the old Church Centre at 35 Mid Stocket Road. Intention was to migrate the whole Doric HQ there.

“Hey Mark, would you consider us as a tenant in your building?”

“Aye, lets talk”

And that’s how it started.

I’d been in the building a fare few times before. We did some photoshoots there when Mark acquired the building just as COVID hit. And whilst I absolutely love the building and all its brutalist features, I hadn’t considered the idea of a “studio” in a while. But in November 22 I posted a pic of a screen print studio (pic below) and how i’d love to have something like that, maybe combined with a shop one day. And whilst the Studio at 35 isn’t a shop, it’s a firm base for us to grow, collaborate and generally develop as a business. And it isn’t in the flat at the top of a ladder in a windowless loft (jokes, I love you loft!).

And so on the 13th December I got handed the keys to our new kingdom!

If you’ve seen our loft you might think how on earth I managed to fill the space. Well I spent from February to Dec sketching - with pencils and in my mind - about where things would go and what it would be like. My original sketch is down below too and isn’t far off!

And so during Christmas and New Year I gathered together my one drill (try pre drilling, counter sinking and screwing with one drill dozens of times!), my two hand saws, scrap wood, new wood and a bucket of enthusiasm and got to it. We build 5 tables for packing orders, curing ink, sorting ink, general messing about and storage. We inherited FortyTwos old table and used that for our screen print press’s. Our old desk came down from the loft and is now a desk again - this is where the print press was before! Countless trips back and forth, a few trips to B&Q (I grew accustomed to the burger van cheeseburgers) and by first week of Jan I was pretty much good to go!

We are of course still settling in and have plenty to do - plants, more shelving, deck wracks, sort out storage, recycling bin - the list is endless. And so this weekend we’ll get printing.

I can’t emphasise enough how different it is already, never mind the printing aspect.! My plan is to simply do what I did before but improve on the process, make good use of the space to print more in each run when needed. I’d also hope to open the doors to visitors at some point - we’ll work out what that looks like later in the year!

Maybe one day i’ll manage to print for other folks too. I have to be realistic and know that whilst working FT and doing Doric I can’t really commit to too much other stuff at the moment!

Thanks to everyone who’s supported us over the last 7 years. I don’t rush anything in life and this is no different! But this is like Stage 2 for Doric. Lets see what its got in store!

Why We Hope You Support Us - Part 5

Part 5 of our look at why we hope you support us.

Celebration.!

Our intention from day 1 was to celebrate as many aspects of Aberdeen that we could whilst also encouraging people to get on a skateboard.

And we’re still going.

From the people:

Annie Lennox, Michael Sheard.

The Places:

Northfield Tower, Co Op building.

The culture:

Scotland the What?

The food and drink:

Bon Accord, butteries.

And so much more.

It’s easy to bash yer city and it’s easy to be cynical about stuff. Everyone does it because nowhere is perfect. But there’s plenty to celebrate in our city. And plenty to be excited about riding a skateboard too!

It’s quite an amazing thing. A kids toy reclaimed and almost repurposed to become something th can be uniquely different to each others person who uses it whilst interacting with the environment around us. What will historians make of it in 1000 years time and will it still be a thing?!

Who knows. But for now we’re still excited to share our designs inspired by Aberdeen and the humble skateboard.

Why We Hope You Support Us - Part 3

Part 3 of our wee series on why we hope you support us.

Gatekeeping.

A word I didn’t know - unless you were literally talking about standing beside a gate and making sure people didn’t get through. Didn’t know the metaphorical version.

And it was something I didn’t expect when I started Doric Skateboards. There are some gatekeepers in this city (and beyond nae doubt!) and you’ll find them in all cultures. Defending “their” place in the world but in reality it’s just insecurity. I get it. We all have a bit of that.

But I’ve set out to share all aspects of what we do, how we do it and why we do it.

I want to share so other people can set off and do something they want. I’m not difficult to get a hold of and I’m confident I’ve answered 99% of all questions asked! I’m a very curious person so when someone else displays the same I’m keen to make sure I answer what they want to know.

I draw the line at some things - some folk are a little too direct wanting to know cost price of thing etc. I’d also encourage folk to try to solve problems themselves before asking for the answer. You won’t learn as much. But I’ve been at those dead ends before too so I understand!

The quote in the pic might seem rather twee but I like it. It’s from Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke of yer curious.

Tomorrow in this series Part 4 of 7 we’re talking Opportunities.

#aberdeencity #organicclothing #tshirts #clothingbrand #aberdeenshire #organiccotton #design #organiccottonclothing #skatelife #skatewear #aberdeen #bonaccord #organic #Doric #scotland #skateboardingisfun #skateboard #scotlandskateboarding #skatefashion #nostalgia #tshirt

Why We Hope You Support Us - Part 2

Continuing our deeper dive into why we hope you support us or some encouragement to do so!

Part 2 - Giving Back.

Here’s the awkward one. If you talk about this too much then it lacks humility. But if you don’t mention it at all then how will customers know where some of that money and effort goes?

Our first day of launch in 2017 saw us donate prizes to War of the Thistles thanks to Zee Yule for including us. The wonders of Facebook skate groups meant he knew what were up to. Roll on 6 years and we’ve donated tons of stuff including cash to all manner of skate events in Scotland including many fundraisers for skate parks.

We sponsor a few folk too. And are about to add someone else. More on that another day.

We big up other local businesses. Food, drink, craft, design, whatever. If you’re not a dick with us then I’ll assume you’re ok and am happy to share!

And without the support of you folks we wouldn’t be in the position to contribute to local charities like Mental Health Aberdeen and CFine. Worth pointing out again that we don’t expect you guys to front the contributions whilst we stand with an oversize cheque. We’ll also chip in cash and goods.

I’m also a fan of crowdfunding type things and happy to chip in. Might do one myself one day!

When we started we did a few skate nights at TX. This has laid dormant for a long time now but next month we’re going to organise something very informal.

Next up on why we hope you support us - Part 3 of 7 Gatekeeping.

#aberdeencity #organicclothing #tshirts #clothingbrand #aberdeenshire #organiccotton #design #organiccottonclothing #skatelife #skatewear #aberdeen #bonaccord #organic #Doric #scotland #skateboardingisfun #skateboard #scotlandskateboarding #skatefashion #nostalgia #tshirt #aberdeenscotland #tshirtdesign #doric

Why We Hope You Support Us - Part 1

The other month on Social Media we wanted to highlight some of the reasons you might want to shop with us.

Some of you will hopefully know these already but I wanted to go a bit deeper.

Starting with a Blog Post about Post. : )

We include postage cost in all our stuff - it keeps things simple for us and I hope for you too.

We also value the fact that you have spent money with us. And so I try to get your order out very quickly, sometimes the same day.

We aren’t waiting for more orders or only posting once or twice a week. It’s not hard and it’s kinda the whole point!

So that’s part 1 of this series of why we think you should shop with us. It’s not a very exciting one but it’s key.

And while I’m here. This parcel box on Carden Place is a god send. If you are the absolute tube who consistently jams it up with your over sized boxes then I really hope ye catch yer jacket pocket on a door handle soon.

Part 2 of 7 tomorrow - Giving Back.

Whats New?

I broke my own promise to myself that I would write regularly on here. As I’ve said before - its as much for myself as it is for anyone else. I like being able to look back and see what’s changed, what’s remained and what I didn’t see coming.! So here goes!

We’ve been really busy trying to pull together a variety of new designs over the last few months. Its been a challenge. I’m not at my best just now - see the last blog post from July here - and with working from home my line between day job and Doric has merged to an extent I’m not comfortable with. Although I’m very fortunate to be working I still have that part of me the resents the intrusion into my “life”. And so I’ve found myself spending less time up in Doric HQ because of this. But I still have to get stuff done so all that happens is I end up with tighter deadlines! Lesson Learned there. And I’ve had a shot of enthusiasm from some screen printed designs that I can do myself - that’s helped me a lot.

So what’s new?

• Restock of the Jaws Tees and some new kids ones in grey with more of a restock to follow (blue hopefully end of October).

• The latest design from local creative Mimi Hammill will be launched at Curated Aberdeen on 9th October with them going online that night. There are Tees in Mango and Blue plus Mango Hoodies. All screen printed by us in house. : )

• After that we will be launching another design with a Halloween vibe - on or around 31st Oct but possibly at the November Curated Aberdeen. Not a scary one - just a fun one! This will come in Burgundy Tees/Hoodies for adults and kids. Again - all screen printed in house by us.

• Then we’ll be looking ahead to the collaboration with Big Up the Deen! This will be in the form of Decks, Tees and some other merch. We hope to share some news on that one very soon including how/when we will launch it.

• We will also be back at Curated Aberdeen in Oct as above and November too - 5th to the 7th.

• December will see us somewhere too - more news on that soon though.

• We are also going to be adding someone to the team this week. We’ll announce that at the weekend/start of next week. And after that we’ll be on the hunt for a local star to be number 5 on the team - I’m not keen on even numbers! : )

So until then - shout if you have any questions about our stuff and thank you very much for supporting. I’m hoping that after the last 18 months or so we can make 2022 a massive year for us as we celebrate our 5th Bday in March.

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