Hospital Trip!

“Rumours of my demise are greatly exaggerated.”

The last time I was in hospital I was about 6 and I’d swallowed a bit of Lego.

But cutting straight to the point. I had blood coming from my rear for longer than I should have let it be. It’s left me drained mentally and physically for a long time.

The other week I got a colonoscopy and the awesome team at ARI removed some nasty things. But I have to go back to get more removed. But good news is it’s not “serious”. And by serious I mean cancer.

But i suppose it could have been and I’ve been living with that thought in my mind for too long. I’m 100% sure that many people die/get seriously ill because they’re too embarrassed to get something checked out. Or too busy at work. Or hope it’ll just go away…..

I sat on it all too long and sitting hasn’t been fun

So don’t do that. Tell yer doctor. Get an appointment. Get it seen to.

I can absolutely assure you it’s neither embarrassing nor that painful.

Not to say I’m looking forward to the next appointment but it’s lifted a weight off my shoulders.

Maybe this will encourage someone else to get checked out.

Hope so.

Cheers!

PS no. They did not find that 40+ year old bit of Lego!

PPS I’m fully back to screen printing the usual Aberdeen related T-Shirts and clothing now! : )

North East Open Studios 2026 - Thank you!

Just finding the time to reflect on North East Open Studios 2026 at Doric Studio.!

This year we did two things differently from the previous couple of years:

1. Shorter time. This year we did one weekend. The hope was that this would encourage more folk in that time and have less time for me standing about. That certainly worked!

2. Set up something for people to screen print. Not everyone is comfortable coming in to the studio and chatting straight away. So having something to focus on gave people something to have a go at and not be too focused on chat. Although we had plenty of that!

All in all it was a really successful weekend by any measurement. I wanted to take an accurate count of visitors but lost track at 13 by the first 40 mins of the Saturday. Unreal!

I estimate we had about 100 visitors in that 2 days. That’s around the same as previous years in less than half the time. Again, unreal!

Plenty of people had a go at printing, whether they used their own old tees or some blanks from us. And the age range was great - sub 10 year olds to plus 60 year olds. It was great to be asked questions and have people interested. I spend a lot of time on my own so its brilliant to have these kind if chats. Conversations covered everything. Architecture, Aberdeen, Art, Printing, Clothing Brands, Music, Film, VHS. So much.

Visitors included:

The son of the gentleman who designed the AFC Badge. We had spoke via DM years ago when we released an Aberdeen Football Club inspired logo. His father approved. AFC did not! : (

The son of the Architect who designed the building our studio is in. Fantastic to meet him and chat about it.

A student from the States who had worked in a screen printing shop! Great chat!

Thanks to everyone who came past. You also bought a lot of stuff. Really appreciate that too.

Until next year, cheers!

5 things I'm thankful of Doric Studios for!

Over my life I've either cultivated or naturally grown a sort of grumpy, Victor Meldrew, Larry David type persona. In almost all the complaining I do its pretty much for laughs. I am a very lucky guy and I know it.

And so here’s the 5 things that I'm thankful for with Doric Studio!

1. Learning new skills. It's probably safe to say now that I'm not a “career” person, so work related training is non-existent. With Doric Studio I knew I'd have to learn new things but I didn’t realise how much, to what extent and the pleasure I'd get from it. Screen Printing. I know I go on about it a lot. Screen Printing. Screen Printing. Say it three times in a mirror and a giant ink monster appears. But yeah. It’s been 10 years pretty much and I'm still learning, still enjoying and looking to do more, be braver. Add to that all the other stuff for business; website, social media, photography, video, it’s a long list. By no means am I an expert but I feel like I've built up knowledge with experience.

2. Getting out and about. People talk about getting out of your comfort zone. I know where my one is, in fact I'm lucky to have few. But standing behind a table and rail selling your heart and soul can be uncomfortable! Even now. But I still crack on, with the occasional moment where I decide not to! However, on the whole I think when you come and see us at an event you won’t leave thinking I don’t give a shit, haven’t put in any effort, don’t want to talk etc. I’m happy enough once I get going and enjoy the chats with folk!

3. Creative endeavour. Coming up with ideas, playing with colours, designing stuff. It’s very good for me. Good for society. I enjoy it in every aspect. Whether it’s writing captions or blogs like this, or videos, let alone the designs themselves! Its one of the reasons I started this whole thing in the first place.

4. Sense of achievement. I try to get better at celebrating this. I tend to put too much down to luck, although that does have a lot to do with it. And of course, everyone who I work with. But, it's still me pulling all the strings and making it work and every now and again I take the time to look back and say “hey, that’s pretty cool”. See this Blog Post for some evidence!

5. People! From the photos you send me/tag us in, to those I meet at events. Amazing. And all the folks that also have businesses in Aberdeen that I've met. It all adds to the enjoyment. The conversations I’ve had over the years have been great. From Seagulls, to Peep Peeps and everything in between it’s great to hear folks stories here in Aberdeen. I hope we do the city proud!

Seven Wonders of Aberdeen - Part 2 The Denburn

SEVEN WONDERS OF ABERDEEN PART 2 REVEAL.!!

The Denburn.

The inspiration for doing this one is twofold.

One.

Skateboard Magazine 1989. I was 13 and was skateboard daft. Seeing Aberdeen and the Denburn on the front cover of the skate mags and getting to see pro skaters in action at the Exhibition Centre (Exy) for the The Outlaw Ramp Jam was mind blowing. The Denburn has long been a skate spot here and has fairly recently been getting a really nice spruce up by Upper Denburn Gardens, where they continue to keep it tidy.

Two.

When I first got into skateboarding and heard about the Denburn I had no idea what it was all about. No internet, no photos, no friends in the know. My grandparents lived nearby in Thistle Court. One day my Granda was curios after me telling him and so we took a walk down to have a look! We didn’t think to check the roof. But it’s a nice memory.

And so that’s why it’s my second of the 7 Wonders. It doesn’t have to always be about aesthetics, sometimes places and buildings are special because of the personal memories they hold.

These T-Shirts are all hand screen printed by us in a magic way.

CMYK.

Flick through the photos to see it come together.

Thanks to Darren McAllister aka dmcaptures7 on instagram for the photograph. Top man!

And cheers to Ollie and James at Peacocks for helping with the separations on this!

I aim to get these printed on heavy white tees front print and back print versions by end July or start of August.

Test prints looked great as you can see.

#cmyk #screenprint #aberdeen #tshirt #clothingbrandً

What Has Doric Studio Ever Achieved?

We’ve started the blog again! To kick off I wanted to post this one from social media earlier this year. What Has Doric Studio Ever Achieved? Apart from making cracking Aberdeen themed Tee Shirts, we think we’ve achieved a lot and plenty more! Thanks to you all for making it happen. And so here it is:

In an effort to rewire my brain, reduce the self deprecation and learn to enjoy things I’m gonna share this:

My Magnificent Seven with Doric over the 9 years. In no order:

1️⃣ Starting up and still existing. We work hard, haven’t ever given up or intentionally slowed down. Turn up to do anything for 9 years while doing a full time job through yer forties. We had no contacts, no inside track, no money and no friends. In spite of that we’ve kept at it! 💪

2️⃣ A community. Start any business and you’ll hopefully get a lot of initial interest. We definitely did. But things always change and interest drops off naturally. But we worked hard to keep things interesting for us and for anyone interested! The return customers are absolute stars. And being away from events for a couple of years meant when we returned it was a real in person reminder that people care. And that’s ace.

3️⃣ Linked to that is things like sponsoring Hutchies sets at Drummonds. A place I spent a lot of time in my youth and means a lot to me. Honoured to have our logo up there!

4️⃣ Raised some money and donated stuff. Without that community we couldn’t have raised the money we have for various charities.

5️⃣ From that we got a mention in Scottish Parliament. That’s pretty awesome. And I owe you all thanks for that and a massive heap of the credit.!

6️⃣ Collaborations. Artists, photographers, videographers and local businesses. We’ve worked with tons of people.! I hope that it’s been as much of a pleasure for them as it has been for me.

7️⃣ Art Gallery. Having a deck in an exhibition in the Aberdeen Art Gallery is amazing to think of. One of my designs from the 2nd year and screen printed by us in our studio.! Go see it and other cool local curios at the About Aberdeen exhibition.

Sometimes i think I’ve accomplished all I really want to with Doric. And then sometimes I think it’s nothing at all.

I’m not looking to take over the world, or even Aberdeen! Where to next? Not sure. But I’m proud of where we’ve come from and where we’ve got to.

Thanks to everyone for helping. No such thing as a one man band.

#aberdeen #community

New Year, New Name, Same Brand.

New Year. New Name.

Same Brand.

Pretty much.

I’ve been toying with the idea of the name for a few years now. Doric Skateboards had become perhaps too restrictive in the mind of potential customers and maybe my own head, whilst other folk tended to just say “Doric”.

And so to celebrate the first year in the Studio at 35, I thought let’s do this.

So Doric Studio it is and so shall it be.

Website is back online!

You’ll start to see the logo replaced in some designs as we reprint over the next wee while.

Thanks for the support on the clearance sale - it went a long way. Appreciate it!

Keep yer eyes peeled soon for a wee giveaway to help spread the word on our name change and to give a few folk a nice prize.!

Cheers

Gary

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.