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!

What's Happening?

It’s April already and we wanted to share a little blog post on what’s happening at Doric Skateboards right now and what we’ve got planned for the future.

At the time of writing this (Saturday 16th April) I’m not long home from Peacocks Studio here in Aberdeen preparing screens for printing a couple of new designs on their way this year.

We’ll be screen printing skateboards and clothing for a collaboration with local creative @helloradical - really excited about this one. Peep their style in the image below. Its going to be a belter.! Before this one arrives we’ll hopefully have another one ready to go - a cracker from a local guy we’ve worked with before based on the Robert the Bruce statue. : )

End of this month is War of the Thistles at Transition and the Loading Bay. Always happy to sponsor events like this - the first one we sponsored was literally the day or two after we launched 5 years ago. I’ll be there hopefully with a couple of the Doric team to have a watch. Say hello if ye see me!

You can find us in person at Curated Aberdeen every month here in Abedeens’s Bon Accord Centre. The event itself is on every week but I’m only there once a month. Find the details here. Really big thanks to folk who come along and see me there. Its incredibly gratifying that folk come along knowing I’m going to be there. Makes it all very worthwhile. I’m booked there until August but will no doubt be there beyond then plus we’ll be doing some other pop ups else where too. Keep yer ears and eyes open for more on that later.

Until then we’ll be busy working on these new designs and sharing some of the process along the way!

Cheers

Gary

Illusion of Success

Last month I posted up something on social media about not making a sale in 8 days – turned out to be 10 actually. It got some press coverage but the headline may have been misleading for some.

The point I was making wasn’t around feeling sorry myself or concern that I wouldn’t make another sale – I was more trying to redress the balance. The perception people might have is that of success and making loads of money. The truth is of course very different – not just for me but for many.

For all that social media has given us in terms of opportunity to get ourselves seen, it has also allowed us to see others. And compare and contrast.

I see a lot of small/micro business’s online who definitely only talk success. No challenges, no bad days. To me they are missing out on connecting with people. In an effort to finely polish our “brands” you can see these business’s becoming tiny little corporate looking entities. They rarely if ever share any personal information, they follow no-one, engage with no-one, share nothing of anyone else’s. But it seems to work for some. Maybe they’ve found their people that way.

However, I think the key differentiator for most micro/small business’s is the person behind it. Their values, their personality, integrity, character. If we only talk success, avoid sharing our hopes, fears and failures then I think we are only one step from a hyperbolic Apprentice contestant who thinks you can manifest success out of thin air. Or maybe bending the truth about how popular your creations are – hoping that you will attract people who get caught up in hype and FOMO.

What’s more important to you? The perception of “winning” or the truth? Maybe somewhere in the middle?

Social Media seems to be losing the “social” and becoming more “selling”. I’m guilty of it too but I am trying my best to resist that and be more “social”.

Most of us don’t like the hard sale in a shop environment. Why would we like it on our phones? Its all becoming like a billboard. A paid billboard for that matter.

Perhaps the next phase of Social Media will be rougher around the edges. Look at Tik Tok. Huge numbers and certainly to begin with the content was less than polished. But the paid adverts have started there too and then the anxiety for small business’s start.

Should I get a slick video promo made?

Do I need to do professional photos?

Should I “fake it till I make it”?

I’ve done them all but also try to keep things grounded. Its not the same for everyone but it works for me. I see success as feeling happy with what I am doing and how I am doing it. The outcome from that could result in financial success – if that’s your starting point then maybe the illusion of success will get you there quicker. But the journey won’t be as much fun. Success should be defined by you and not anyone else’s metrics.

And for all the worry I had about not having a sale things turned around pretty quickly.

June has without doubt been the best month for Doric Skateboards for a variety of reasons. None of them sales related - we’ve had better months for sure.

Here are some highlights:

• LinkedIn Live with Yekemi Otaru chatting all things Marketing, Creativity, Social Media -watch it on YouTube here;

• Newspaper articles about my approach to having a bad week in terms of sales;

• Newspaper articles about my involvement with Curated Aberdeen;

• Social Media coverage for all of the above;

• Asked to talk to young folks for a second time for The Prince’s Trust;

• Launched one collaboration – planned two more;

• Attended Curated Aberdeen and had a great time;

• A few shops enquiring about stocking Doric;

• And had a meeting about something that will possibly be the biggest achievement of my life. If it comes off - I can’t wait to share it.

All of this feels like the culmination of the last 4 years – momentum. Like the penny arcades – each coin is your effort and with enough and some strategy you will eventually knock that wee pile off the end. Maybe you’d rather be a high roller throwing all your money on the tables - that might just work. But you probably won’t find me there. : )

Stallan X Doric Skateboards

Thought it was worth the time to document the latest collaboration that has culminated in this cracking design.

When i started Doric Skateboards a few years ago i very quickly learned the depth of talent Aberdeen has to offer in terms of creativity and design. This was helped when we launched coincidentally at roughly the same time as the first NuArt festival. It was amazing to see the talent in the city via Look Again, Painted Doors and Throw Up Gallery. I’ll be the first to admit i didn’t know much at all and certainly didn’t really know anyone involved.

Even the concept of collaboration didn’t occur to me when I started - i just didn’t really have that word in my vocabulary! And to be honest I don’t think that its easy to collaborate with established artists when you start up. Why would anyone want to work with you? What do you bring to the table? But slowly I made contacts and dare i say friends with people in that community. And so a few years in i had met Stu Alan a few times at various events and was aware of his deck he designed for the skate shop Granite Reef in the past. And obviously a fan of his art - the pop culture influences and love of the film franchise (i hate that word) Aliens was totally appealing to me.

When I approach Stu i had no idea what he had in mind but he did hint at a metal theme and William Wallace was mentioned. I think what he’s produced is absolutely top notch - i kinda just stared at it every now and again when he sent the artwork. I also love that its a totally different direction for Doric Skateboard designs - its still very much Aberdeen and Scotland - but its way darker that anything from before. Its definitely attracted some new people and satisfied some established customers with some much wanted darkness!

This was the first time we ever did a proper pre-sale and i think its worked out ok - please let us know what we could do different? Obviously we missed our target of mid -May but all things considered i hope you can forgive that delay. Hopefully well worth the wait. I think for the tee shirts its worked as i haven’d made many extra and so there’s no waste.

So big thanks to Stu for his work and to everyone who’s supported it. I’ve added some spare tees to the website and a few decks from this first drop so if you missed out on the pre-order you can hopefully grab something now.

Here are some links to Stuarts work including his email address. Go check it out and see some of his work including some cracking commissions.

www.etsy.com/uk/market/stallan

www.instagram.com/stallan_/

stallan.artist@gmail.com

And look out for another tee using this design in some way in the coming months…!

Fresh out the oven - Donuts for Daze

Online now.!

Well that was a massive effort.! And a lot of lessons learned. Some painful - as are most lessons worth learning.

Over 3 years ago when i was sitting at my desk facing possible redundancy i had made the decision to do something creative. Something that wouldn’t cost a lot and that i could control. At that point the idea of Doric Skateboards was pretty much as it is now - i wanted to screen print as much of my own stuff as possible. Its taken until last year to venture into clothing. A couple of factors contribute to this.

Mainly Time and Confidence.

It takes time to plan venturing into new process’s. And i really had to wait for the down time of post Christmas to achieve that. And thanks to all the lovely people that support us i ended up with the budget to purchase new equipment too.

A four screen rig, new screens (you can’t use the same type of screens on a skateboard as a tee.! ), squeegees, ink (again - some different inks can be used.).

Its been a tough learning curve and i hope i’ve got that message across on social media. I’m not sharing the process to show how busy i am or anything like that. It’s meant to be a way of being totally transparent. I’ll share mistakes and concerns. No faking it (although i did used to think “fake it till you make it” was a way forward). I got very despondent that the tees etc weren’t printed “perfectly”. I’ve kinda got over that and realise i am still learning and i hope that people who support the brand will be ok with that too. If i wanted perfection i’d do them a different way - this way you can see the work that’s went into it all.

I’m not a confident person in many ways. I allow that negative voice to dictate - sometimes its my voice, sometimes its other peoples. But i’ve pushed through and am really proud of the new range. Its the fullest, most complete range we’ve done yet. Big thanks to Designer Chris Graham - amazing work by him again.

We both hope you like the new stuff - generally Doric Skateboards is a playful brand and this design keeps that. Although wait until you see the next design/collaboration. This one ain’t playful… ; )

Until then - thank you for all the positivity sent my way. Never taken for granted, always appreciated.

Cheers

Gary.