Clear the Decks

As I posted on FB this week I’ve been digging through the clearance stuff and having a think about how that reflects what i’m doing and how i’m doing it. This definitely signals a change that started earlier this year when i started migrating my clothing to more environmentally friendly stock.

When i’m left with excess stock its either one or a combination of a few of these:

• Totally missed the mark on the design/didn’t resonate;

• Getting stuff printed by a 3rd party often includes minimum numbers (perhaps too high for me);

• Too enthusiastic about stuff - particularly if i’m printing. I enjoy the process so much i can get carried away;

• Not asking people what they think before going for it;

• General anxiety to ensure i have enough sizes/colours of designs.

So pre-orders seem to be the way ahead. I’ve always done informal pre-orders - no money exchanging hands until i have the product ready. But that’s left me stung on a few occasions when folk change their mind/lose their job or just ghost me - no criticism there, shit happens.

The Stallan pre-order worked really well although due to shortages i’m still waiting to fulfil 4 orders. But overall it seemed to be a good way to gauge interest and only produce the tees that i needed with a few extras for the website. Decks are a slightly different proposition as for ones i get printed there are minimum orders and for the ones i print it takes a great deal of effort so i have to do a decent amount to make it worthwhile (in terms of time).

But for clothing i can be in much better control. Some of the new tees i’ll be launching soon will be printed DTG (direct to garment) by a local printed Grey Area Ink. Pete used to be a screen printer so knows his onions in the print game.! It also means i’ll be supporting another local business on a more permanent basis. Doing this should give us more control to produce what we need, when we need it. My tiny wee loft space is only so big.! I’ll also be working on a more formal basis with a local designer soon - more news on that later this month.

So hopefully in the future i won’t need to do too many clearance type sales. That means less of those “MEGA SALE GRAB A BARGAIN” type posts which i’m sure we are all sick of and reduces the amount of future landfill that i’m directly contributing to.

This year we’ve missed about 4 pop ups due to the global crisis so its reduced our capacity to sell. But the upside is the website sales have been much higher than before (thanks for that!). And i’ve spent less on stock - mostly because i’ve had no choice with places closed for a while. At the start of lockdown I held off on “selling” posts and did a bit more sharing of other local businesses which I feel like I’ve always done and still do. But after a wee while I felt like it was time to go again with my own stuff. And that’s when we kicked off the Stallan colab.

I’ll stick the link below to the clearance page on the website. Some gems in there for good prices.! : ) Have a look see. Maybe give it a share with someone you think would appreciate it.

Thanks for reading and thanks for the support. Always appreciated and never taken for granted.

www.doricskateboards.com/clearance

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…!

Doric Design Competition

Well that was fun wasn’t it?

The idea for this came from a chap called Chris Rae who runs a drone photography business called Aperture Aerial Photography. We are both doing the same course at RGU at the moment and the idea of a design competition popped up! So thanks for the idea!

I think we had over 70 entries in 14 days.!

It started out as just a deck design, a one off.

But as it went i thought we should expand it. So I thought stickers and tees too.

To be honest we could have had 5 deck winners easily. So i whittled down that list to to 5 or so and sent to Mike from Transition. And thankfully he sent back a top 5 in almost the same order as me! Same winner so that was perfect.

Neils Cull the Gulls/People is spot on. So much so that we’ve decided to do a full run of this in the future.! It definitely has some fun about it but also a little bit of menace which i love. Keep your eyes peeled for this later this year.

Then we thought about a T-Shirt. Again - loads of possibilities but one stood out for a few reasons. It was very very local and niche. A reference to a notorious harbour bar in Aberdeen - Peep Peeps. No longer with us but immortalised on Britain’s Toughest Bars! So that was a great shout from Phil. Some locals are going to be sporting this tee very soon! : )

Then we picked two designs to do as stickers. Roberts Aberdeen Football Club inspired one and Stewarts Keith Haring one were fantastic and will be produced soon. They will be available on the website very soon with all profits going towards Mental Health Aberdeen.

Next we picked some runners up for some extra prizes! A very generous local donated £25 for a Hobbycraft gift voucher and that went straight to Zack! Really loved his drawing of Union Terrace and some Burns for added Scottish!

We had to pick another 5 for sticker packs so congrats to Justin, Andrew, Patrick, Livi and Sandra.! Those packs are winging their way to you folks now (if you haven’t sent me your address go for it!).

And again thanks to all that entered and all the comments. It certainly distracted me from the realities of life at the moment and i hope it did for you too.

Maybe lets do this again next year?

Didn't See This Coming...

Well that’s not quite true. We had warning. Examples. Cautionary tails.

But it looks right now (24th March 2020) that the UK’s decision to go into lockdown may be too late to head off the worst? At least that’s what the experts and infographs say. And we all know how much people trust experts at this point in time. What do they know? More than my mate that’s watched some videos on YouTube from David Ike?

Aye probably. ; )

Anyways.

Where does this leave Doric Skateboards? Well i’m lucky that this doesn’t provide me with any income. Every penny goes back in, plus we always give donations to various causes and of course support a couple of skaters with our merch. Although like most folk i’m concerned about my day job - i’m working from home at the moment but who knows whats round the corner?

Sales have obviously been quiet. I’ve scaled back on sharing “sales” posts but i have to stay positive and look forward to whats next for us. So i’ll maybe see where i am in a week or so and start sharing some stuff again - new colabs etc. The only stuff on social media i am sharing is that stupid March Meet the Maker challenge.! Ha! I’ve started it so i’ll finish.

Any shares, likes, comments, recommendations and reviews online are very very welcome.!

Once this is all over we’ll be kicking off a celebration for our 3rd Birthday which is next week. Plans to follow in the coming weeks. Months?

For now i can still post stuff if anyone needs/wants something. All my stock is bagged and boxed up safely.

Until then - stay safe and i hate to say this BUT think twice about going for a skate. If you injure yourself and end up in A&E? Well this ain’t the time..

Finally - another wee nudge to check out our People We Like page. Perhaps someone there that could do with some support in any way you can.

Oh! And keep your eyes peeled on social media this week - i’ll do a live screen printing session and you can fire questions/insults at me.

Cheers

Gary

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.

Donuts for Daze and other news....

Its been a really busy start to the year for Doric Skateboards. After the Christmas madness we took the time to plan out some things for the year ahead.

If you follow us on social media you’ll maybe have caught a glimpse of the new design.! Really stoked to be working with local loon Chris Graham again. Check him out on Instagram here. Release date is Saturday 29th February.

This new one is a ramp up for us in a few ways:

• Tail graphics. We’ve never done anything on the tail of the screen printed designs. Its definitely a bit harder but we’ve engineered something that works.!

• 3 colour topside logo. Way way back we did two colour topside logos for the Jetpack Dinosaur collaboration. This time we’ve went 3. Now i know that a lot of people simply grip tape over the topside but i prefer to do them anyways. And doing 3 colours requires a lot of time and patience. Working within the concave of the deck can be really tricky - its all muscle memory eventually though.!

• 6 screen graphic. For the main graphics we used 6 separate screens/layers. This is on top of the 4 for the tail and the 3 for the topside. That’s a total of 13 passes needed to complete one deck. I think the finished article will show where that effort has went.

• Multi screen clothing. For the last collaboration deck we did with Fit Like we dipped our toe into screening the clothing too. That was all one colour stuff. This time its multi colour/screen designs so we’ve invested in some new equipment to facilitate. Excited to get going with it and show it all off.!

So keep your eyes peeled for the reveal early/mid February for the release on the 29th Feb.!

In other news:

• Organic clothing. We’ll slowly move on to clothing that is at very least ethically sound but also coming from organic cotton. I’m well aware that i’m producing “stuff” and sometimes the world/us don’t need more.! So the least i can do is make sure its better for the environment. The goal by the end of the year is to have all tees/hoodies done with this sort of clothing.

• Future collaborations/designs. We’ve got a firm date for another deck and clothing design plus other new bits and pieces in the first 6 months.

• 3rd Bday Bash. Possibly schedule another Bday Bash this April.!

• Pop Ups. Some planned already - others TBC.

• We added a load of screen printing tutorials to the YouTube channel. Please head there and subscribe.! : ) We also added it to the website here.

• Last year we added a page to the website that features people, business’s, organisations, brands, artists etc that we admire. Check it out here. You might find something you want/need!

• We also restocked some of our stuff. Plenty of PoP tees in Black, White and Olive Green. !

• And to make room for new stuff you can grab the Scotch Tee design on sale for a bargain £10 posted.!! Black Front Print, Black Back Print, White Front Print, White Back Print and a kids one (aged 3-4 years old) for a fiver.!

Next month we’ll have revealed the new design in its entirety - we hope you like it.! Until then - thanks for the support. : )

2019 Review!

2019 was a busy year. Perhaps too busy! Some stuff fell off the list and I maybe stretched myself at times and rushed a few things!

Lessons learned.

But thought it was worth a wee chronological look back at the highlights!.

Doric x Honk Part 2 -Jan/Feb

The year kicked off with a collaboration with my old mucker Justin Lawrie aka Honk! This one we called Freedom. Freedom to do what you want (as long as it isn’t something despicable!). Tees and decks were done and this was my best multi screen print to that point. 4 screens that combined to create the graphic plus another to create the logo on top and bottom. First run was sold out as were the tees - so we added some more. Lesson learned there as I still have a few left. I’m not Santa Cruz yet. 😂

These went on display at the flagship Brewdog bar for a while - really appreciated that opportunity to give a little more exposure.

You can still grab a deck and a tee!

Doric Drop In Number 2 - 8th February

We put on our second Doric Drop in at Transition in February. The idea was/is to attract those folk that stay away. Maybe they are intimidated, maybe its been a while, maybe they just want to hang around the first time and see the skatepark. This one wasn’t as well attended as the one the previous (Nov 2018) but we still saw some folk come through for it and at very least we are trying something.

AALF - Arts Across Learning Festival with Creative Learning and Small Stories - Feb/March

Around February/March time we were lucky enough to get involved with AALF - Arts Across Learning Festival. We were honoured to be asked by Creative Learning to pair up with our pal Small Stories to create a number of workshops for primary school children. This all culminated in us screen printing some of the designs to donate to the schools. You can read about it here!

Doric 2nd year Bday bash - March

March saw us take over Transition Extreme for our 2nd bday bash.! Cake. Pop up. Free skate. What more could you want?

We had folk from Fraserburgh, Peterhead, Elgin, Inverness, Perth, Glasgow and of course Aberdeen all there having a skate. Same time next year? Aye maybe!

Inspired Nights on the Green/NuArt - April

April 18th saw NuArt return to Aberdeen. Its never really away - all the artwork remains and its great to see it change over the seasons - but each year see’s a new influx of artists and events.!

We were lucky enough to get a pitch at the Inspired Nights event -if you haven’t been please check it out next year! Good food, drink, music and a great place to join in the NuArt tours or just explore on your own. This year we were also asked if we wanted to provide a little something for the artists, so we did a limited run of Doric Skyline tees using the colours of NuArt. We added a little something to the design to differentiate - look closely to see!

We returned to Inspired Night another two or three times during the summer and glad to say we didn’t get rained off once!

Chris Graham - Collaboration Spider from Deep Fried Mars - April

Around the same time in April we launched a new design. Spider from Deep Fried Mars - designed by local lad Chris Graham. Check out his instagram here.!

This all started with a Spider with wee lightning bolts in his eyes. This made me think of Bowie’s Spider from Mars. And whenever i think of Mars i think of Mars Bars….and so it became Spider from Deep Fried Mars (deep fried mars are a bit of a delicacy in certain chip shops up here!). This was our second dabble into deck printed “digitally”. We’ll use this when it works and this one certainly did! These decks flew out and we’ll look to always hold a few.! You can grab one here.

Really happy to have worked with Chris and he’ll continue to be part of the Doric team for the foreseeable future if he’ll have us!

Fraser Price - 1st Doric Team Rider - April

We’d never really thought much about a “team” before. Seen a load of brands do teams before they are even a brand. I take my time with everything (mostly) so it took me an age to make this decision. Once i did it was easy to pick the first rider. I’ll say it until i’m blue in the face - the first thing i’m looking for is attitude. I’ve got zero interest in grumpy, wannabe tough guys who skate with a grimace.

Fraser ticked all the boxes. Good guy. Supportive. Enthused. Empathetic. And of course - he can skate.! Look forward to working more with Fraser next year! Thanks to him for getting the Doric brand!

Doric x John Walter Collaboration - April/May/June

Around early 2018 a chance encounter saw me chatting to John Walter on Instagram where he suggested getting his mural on a deck. For anyone not in Aberdeen - John was commissioned a few years back to create a mural consisting of “Aberdeen” people (i don’t think thats the exact wording of the brief but you get the idea!). The very first Doric deck design was of Aberdeen’s Annie Lennox - John had also included her in his mural so i was very excited to do this one! Some time passed and it wasn’t until this we really got going - i produced a test deck and then a proper “artist proof”. John was involved in the Look Again Festival here in Aberdeen so it made sense to launch the deck then. I won’t lie - i was very nervous about showing him the deck. My screen printing has improved but these were a real test.! Happy to say John was really happy with them and you never know - we might do something again in the future!

Pete Barrett - 2nd Doric Team Rider - 21st June

The wonderful side of social media is the ability to reach out and connect with people. I’ve been lucky enough to be involved with some of the skate groups on Facebook over the years where I’ve met (virtually and in real terms) some great folks! One of those is Pete! When i started Doric Skateboards he was on board straight away and after meeting him i knew that if i had a “team” he’d be on it! So i was really pleased that he was up for it! More from the team next year and maybe an addition or two? Who knows!

Etsy Summer Showcase - June

This years pop up for Etsy was at the Anatomy Rooms. Great venue and a really good laugh. The bum bag was back out and sales were made.! Its always great to see returning customers. And always appreciated. Also - the efforts the Etsy team make (as well as all the other sellers!) is worth a mention!

Broch Skate Club - July

This year we cemented our friendship with our pals in the Broch by screen printing some Broch Skate Club decks to raise money and the profile of their efforts. They are currently hard at work trying to get a major upgrade to the skate park facilities there - i’m always happy to support them. There is no pretension with these folks - just a total community and inclusive vibe. And i’ve had major support from them from day one. Can’t wait to get involved next year with whatever they are doing and in whatever capacity!

Young Creatives Skateboard Screen printing with Gary Kemp Hosted by Peacock Visual Arts - August

In 2018 we dipped our toes into some presentations and workshops. This year we went full on and did a screen yer own deck at Peacock Visual Arts.

Peacock Visual Arts is where i prepare my screens to screen print with. Its where i learned and continue to learn! But i screen all my decks at home. I’ve not really screen printed in front of anyone. I’ve done some videos to showcase it but not really with actual people there!

So doing this and walking people through it was a challenge! But i think the people that signed up enjoyed it. I think next time we could do a two part class - first one design, second one print. Keep your eyes peeled!!

Grays School of Art - YES SKATEBOARDING and 2nd Year Design Students Skateboard Project 

A chance encounter with John Welsh at Transition one evening led to this. John works at Grays and was looking to work with the Denis Law Trust on some skateboard designs. The Denis Law trust had successfully rid the city of No Ball Games signs - perhaps someone could do the same or at least highlight the No Skateboarding signs. Myself and John chatted about various designs over a few months and eventually John produced some absolute belters! They are for sale and in the new year i’ll make some space on the website to try to facilitate this.

Sometime later in the year i was asked to come in and talk to the 2nd Year design students about what i’ve done and skateboard design. Really honoured to do this.! They class of 60 had a project to design a deck with the winning one getting printed. Myself and Adam of IFive and Your Custom Skateboard picked our top 5. Happy to say we both picked 4 of the same! Congratulations to the winner Anca Tomescu for the playing card inspired design.

Doric X Fit Like Collaboration. November 1st.

The latest collaboration was with local artist Fit Like. A play on the the Day of the Dead Sugar Skulls - this one was full of Aberdeen based imagery.

Another chance for me to screen print multi layers that complimented Fit Likes spray paint - i really enjoyed this one and it proved popular. All decks were sold by launch night. Speaking of launch night - we held this at Fierce Bar. A cracking pub that is the flagship for local brewery Fierce Beer. Some serious hangovers the next day for sure.!

This collaboration gave me the first chance to screen print the clothing too. I’ve been building up to it and went for it with this one. We ended up doing nearly 40 T-Shirts, 20 Tote bags, 9 or so hoodies and 20 decks. A few tees remain - grab them here and a few totes - grab those here!

Read more about this collaboration here.

Doric & Friends Drop In at TX - November 23rd

For this Doric Drop in we decided to invite a few folk. The idea was to create a sort of Pop Up event with artists/.makers/organisations/brands. You can read all about it here!

Suffice to say it was a success and plans are afoot to follow up next year with something similar!

Etsy Christmas Showcase

As winter approaches so do events. Really pleased to be part of the local Etsy community. If you’ve never been then keep your eyes open for summer 2020. Its packed full of talented makers/designers etc - and us! ; )

This one was no exception. At most events I’ll get some passing trade - people who’ve never heard of us but like it. But what’s also really exciting is the return of people who’ve made purchases before.

Thanks to all that came and supported all the makers there.!

Christmas in the Quad

This leads us directly onto Christmas in the Quad! Within the confines of the magnificent Marischall College we had our wee hut for two stints this year. Much like the Etsy event we saw plenty of new customers and loads of returning ones.! Can’t thank folk enough for just saying hello - its all much appreciated.!

This last weekend finished on the 22nd and was a really successful one for us.!

And that’s that for 2019 pretty much! We have a wee sale on (discount code DORICBOX gets you 20% off!).

Thank you to everyone who’ve supported us and look out for more in 2020!