Brand shape and creation, it came from an overcast day in Newtown. Walking and thinking of purpose? What is my purpose? How do I find it?
It didn’t take long as I would walk past HUFFER, the Nz based brand on the main street of Newtown. This sparked something within, the entire day I couldn’t shake the idea of brand creation and building something huge. Names just started running through my mind. It didn’t take long and I had complied a list of names, many with Japanese undertones. To be honest I’m not sure what the obsession with Japan and their culture was at the time but its funny how that came full circle with our first street wear capsule having a heavy Japanese influence.
Finding a name and purpose for the brand took time, I wanted wait out the honey-moon stage. This is something I thought I had concocted to ensure I would never settle for mediocrity. Settling for ordinary graphics bit me in the ass many times as I would pay $300-500 on designs to only decide not to use them. This was a common practice for quite some time, it comes down to being ultra critical of the product Crewtop puts out. I have always wanted the brands visual outlook to seem bigger than it actually is, that fake it till you make it mentality.
Its a mental game realistically, if you were a food critic/food blogger you’re almost always going to be more enticed by the visually appealing product first, its just human nature. We look to apply the same rules to our product and website, this is to ensure the best overall outcome.
Anyway I digress, from that starting week a fire was lit within. The fire may have been lit but the traction took its sweet time to build, 4 years of building something with vey minimal return. That then inspired the brand shift that came in 2020. We went street! What does that even mean? For us it meant clothes we love to wear: graphic tees, coach jackets and cool fucking hats! Before we can get to the switch from coastal to street we need to break down the journey so far.
Looking at our initial roots of the brand it was an attempted surf label trying to compete with the form brands like TCSS, RVCA and the likes… Naive really. We went from expecting instant success to crashing and burning on many occasions, one drop over 2.5 years was the catalyst for me looking to change. That and the fact I was selling an ocean based brand and I hadn’t been to the beach in 3 years, felt like a gimmick.
Along came 2020, its not working and I’m slowly starting to realise this, its dragging on and at that time the 1-3k iv put into it felt like too much to let go… ha wouldn’t I be surprised when in our back end of 2020 drops we would then cover that entire 3 years build up in a matter of months. The change came on February 7th 2020, A day to remember and a day we will look to celebrate for many years to come. On that day we announced to the small audience of 600 that we will be taking a new venture, the write up read,
“2020 Vision, we are moving in a new direction this year. Super stoked for the 600 of you that came for the foundation of our small company but as we look to grow we want to be 100 % invested into the brand and I found with the products I had planned to create I wasn’t wearing them myself and rocking. So rather than doing a half assed job I decided to shift the brand whilst we are still small and move towards streetwear and fashion.”
I think the change was the best possible outcome for myself personally. Im excited for the product, I’m not reluctant to receive it and thats a huge difference to a year or so ago. Drop days are so exciting, the product I’m creating will almost sell itself and allow us to build in other areas. We will start to inject Benny into the socials to spread brand awareness and unleash that cheeky outgoing personality that he is.
Speaking of Benny, from the very start he was backing us all the way, without hesitation. It started with Benny leaning over the mid console in the car to join in on vision chatter and brand planning. These small injections of confidence in our vision means more to us than he will ever know. He doesn’t know the impact he had on the formative years of the brand, even if we try to spell it out, it was exactly what was needed at the time.
A few special mentions whilst we are on this tangent, my wife! The lady who lets my imagination run wild, she never shuts down my ideas and always listens and looks at my digital plans of the future. It takes a lot of patience, trust me!
My brain never stops I’m always looking to grow the brand in all sorts of areas and she allows me to unload and do so.
To the man in the mirror the level head to my chaos! Danny boy
From the very first call I made it landed in Danny’s lap. Thats essentially where we came up with the honey moon stage. Its exactly as it sounds, two weeks of sitting on an idea and ensuring it sticks.
The week of creating the brand we spoke for hours on how and what direction we wanted to head in. For us at that time it was surf/ocean based adventure! Living the dream type brand. The biggest take away with moving in that type of direction was from mum explaining we need to actually live their adventure aspect if we wanted to sell the product.
Words could not be truer in growing the brand, live the message you’re trying to sell.
“Growth Through Community”
The ethos we are looking to grow by is growing the community around us.
Watering the seeds around us with love and encouragement to ensure they grow to the heights they deserve.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, if you got this far I want to test the analytical side of the website, hit our dms with "Done"
Thank you.
1 comment
done!!!!