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Wearing all caps running a small business – the challenges, designs, and growth of a young designer selling graphic tees
Vintage Supply
Independent small business selling graphic t-shirts

Motto
You can’t change your face, but you can change your shirt.

Description
Vintage Supply aims to sell high-quality t-shirts that takes a retro spin on hip cultures of past and present, from Michael Jordan to Bibbles from Barbie.

Do not wear if you do not want people staring at you.

Credits
  • Russell Lee
  • Timi Akindoyeni, Nikhil Ninan, & Hayden Wong (photographers)

What I did
  • Brand identity and naming
  • Campaign & marketing roll outs
  • Email marketing
  • Art direction & experimentation, including photoshoots & video editing
  • Social media, copywriting, & tone of voice
  • Website design using Figma
  • Product & packaging design
  • Sourcing and collaborating with event organisers, influencers, & suppliers
  • Selling at Glebe Markets & Sneakerland ‘23

Tools
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Adobe Lightroom
  • Adobe Illustrator
  • Adobe Premiere Pro
  • Adobe inDesign
  • Figma
  • Klaviyo
  • Meta Ads
  • Google Keyword research

Timeline
Started since 2021, currently paused.




I wanted to design cool shirts which would make people look twice.

A shirt coloured in care from its overall design right down to the attention given to every seam and centimetre.

Presenting Vintage Supply...






“I just noticed the small details, and it’s insane.”

– Nathan, an American musician & designer, viewing Vintage Supply’s Chicago Bulls tee
The theme of the Chicago Bulls shirt was their double three-peat featuring the big three Bulls players, iconic photos, and their trophies.
Each t-shirt has their own theme woven in the details. The Kobe Bryant theme was centred around his no-excuse ‘mamba mentality’ where his limitations are his greatest hurdles.


Creating a neutral visual system that complements the brand’s experimental designs

With all the design work needed in a business, it was crucial to have coherent visual system to unify all the experimental work within the brand. Particularly a logo that could be slapped on top of any video, social media post, t-shirt label, and so on, without looking out of place.

I decided to keep the rudimentary design elements very simple and neutral – like the logo and colour palette – to be flexible and not get in the way of other more outstanding visuals. A modern Y2K-inspired logo, a beige colour palette, and a retro photo filter look helped tie everything together visually. This identity was applied across digital, social, email, and print media.



Logo application – including packaging & web.