I found the answers on the super dry blog!
http://www.superdry.com/blog/2010/06/18/richy-designs/
Fa chat with richy baldwin.
have you ever wondered where the designs for our iconic tees and hoods come from? well our very own in-house graphic designer, richy baldwin has been working with superdry since the humble beginnings. we took some time to learn about the man behind the designs.
“everybody who’s expressed an interest asks me where i get my inspiration. it’s a mixture of a long-standing obsession with design and type, specifically fifties americana.
i have been travelling to america now for 20 years across the length and breadth of the country, always taking photos, collecting old signage and packaging along the way.
american garage culture inspires me the most, the cars, the motorbikes, forecourts, gas pumps and signage; the variety and diversity of the logos that were created back then suits and is perfectly adaptable to what we want to achieve with our vintage tee graphics.
also i have been heavily involved in music since my teens; playing, touring and recording in various bands. in the last decade i was a semi-pro musician in a punk band touring around the world at festivals and venues far and wide. this has inspired many of my designs in our ‘rocker’ tee category; as has my love of vintage motorbikes which i collect and ride.
as i found my feet in tee design i became more confident in presenting my own concepts based around american ‘garage-land’ culture as i call it. this was also born out of my frustration in not being able to find any in the uk or the states this genre of tee so, in a slightly self-indulgent way, i began designing tees for myself. one of superdry’s fundamental philosophies is, ‘we won’t design anything we won’t wear ourselves’.
i was blessed with a talent for art, which worked out well as i had no interest in academia so my formal education was based solely on creativity and not much else, i consequently left school in 1981 with a brace and an ‘o’ level.
at least i knew the area of work i would be able to pursue as i had left school without any prospects of a job; the early eighties were still hung over from the social chaos of the late seventies so jobs were hard to come by.
a year or so earlier i had a life-changing epiphany. i saw a sign writer painting a facia board, i watched in awe as he formed perfect lettering by hand. i knew in that instant what i wanted to do – become a sign writer.
it’s already been quite well publicised that julian dunkerton, the founder of cult, started off his retail working life on a market stall in cheltenham selling punk t-shirts and accessories. i was a customer when one of my business cards found its way into his hand; this was to be the start of a long-standing working and personal relationship.
fast forward again to the early nineties, another fortuitous meeting took place; i met james holder whilst delivering pop to stratford. yes, i did all sorts of jobs when work was thin on the ground, as my brother owned a drinks wholesale business i was obliged to help out on occasion. james was running his own deli coffee shop at the time, still a frustrated designer, he struck me straight away as a man of intent, he had a buzz about him that was infectious. our paths were to cross again sooner than i realised when he moved to cheltenham to set up another coffee shop with julian dunkerton, ‘soho coffee co.’ was born and our paths would be inextricably linked from that day.
superdry came to life in 2003. i was actually at the ‘meeting’ in the pub, where james, julian and some hardy drinkers were chewing the fat on a brand name for the soon-to-be clothing company, ‘superdry’. early ideas for a brand name were to say the least, not right. it took a trip to tokyo by james and julian to realise the future. japan-inspired vintage graphics were to be the mainstay of the fledgling ‘superdry’.
the brand name ‘superdry’ initially could be perceived as a strange choice, what does it mean? for a designer it has proved to be an inspired choice, the term ‘super’ especially, has become endlessly adaptable to countless applications and the graphics sound and look suitably authentic on garments. ‘super gasoline, super motor oil, super spark plugs’, they sound like authentic brands which adds greatly to perceived authenticity.
james single-handed, with backing from julian, began the long road to creating a new brand. well, you guessed it, before long james had the foresight to design t-shirts with a twist; vintage tees only look authentically ‘vintage’ if the artwork is hand rendered.
this is where i came in, thanks to james holder’s vision, he employed me on a freelance basis to render artwork and design t-shirts, with a view to produce the best-looking and most authentic-looking vintage/retro tees on the market. initially the design process involved james coming up with concepts, passing me the sketch, generally on a post-it note, post the morning gym session.
we worked together on a small desk, well it was actually a bench made out of a kitchen top – it was humble beginnings indeed. with one computer, a scanner and a sketchpad, we got to work; cottage industry or what! but it worked and worked well, so much so i became a near-permanent fixture at superdry hq. eventually i was offered the job full time which i gratefully accepted as i had just turned 40 and was in need of a change in direction.
there was a special ‘eureka’ moment in our development of vintage graphics, the first tee i designed around the ‘garage’ theme was a tee simply called ‘gasoline’ the imagery being inspired by fifties forecourt livery. this gave me the confidence to develop this theme more extensively and james gave me a free reign to conceptualise further, much to my relief.
i was now in my element eagerly designing more and more tees of this ilk, five years on and about a thousand different graphics later the public’s hunger for our vintage tees has not waned. our graphic lexicon now includes, radio, aviation, hot rods, motor racing and all manner of related themes based literally around ‘gasoline’, what an iconic word, its looks and sounds great in our vintage context.
together with our factory, we have developed unique and innovative print techniques, fabric colours, labelling and trims that make our garments head and shoulders above our competitors’, which makes them difficult to replicate.
a great source of pride to james and me is that we have changed the graphic-based presence on the high street; the dynamic has shifted to what we do. obviously fashion is fickle and cyclical so there will come a time when what we do is deemed ‘unfashionable’ but that’s the challenge we set ourselves; to keep ahead of the game.
we spend a great deal of time, money and effort on research, sourcing and seeking out unusual ephemera to inspire our collections. we travel to the united states, regularly attending vintage fairs, going to stores, museums, wherever to source the rare and unusual. we spend hours in sweaty garment warehouses finding fabrics, colours, print techniques and textures to give us that edge.
seeing your t-shirts on the street is a buzz knowing you have played a part in creating a mega brand, whose phenomenal success has taken us all by surprise; long may it continue!”
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