BORT.Q

Part of my day job is to put pen-to-paper and draw up "quirky" characters for Mitch Dowd's seasonal apparel range (i.e. underwear, sleepwear, socks).

These characters have been in the wilds of retail for a year or more, so I'll be posting some here from time to time.

First up — Shark Finn Hamm.

S.F.Hamm made his first cameo in a men's boxer, titled "Great White Pork":

When designing Summer 2024's mens range, pig characters were on trend (or so I was told). When conceptualizing that summer's shark print, it was missing one crucial ingredient... a pig with a strap-on shark fin.

A year later, Hamm was given more character range and thrust into his own print:

Every now and then, I try and sneak Hamm into other designs, but he gets caught out and removed by eagle-eyed managers (or I foolishly point him out).

I long for the day to see Hamm as a plush character — he's destined for plushiness (and greatness).

All artwork & designs featured in this blog posting are exclusively owned by Mitch Dowd Australia.

Once in a blue moon I get called up for a special one-of-a-kind project for Mitch Dowd, the apparel company I work for.

In 2018, when enthusiasm for the recent season 2 release of Stranger Things was at a record high, Mitch Dowd’s BossMan pegged me for a special project: push out an "eye-popping" Stranger Things retail-oriented proposal for Target.

This was a solo project from start to finish - no other "designers" contributed to the effort. And this is what I do best: left alone for a time to my own devices and getting deep into the weeds.

Started the project during work hours by essentially conceptualizing (roughly) on both sketchpad and on screen. Then, over a full weekend, I dug into the subject matter, pulling reference material from both official and fan-based web sources - no style guide available to pluck assets or ideas from.

To get into the mood further, I found a 10+ hour track of the Stranger Things theme music on a loop on YouTube and had it playing in the background… the original youtube mood music link, seen on page 5 of the proposal, has long since been deleted.

Presentation for each page of the proposal was treated as if they were episodes, or "chapters", of the show — note the font treatments on the page headers, call-outs and text content.

I knew from the beginning, real-world execution of most-to-all concepts created for the proposal would not have been cost effective to properly design, construct and install in a department store setting. AND be completely unrealistic for a single department store to dedicate valuable floor space to only one license with, at the time, a limited market appeal — it's now 2022 and Stranger Things’ appeal has greatly broadened since then.

Some concept imagery from the proposal can already be seen here.

The whole point of this exercise: get the foot in the door. If Mitch Dowd could secure a bare minimum of Stranger Things apparel orders, then this whole exercise would’ve been worth it.

In the end, the proposal was repackaged for another local retailer (Big W) starting a wave of interest and eventually ORDERS! More retail chains have gotten onboard in the last 2 years.

The payoff for Mitch Dowd continues to this day. I'm just content to be a part of that venture from the very beginning - I only wish I could do more special projects like this: they're challenging, creatively intensive, but darn satisfying in the end (it would certainly get me out of designing men’s apparel day after day!).

Characters At Work — Chapter 1: Oink Attack.

Project: Leggo My Eggo!