With so many clothing companies appearing from around the country, its not easy for any of them to make a name for themselves. Glasgow based company INK clothing have had as hard a time as any, being one of the first DIY companies to appear online back in 2005, its been a long journey that now seems to be paying off. With a new range just released and work with EMI records coming up, INK finally seems ready to get some of the attention it deserves. We first met the boys from INK when they redesigned the TFS blog a few months ago. Since then we've witnessed first hand just how much hard work the guy behind the company put in, we managed to catch up with creative director Chris to find out whats going down.TFS - Hi Chris, thanks for doing this, firstly tell us a bit about your self and what you do in INK.
Chris - Well I am currently employed as a graphic designer, and have recently made the jump into the digital world I.E web design etc. The rest of my time is spent doing freelance work and designing INK stuff. The hope is, to one day be self sufficient, when this new range does well who knows what will happen! And with the work we are doing with EMI Records, there are certainly lots of doors slowly opening for us. It’s really an exciting time at the moment!
TFS - Tell us a bit about how INK started and what you’ve been up to over the last couple of years
Chris - If I’m being honest, I’d have to give my brother credit for starting this company and coming up with the whole idea. I can only speculate on why it all began, but I’d say it was a combination of seeing what was on offer from other clothing companies, deciding we could compete(maybe) and just the exciting nature of the whole thing! It certainly has been quite an adventure – and with this new range you can really see how we have developed as individuals (who accept their responsibilities) and as a company! I’d say my tasks are visualising concepts that we come up with – granted I do go off on my own from time to time – but it usually starts with us sitting down and saying ‘we need a new range... what do you want to do?’ then it just stems from there. Plenty of discussion, plenty of ‘debates’. Then I will do some sketches, fire up illustrator and so on... so yeah I do the designing or something like that. I also designed and built our website (and styled this blog).TFS - Tell us a bit about the new range.
Chris - Developed, mature, exciting, colourful, magnificent, perfect, crisp, clean, fresh, zingy, fruity, delicious, focused, organised and our absolute best work to date! Maybe that’s down to the help we got or our new focus and drive (certainly mine). We actually finished it ahead of schedule! And it was the least stressful ‘range creation’ to date... we got it right this time! Let’s just hope it gets the acclaim and publicity (I think) it deserves!
TFS - have you got any other projects your working on
Chris - Well we just released our new range so we’ll mostly be working on promoting that, that’s the main project just now. As I said before though we’ve been working with EMI records on a range of tshirts for them, using lyrics from songs they own, we’ve got some great designs for Nirvana, Calvin Harris and others on the way, so that’s a big project that we’re looking forward to continuing with. What else will I be doing…. Trying to grow a decent beard. Playing with Fruity Loops and tending to the website.
TFS - being a ‘music inspired clothing company’ what roll has the music scene played in the growth of INK
Chris - Yeah we are a music inspired clothing company, and we take a lot of inspiration from the music scene when we’re designing our clothing. Music and fashion have always been linked so we try to let the music we’re into at the time influence the clothing we’re designing. INK does try to work with bands as well, promoting them so they promote us. We’ve ran a couple of gig nights, to be honest though I cant say we’ve had to many great experiences working with bands. To many of them don’t support you back well enough, and come with egos that they just haven’t earned and shouldn’t have.TFS - INK promotes itself as an eco friendly company, what does ink do to help the environment.
Chris - We promote and donate to the World Land Trust, and print all our designs on eco friendly materials, like bamboo (not friendly for pandas) and 100% organic cotton. And we never ever print designs out on paper when we review them.
TFS - With so many DIY clothing companies starting in the last few years, how do you make ink stand out from the rest and what advice would you give anyone wanting to stat a clothing company
Chris - I think the trick is to stay true to your believes! Before any designing, in fact before anything is done I think it is important to create an ethos for yourself, for your ‘company’ and never deviate from that! Decide on a target market, decide on how you want your company to be perceived, decide on a style and do as much bloody research as you can!! Then do some more. Then decide how you can improve on what is already out there. Set your standards high and don’t let them drop! It’s taken me a long time to realise this! Oh and work hard.TFS - finally what music are you listening to right now.
Chris - Well I’m in a bit of transitional period at the moment! I really love a good bit of heavy metal, Pantera, Metallica, Slayer... and so on, the usual suspects y’know, great to play and great to watch! But the stuff is just too hard to work to! So I have really got into electro, none of your ‘trancy’ crap though, just good beats, good bass lines and plenty of elektribe vibes splashed over the top – that’s’ where it’s at for me at the moment. For example ‘Hadouken’, ‘Does It Offend You, Yeah?’, ‘Danger’, ‘Yuksek’, ‘Moderat’, ‘In Flagranti’, ‘Vitalic’ and plenty of good stuff I don’t know the name of. Also, album artwork is far more interesting in the electro scene! Who wants black all the time – let’s see some vibrant colours! Definitely and influence on my INK work anyway.
Thanks Chris, check out INK's new range at their website http://www.inkclothing.co.uk/
