Stay Loose Clothing Line

I founded and ran an independent clothing brand for five years from 2012 through 2016. Stay Loose was a passion project—I managed it on nights and weekends while working as a full time designer at Capital One (and later at H&P) and it was some of the best experiences I’ve ever had. I got to explore my illustration and design style without influence of external input or guidelines. I was able to do what I wanted, how I wanted and discover what I liked aesthetically. I learned a lot about what it takes to run a small business—like how to plan and manage a budget, and how to sell online, person-to-person and to other businesses. All in all, I designed and released over 30 shirts and tank tops, 12 hats and 13 skatedecks. I tabled at numerous festivals and events including Van’s Warped Tour and Beerfields and got Stay Loose clothing on the shelves and racks in-store at Loman’s in downtown Babylon Village. I built a social media presence from scratch with thousands of loyal followers, and wrote regularly for the Stay Loose blog covering local bands, photographers, and craft breweries. I was the brand’s designer, photographer, writer, salesman and champion. It was hard work and consumed just about all of my free time—but I loved it. In 2015, my wife gave birth to our first child and my time, focus and energy needed to shift—and so I decided to close up shop at the end of 2016. It’ll always be my passion project and I’ll always have all of the photos, designs, memories, and lessons learned from an incredible journey.

Each year from 2012 through 2016 I released a new line of clothing including t-shirts, tank tops, hoodies, hats and custom skatedecks. A look-back to each of those releases is recapped in the links below.

For my portfolio, and partially for the sake of nostalgia, I recreated the last version of the Stay Loose website that was live (2016) and created a digital version of the Stay Loose brand guideline as it existed in that final year.