Interviews With Unofficial Clothing Designers Matt Pahl and Joey Maiorana

Matt Pahl; 2015; junior; graphic design/ACACIA:

 

How did you become inspired to create a clothing line for Unofficial?

I’m a graphic design major, so creating designs has always been a passion of mine. Last fall, I began working for University Tees and I realized Unofficial was the biggest “holiday” for U of I students and even college kids from ISU, IU, Wisconsin and more. Every time I walk around campus, students are wearing green Unofficial clothing. I decided to purchase a domain and set up an e-commerce website where I could provide Unofficial designs for the students.

 

How long does it typically take you to create a design?

This depends on the design. When I design I, normally, never like the first iteration I come up with – designing is a process. The Chicago beast design, for example, took about 10 different iterations before I opened up the final design for sale. The Chief was tweaked and re-done many times, as well.

 

Can you describe the general process you go through to design and realize a piece?

The first part of my designs is research. You can’t start a design if you don’t know what and who you are designing for and why you are choosing to let that vision come to life. The Chief was an easy selection as many Illinois students have been missing this mascot for some time, now. The Chief might be gone, but never forgotten, so I wanted to offer a Chief design to the student body so we could still support what used to be. After this is figured out, I do more research looking at many images of the original Chief logo and other re-creations to get a feel for what I want to incorporate from each and what will bring it all together to solidify it as a design. The next step is bringing these ideas to drawing and then scanning into Adobe Illustrator to create the vector version. This is the visual/graphic iteration of the design. I mock different color schemes on different apparel items to see what comes through best and when placed on the front of an apparel item.

 

What do you like best about designing?

Although I love the process and getting to see my work when it is finally done, the greatest reward is seeing people walking down the street wearing your design and knowing you created that.

What do you dislike about designing?

There is not much to dislike about designing. The only thing that can go wrong is if someone blatantly steals your design and makes money off of it.

How many years have you been running your business?

I’ve been designing since seventh grade when MySpace started (lol), but I’ve been working with apparel designs (University Tees) for about a year and half, now.

 

What is your most popular design this year?

The most popular design is, by far, the Chief. Everyone wants to wear this and what better way to do that on the biggest Illini drinking holiday of the year.

Where can we buy your clothing this year?

We actually closed our ordering on February 18 to get the apparel here and passed out in time. Our domain was Unofficial2014.com and if you need any apparel items you can always contact me at UniversityTeesUIUC@gmail.com!

What advice do you have for aspiring unofficial designers?

Keep it relevant. Why are people coming to this event? What are the interests of the ones coming to this event? Create a design that will interest the masses instead of just a niche of people.

 

Joey Maiorana a.k.a. Joey Marinara; senior; business administration and business process management; Casino Brothers Clothing Co.

 

 

How did you become inspired to create a clothing line for Unofficial?

The whole idea started with my roommate, Arnold Syphommarath. At the time, I needed to make some quick cash for spring break and Arnold decided to help out with designs. We were successful last Unofficial and got some recognition. We saw the opportunity to expand and do shirts for other organizations and bar crawls as well as several frats on campus.

 

How long does it typically take you to create a design?

 

It all depends. We like to start early with a basic concept and let ideas pop into our mind later and possibly add it to the design. If I had to put an actual duration on it, I would say one to two weeks.

 

Can you describe the general process you go through to design and realize a piece?

Well, we like to analyze all the information we have. This year, I looked at our Facebook page (Casino Brothers Clothing Co.) and saw that 70 percent of our fans were females. So, we wanted to design something for both sexes, but a design that would especially appeal to the girls, this year. We also wanted to keep up with pop culture. After adding all these together, we came up with our Let’s Get Wrecked design. It features Miley Cyrus swinging on a Dom Perignon bottle. The back has a “23” on it, similar to a Jordan jersey. It’s a spin-off of the song, “23,” which features her. We changed the name on the back. Instead of saying “JORDAN,” it says, “WE CAN’T STOP.” That’s another song off her album. Seems appropriate for Unofficial.

 

What do you like best about designing?

One of my favorite parts would be seeing the design for the first time on an actual shirt. It is a great feeling to see an idea you had in your head turn into a reality. I also like giving the shirts to customers. When they smile or yell, “YES!” it’s a very rewarding experience. It makes our time worth it.

 

What do you dislike about designing?

 

Nothing. If we didn’t like this, we wouldn’t have done it again.

 

How many years have you been running your business?

We just hit our one year anniversary. We learned a lot about business, much of which you would not be able to learn in a classroom setting.

 

How much profit did you earn last year?

Gotta quote my buddy, Drake, here. “Business is business. It's strictly financial.” I can’t disclose that information due to our policies. However, I can say that our profit margins were different for each shirt and product.

 

Are you expecting higher numbers this time around?

We will be selling less shirts this year, by choice. The whole goal for 2014 was to become more efficient. With the experience we gained from last year, we are able to sell less shirts and create higher revenue which directly translates into higher profits. I can’t tell you how we do it, but my supply chain and business process management professors would be proud.

We also don’t want everyone to have our shirt. By having only a few hundred out there, it creates more value for our customer. Pretty much every conversation will be, “Where did you get that? I wish I ordered that.” Our customers will be the ones who stand out at the party. This makes our customers feel good about their purchase and it increases our audience for later.

 

What is your most popular design this year?

The Miley Cyrus design is our best design this year since we only had one design. It currently ranks as our number three best selling Unofficial design. We have created 10 Unofficial designs in the past two years.

 

Where can we buy your clothing this year?

www.casinobrothersclothing.com

 

What advice do you have for aspiring unofficial designers?

If you have an idea. Do it! Too many good ideas go to waste because people do not have enough initiative. Don’t do it for profit, learn as much as you can from it. Recruiters love hearing this story, seeing the numbers and listening to real business analytics. If you learn, even from your mistakes, you will gain way more valuable knowledge for your future career that will outweigh all your profits, no matter how large your profits end up.