Taking a Concept From the Vault 🗄️🔓

Sep 23

2 min read

It’s been sitting for nearly a decade.

Over the past Labor Day weekend, I dusted off design elements meant for a standalone apparel spinoff from my creative portfolio—concepts that originally saw a small release of marketing lanyards under a Limited Product Line (LPL) back in 2016/2017. That project was shelved not long after graduating from the University of Central Oklahoma as other priorities took over.

Long before focusing on what has become my career to date, my passion was graphic design and photography. Doing freelance work along the way led to some fun milestones, including getting a few designs selected and featured in the Monster Energy Book/Wall of Fame back in spring 2014, for all visitors to see.

The catalyst to revisit this?

I was wearing shirts from a local business whose minimal design and versatile fit I loved. But as they shifted toward mainstream, mass-graphics and altered their brand identity, I lost connection with it. That friction made me pull this idea back out of the vault.

The idea nearly a decade ago started as a "by creatives, for creatives" concept—anchored around my personal motto: "Leave Your Mark On The World" which has since evolved. The same principle today applies just as much to engineering, innovation, and complex problem-solving.

At its core, this brand is for people of grit, character, and integrity: an ethos of coming from nothing and building an empire through discipline and perseverance.

Whether you're designing graphics, engineering systems, or building a business from scratch, it requires the same process :Imagine-->Design-->Create, which is also a nice tie-in to the roots of my creative portfolio www.designbywilliam.com where the concept for an apparel brand began.

After spending the last few weekends logging very long days stretching into the early morning hours, I finally brought it to life. This isn't a full production run yet—just the first two prototype prints to test the pipeline on a clean, retail-ready fit.

Which design resonates with you?