One night while propping up the bar at Casey Moore's long time friends Matt Krise and Chuck D. started designing T-shirts on napkins. Twelve months later the pair are the proud proprietors of Spraygraphic Apparel, a clothing company with distribution in 27 states and three different countries. The secret of their success, according to Chuck D. (the name he insisted we call him), lies in the simple beauty of their company's mission -- to develop thought-provoking style.
"I believe the things we wear are expressions of what we want to tell people about ourselves," he says. "Clothing is a powerful medium and can provide a wonderful subtext in relation to someone's lifestyle, thoughts and actions."
Spraygraphic crafts clothing using a combination of spray-paint, stencil and graffiti design, and aims to provoke social and political thought. Each design is also accompanied by a small piece of social commentary printed on the inside of the clothing.
One of the most popular designs, titled 'Worker Bee,' depicts a stencil of a businessman below an urban landscape. At first glance, it seems a familiar scene, but look closer -- wings protrude from the businessman's jacket and a background of honeycomb skyscrapers. The message inside reads, "Enjoy life ... it's not all about work ... take a vacation!"
But Krise, a recent ASU design graduate, is quick to point out that the clothing is not a vehicle to further his or Chuck D.'s political agenda. The beauty of Spraygraphic, he says, is that people can take their own meanings from the designs. Chuck D. says one of the shirts, 'Heart Attack,' featuring a heart with a tank stenciled inside, is a favorite with his brother in the army.
"My brother is serving in Iraq right now and he loves the T-shirt because he drives tanks," he says. "But someone else could pick up the shirt, see the message inside, 'sometimes love feels like you've been run over by a tank,' and find a completely different meaning."
The company is run with strong ethics, say the designers. All the clothing is produced locally, and one percent of net profits are contributed to the Red Cross. Promotion of local art is also an important goal. A number of the most striking designs, such as 'Heart Attack,' were contributed by sociology major and artist Adam Wheeler. Wheeler says symbolism is at the forefront of his work.
"As the information age matures, we are becoming more informed and starting to demand more from fashion than superficial beauty," he says "In my art I try to break down complex social ideas and distill them into symbols that will provoke a political discourse."
Wheeler says at first mainly friends and family wore his designs, but recently he's seen lots of people around Phoenix sporting Spraygraphic clothes.
"I think it has the potential to be a real recipe for success," he says. "Most of the designs are very thoughtful and market appeal seems to play second seat to the social message."
It's not the just the designers who are optimistic about the company's prospects. Mack Ketcham, another recent ASU graduate, says he heard about Spraygraphic from a friend and now has four shirts.
"The clothes are really eye-catching and aren't just some cheesy screen print you see all around town," he says. "If you look closely, the designs are open to interpretation; one of my favorites is called 'Hidden Beauty.' It is a sharp, spiny looking tree with these beautiful flowers hidden in it. I really like the way it says something without needing to blatantly write it across your chest in big letters."
Despite distributing close to 10,000 garments this month, Krise and Chuck D. both still work full-time jobs and admit running Spraygraphic is a "24/7 reality." Krise says their goal is to eventually compete with other major designers, but they are adamant this will not involve selling out.
"We want to be successful artists but also stay true to what we believe in," he says. "It helps that we can rely on a vibrant network of friends and artists in Tempe and we owe much of our success to the fact that these people believe in what we're trying to do."
Reach the reporter at sam.friedman@asu.edu.
