Behind the Scenes at EthiCAL: Meet the Designers
EthiCAL Apparel comprises multiple groups to run our organization, of which our Design Department is one of the most well-known. The members of the department are the creative force behind every single one of our products, and their work spans a range of styles and aesthetics.
Being a part of the Design team comes with a lot of pressure and a lot of reward as the creators of our new products. Every semester, EthiCAL has an overall theme for the entire organization’s work for the semester; within the Design Department, they receive another theme to create their artwork around. The process for creating a product for EthiCAL involves multiple stages. First, they receive the overall and department specific themes. The designers produce the sketches; then they go through multiple rounds of feedback to come to the final piece, all within the span of about six weeks.
To get further insight into their process, we interviewed four of the members of this semester’s Design team and asked about their experiences.
*Interviews have been edited for succinctness and clarity.
Cindy Chen
YEAR: Freshman, Class of 2027
(INTENDED) MAJOR(S): Industrial Engineering
How long have you been in EthiCal for? How many of those semesters were with the Design Department?
I’ve been with EthiCAL for two semesters, both as part of Design.
What designs have you done this semester and in previous?
I worked on the Blueberry Purrfection tote this semester and Beary Tasty Ramen sticker last semester.
EthiCAL’s theme this semester is “Trash to Treasure.” How did you choose to interpret this theme, and how did you implement those ideas in your design?
I honestly didn’t think too much about the overall theme itself. The general design theme was “vintage revival,” so I thought of doing a vintage fruit box theme on a tote bag. A lot of packaging for fruit is plastic now, so I thought about farmer’s market or vintage packaging, like wooden crates or green paper-cardboard cartons. I decided to add a cat for visual interest, which you know Sailor Moon? I based the vibes on the Sailor Moon cat.
What was your process for creating this piece? Where did you take inspiration from?
I honestly don’t know if I’m the best person to ask! I looked up vintage designs. Vintage revival through thrifting and other stuff is in right now, so it comes up easily on Pinterest and through other Googling. I also looked into Japanese street vintage aesthetic. I actually have this one image saved of a Ramune ad with cloth, vibrant colors, and rounded designs that I drew a lot from.
For my research process, I honestly mostly just do Pinterest boarding. I get my inspiration from Pinterest and take not of characteristics of various things that I like. Then I make the sketches. Some of the characteristics come together; some don’t; but I keep trying till I get to a final design.
For drawing style, I’ve been drawing for a while—I think since I was in 7th or 8th grade. I got Procreate on an iPad and went from there. I like a lot of anime, cute and round things, like animals, especially cats. I also sketch a lot in general.
What does your design mean to you personally?
I just thought it was cute! I was originally thinking of doing strawberries, but then in the feedback, EthiCAL already has too many designs with strawberries, so I switched it to blueberries. I liked the idea and aesthetic and just hoped it would sell well.
I really loved the grid lines in the background. It gave cyberpunk vibes, so when you mentioned taking from Japanese street aesthetic, that made a lot of sense to me.
Yeah! I think the way you worded that was really great. I honestly just look for whatever pleases me, and that generally ends up working for the populace too.
How did you challenge yourself and your style with this piece?
I usually do cute references. With my first draft, Sarah and Tiff (Vice Presidents of Design Department) were like, “It’s too cute!” so I had to change the cat around. I did a lot of variations of the fruits, the cat, and basket. I had to turn them around to make it into something more edgy. That’s why I shifted to Japanese vintage streetwear.
The final design of the cat is still cute but not fluffy in the same way. The blueberries were difficult. Originally, I wanted to do strawberries because of their general popularity as a design, and blueberries don’t have a similar grab. They’re very small, round, and a lot of feedback I got was that they made the background look too flat. It was difficult to balance the texture and interest of the piece without looking messy, so I had to navigate designing something not as popular or interesting.
What is your favorite element of the design? Which part of the design did you struggle with the most?
I struggled the most with blueberries. I went through so many iterations and had to change them individually. The perspective of the box was also awkward with the blueberries and cat. The perspective of the box doesn’t match with the perspective of the “EthiCAL” word. I had to play around to get them to align enough at a certain angle.
My favorite part was the cat. I really like drawing cats in general. I think the final design is number six on the mock ups. I never drew a cat like that before. If you look at the first sketches, the cat used to be really fluffy and round. I found references that had a balance between the edgy and cute style. There was a lot of work put into the individual elements.
What’s your favorite part about being in the Design Department?
It’s sometimes frustrating because of the changes in styles and particularities, but it’s also really fun to get critiques from people who really care about design. Getting good critique is very valuable. Often, I end up working alone as an artist and don’t show my work to people, so it’s interesting to get a lot of feedback from all different sources and people with different styles. The Vice Presidents emphasized good feedback by leading an internal workshop. Previously, the feedback wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t useful so it kind of felt like it was wasting people’s time. This semester’s critique was more constructive. The in-person feedback workshops during general meetings also allowed engagement and specific responses. If someone had a comment, like “oh, it’s cute,” I could ask them a follow up question that was more specific, like “well, does it fit with the theme?”
ALEXIS EMCH
YEAR: JUNIOR
(INTENDED) MAJOR(S): SOCIETY AND ENVIRONMENT
How long have you been in EthiCal for? How many of those semesters were with the Design Department?
I have been in EthiCAL for around 3 semesters. I started my sophomore spring semester. I joined as a design associate and have been in the Design team since.
What designs have you done this semester and in previous?
In my first semester I made a sticker pack called “In a Jam,” the semester after I made a sticker called “Sneaky Squirrel,” and finally this semester I made an oversized shirt called “Spaced Out.” This newest product draws a lot of inspiration from 80s streetwear and oversized graphics. Our theme was Vintage revival which explains the inspirations.
EthiCal’s theme this semester is “Trash to Treasure.” How did you choose to interpret this theme, and how did you implement those ideas in your design?
I think I thought of this theme in terms of clothing, in an era of fast fashion we kind of treat clothing as single-use almost. Trends go by so fast and people are becoming so accustomed to buying an outfit for every occasion. Clothing has become something that we wear a couple of times and then throw out when the trend has passed. Vintage revival, which was the theme for our product drop, kind of goes against over-consumption. I’m a huge fashion nerd so I pulled a lot from 80s and 90s graphics, the giant fonts, and huge graphics called to me.
What was your process for creating this piece? Where did you take inspiration from?
I made a lot of sketches, I’m talking about 8 ish totally different designs. I took inspiration mainly from streetwear and the 80s. I wanted to push outside of the box and make something that I was super proud of. Thankfully people really enjoyed the design and I got to go forward with the one I wanted. I had to play around with the empty spaces between the boxes before I landed on like a trippy wave effect, which I think adds to the vintage element since it screams 70s.
Sketches:
Landed on this design after crowdsourcing, I added more to the white spaces to make the design more flowy/busy:
People liked the top design so I ran with that, I still kept the dark colors because I wasn’t sure what color my apparel was going to be:
Once we picked out an apparel color I had to make some changes to the color/structure:
And Here is the final mockup!
What does your design mean to you personally?
This being my first apparel design I took this semester pretty seriously. I really wanted to make sure my vision came to life in a way that I was happy with and that I think people would enjoy. There were so many elements that I loved being put into this design so I hold it pretty close to my heart.
How did you challenge yourself and your style with this piece?
I had to work in negatives for some parts, I originally drew the piece in black before we decided to make my apparel a darker color. So i had to figure out how to make my design translate on a dark background, it took a while but eventually, I figured it out which was nice.
What is your favorite element of the design? Which part of the design did you struggle with the most?
I love her eyes, I was really proud of how they came out. I also am so happy with how the wavy “smoke” came out cause I think it flows super well with the design.
What’s your favorite part about being in the Design Department?
The sense of accomplishment that you get when you complete a product/custom order is so nice. To be able to hold something that you made is so cool. Also the community, I hadn’t really been around many other people who liked to design/draw so it was nice to create a community with other people who enjoyed/did design.
Angela Chen
YEAR: Freshman
(INTENDED) MAJOR(S): Sociology and Cog Sci major, Data science minor
How long have you been in EthiCal for? How many of those semesters were with the Design Department?
2 semesters, both in the Design team
What designs have you done this semester and in previous?
Heaven Sent baby tee this semester and Nugway Surfers sticker pack last semester
EthiCal’s theme this semester is “Trash to Treasure.” How did you choose to interpret this theme, and how did you implement those ideas in your design?
The cherub is carrying a bouquet with a bow on it, symbolizing that it is a gift. However, there are also arrowheads in the bouquet which leads people to question, is this bouquet a gift of high value or does it have some other meaning? Perhaps it is a discarded bouquet? I left this open to interpretation for the viewer, similar to the idea of “one man's trash is another man's treasure.”
What was your process for creating this piece? Where did you take inspiration from?
I really love Renaissance Art and have been studying it in depth recently. I’ve always liked dressing in clothes with renaissance motifs and wanted to create a baby tee with one. This cherub takes inspiration from Donatello’s putto sculptures.
What does your design mean to you personally?
It’s a culmination of my passion for fine art and art history.
How did you challenge yourself and your style with this piece?
I received a lot of feedback about my design and had to modify it many times, trying out different accessories for the cherub to find one that worked best.
What is your favorite element of the design? Which part of the design did you struggle with the most?
I really enjoyed drawing the cherub and the flowers. I struggled with composition the most because since the design is simple, the placement of the clouds and the positioning of the cherubs body mattered a lot as they were essential to storytelling.
Version 1 of clouds
Version 2 of clouds
What’s your favorite part about being in the Design Department?
The people! #designdomination
Leilani Kanagawa
YEAR: Junior
MAJOR(S): Economics
How long have you been in EthiCal for? How many of those semesters were with the Design Department?
I’ve been in EthiCAL for 4 semesters (2 years), and I’ve been a part of the Design Department for one semester.
What design did you do this semester?
This semester I made a crewneck design that centers around the social good theme “Trash to Treasure” with reference to the “Vintage Revival” design theme. I titled my design “Reely Fresh Catch,” which made the most sense because the focal point of my design is a fish.
EthiCal’s theme this semester is “Trash to Treasure.” How did you choose to interpret this theme, and how did you implement those ideas in your design?
This semester’s social good theme resonated with me immediately, and I chose to interpret it as a way to comment on the normalization of overconsumption and waste. My goal was to showcase this interpretation therough a dynamic design that was both wearable and eyecatching.
What was your process for creating this piece? Where did you take inspiration from?
I drew inspiration from the canned fish videos I always see on social media and the vintage fishing shirts I’d see my dad wearing growing up.
What does your design mean to you personally?
This design was a way for me to reconnect with my roots. I’m from Hawai’i originally, and being able to incorporate elements from the designs and culture I grew up with gave me a sense of nostalgia.
How did you challenge yourself and your style with this piece?
I don’t have a specific style, but most of my past art has been acrylic on canvas or charcoal on paper. Drifting away from realism and diving into line art for apparel was a big change for me, but I had a lot of fun figuring it out.
What is your favorite element of the design? Which part of the design did you struggle with the most?
My favorite element is definitely the ahi tuna. I did struggle quite a bit with figuring out how to do halftones on Illustrator, but with the help of my Design Department VPs and advisor we were able to make everything come together.
What’s your favorite part about being in the Design Department?
I love how laid back and quirky everyone is in the Design Department! I was in the Marketing Department for 3 semesters prior to Design, and although it’s very different from what I’m used to, the people on the Design team made my transition between departments so easy and enjoyable.