Background

Back in 2016 when we were putting together a new collection of graphics. It was at the time of numerous stories coming out of the U.S. about innocent unarmed black men being killed by police. The beginning of the Black Lives Matter Movement. At the time #StayWoke was being thrown around. We wanted to address these issues in one of the designs. 

We toiled on a number of concepts. Somethings we thought of or came up with were to literal, abstract or took too much time to explain. We wanted something that was direct, to the point, have a strong message and people would able to easily get it. At one point we event had "Stay Woke" as a graphic. During our conversations we thought that looks great but then. Some one said "Stay Woke, is great but people need to wake up 1st". 

From there we had it "Wake Up"!!! Our rallying cry to everyone. People need to Wake Up and look around with what's going on in the world around them, their friends & family. Lift your head up from the blue light and be present

Design Background

We knew for something like this we wanted a big graphic. We chose to use the distortion in graphic to have it come off as a message being sent. We even played around with animations to make it an instagram piece. 

At the time we were also playing with different garment pieces to sell it on as opposed to a t-shirt we put it on a lightweight Terry Cloth piece that had the cut and shape of a hoodie but felt as light as a T-Shirt. 

The Wake Up was a popular piece upon its first release. When it came time to work on a new collection we decided to bring it back. This time on a crewneck. We chose red because we wanted to get your attention.

We hope that when it does get your attention it gets people into action. Especially now more than ever. There is so much going on in the world that we really need everyone to Wake Up, get out of their bubble and start to make change.