Hey, it's the 13th!! Did you miss me?

This month, I want to talk about the shirts we did for the Iron Maidens Raw Open powerlifting competition 2 weeks ago.

Photo by Pratt | Media, @prattmedia

Before we get into design, I just want to throw out some history about this partnership. My wonderful friend, Morit (who you might remember from Thirteen Journeys!) connected me with Margie of Iron Maidens. Margie told me all about their mission; because they know it better than I do, I figure maybe it's easier to read this snippet from their website:

The Iron Maidens Stay Strong Scholarship was created to help women who don't have access to financial aid pay for higher-level education. The money we raise pays for 80% of college tuition for undocumented students, Dreamers, and women who have been victims of predatory for-profit colleges. Students in these financial situations have no access to financial aid dollars and the undocumented students are ineligible for most scholarships. Rather than selecting recipients based on common criteria such as grades or academic achievement, this scholarship rewards persistence—the grit and determination to keep going during hard times. We believe this recognizes and addresses the reality our students face, and also captures the essence of the Iron Maidens Competition. Now, more than ever, we are proud to be giving this necessary support to undocumented women who are working to improve their lives through education.

So, the event raises money to donate to this incredible scholarship... support other women? COUNT ME IN. Because who run the world? GIRLS. 

It's really important to me to pay it forward; the whole purpose of Thirteen Fit Apparel is to help and empower people. To be real, MY whole purpose is to help and empower people... and just so happens design is my outlet. Projects like this, I LIVE FOR. So anyway, I teamed up with Margie to come up with a design for all the female athletes + the volunteers.

We did a lot of brainstorming; I was thinking about some wordplay.

Let's break it down:
Iron is one of the elements (hello, high school chemistry... which, by the way, I aced). The symbol on the Periodic Table is Fe.
Maidens... ladies. Female. Fe.

Minimal but clever, if I do say so myself. And always bold. I love bold design. So that's where we went. The "Fe" is the focal point, encased in a square just like on the Periodic Table... but look closely! That square is made up on empty barbells, heyyyyy. Below the "Fe" reads "6.2018." Instead of the atomic number, "6.2018" because that was the date of the event: June 2018.

I've got to say, there is nothing like being in a room full of people wearing something you designed... for such an important cause. The event was one of the best events I've ever attended. Women ROCKING the platform, moving all kinds of weights. There were ladies from ages 18-72! It was incredibly inspiring and the air had an amazing energy.

NOT ONLY did I get to be a part of the event, I got to meet other women entrepreneurs who always inspire me to keep going!

It was a great day for women, a great day for education, a great day for fitness and a great day for purposeful design!

Photo by Pratt | Media, @prattmedia

Interested in custom design? EMAIL ME! paige@thirteenfitapparel.com and let's get this party started.

'Til next time,
Paige

Ah, Friday the 13th! Good things happen on Friday the 13th.

I wanted to share the concept behind the Thirteen Journeys Collection. Every week, I've been sharing with you stories of incredible people but I want to go a bit deeper into the concept behind it all.

As you probably know if you follow us, our brand concept is all about this "Ultimate Self." Sometimes, I think it can be taken as this idealistic image, some perfect version of yourself that is always out of reach... but that's not quite what we are getting at. The idea is that we are always in pursuit of something better. We believe in being self-aware and using that awareness to grow. I think that since we are always striving for our Ultimate Self, that means that we're sort of already there. If we are on this journey to be ever-evolving and ever-better, wouldn't that mean (in theory) that we are always sitting in a temporary state of Ultimate Self before we reach something even better?

I love hearing people's stories... hearing where the came from, what they've done to be who they are now. What's interesting (and a sad truth) is that the cracks along the way are what mold our stories; the hardships and struggles are what give us experience and understanding of ourselves and of life and that's where we grow. Cracked... not broken.

Instead of putting on this front of perfection, I wanted to embrace the whole story... good and bad. Today, so many people live behind these social media facades of what they want their perfect life to look like but in reality, we've all got shit. We all do. And hey, that shit is a huge part of who we are. How we handle it, how we learn from it, how we move on from it and how we apply it.

The Thirteen Journeys Collection concept started with this idea I had many months ago that I've sorta just been sitting on:

Introspection vs. Observation. That is the awareness of your thoughts, feelings and mental state vs. a more objective and physical awareness. (it's a mind-body thing!!) Basically, understanding who you are inside but also being able to really see yourself from the outside.

For the campaign project, this meant exploring these stories... I wanted it to be an opportunity to share on a deeper level so we could talk about the mental things and the physical instead of a fluffy summary focused on before and after.

For the collection, this inspired me to think about reflection. Reflection can mean one of two things:

1. the throwing back by a body or surface of light, heat, or sound without absorbing it.
2. serious thought or consideration.

Both definitions are on point with the concept but for design, I wanted to focus on the physical definition. 

MOOD

MOSAIC Crop Racerback and Tee:

Brainwave: reflection >mirrors > glass > shattered > cracked > mosaic

The MOSAIC design is just that... a simplified visual of pieces being put together into a design. What I think is so special about the concept of creating mosaics is that bits and pieces that have been cracked apart are then being put back together into an arrangement that is then art. In this case, it's our rhino!

We obviously have a thing for gold... but in this case, it really works with the concept because we were able to use reflective prints!

Read: our journeys are kind of like mosaics. 

TRIAD Tanks and Tees:

The TRIAD design is more focused on the three ELEMENTS of your Ultimate Self: strength, power, and stability. On the front, it's simply the words "Ultimate Self" which you'll see have been painted on (because let's be real, it's not a perfect, clean line to your best self). I used a triangle to symbolize the three ELEMENTS (hence the name "TRIAD" -- three!). The triangle also ties into the design of the MOSAIC.

Down the spine, read "strength power stability" because it's kind of the backbone of this whole thing.

And gold, because duh.

Til next time,

Paige