DAMIEN SAMWELL
DAMIEN SAMWELL
FOUNDER & DESIGNER
Where it all began
Hey, welcome to my store. I’m Damien, founder and designer at CovertSubvert.
I’ve been a designer here in the UK for the past 10 years, working on a variety of projects obsessing over typography, print finishes and the small details that drive the bigger things. I’ve always been drawn to design and admired the many things within the world we live that are beautifully crafted, minimalistic whilst also functional. Naturally I wanted to contribute items that contained the same kind of design aesthetics that I personally love.
CovertSubvert started almost out of entirely selfish reasons. The humble t-shirt has been a fashion staple of mine forever…coupled with a solid pair of denim jeans…that ‘IS’ my look. I often struggled to find high-quality, minimalistic, well-designed and unique t-shirts to wear and was weary of buying anything mainstream or mass produced so the natural evolution was to design and wear my own!
The saying “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life” is a valhalla situation to be and certainly something that I’ve strived to achieve throughout my life. Being able to design every day brings me close to that, but designing products that I love and would want to wear myself, without any of the restrictions or constraints of traditional designer and client relationships…well…it’s a beautiful thing, and my first real whiff of what freedom smells like.
The t-shirt is a fantastic creative blank canvas and it offers the most flexibility to open-up, let-loose and get those creative pistons firing. The “Build Bridges not Walls” t-shirt design was my first concept and quickly became very popular, especially as the timing coincided with the 2016 USA presidential campaign and the divisive comments from Donald Trump and his grand wall ideas.
With CovertSubvert’s launch in the summer of 2016 with 5 designs available in a select range of colours, things have started small but well. I’m busy planning the next range of products which will feature more designs and even branching out into other product categories like women’s pencil skirts, women’s designer leggings and full sublimated tees for men and women too!
I really hope you enjoy the store and I look forward to providing you with some exciting products as we grow.
Theme/approach
My goal in design is to focus on simplicity…distilling the essence down to the most important core…”Less is More” certainly rings true and its something that constantly shapes the way I work.
Styles naturally form themselves and its certainly something that I see looking back over my portfolio of work….t-shirts are no different. The CovertSubvert style is high quality, minimalistic design with a positive but sometimes subversive edge or social commentary/observation that hopefully people also find interesting. I love the idea of inter-twinning subtle ideas or observations about this absurd world in which we live into my designs and will continue to do so where possible.
My inspiration comes from everything around me, the places I go, the people I meet, things I notice and see about the way the world works and interacts.
The personal touch
Every single design goes through multiple iterations and refinements to ensure that you get the very very best end product. This attention to detail trickles down from pencil to paper, ink to fabric and so on. I want every aspect of these products to be the best they can be.
Our products are designed here in the UK and printed and shipped from California, USA. No sweatshops, no cheap labor, just 100% made in America goodness.
Being a small business I also wanted CovertSubvert to be very personal and in-touch with its customers. Every customer question and query is personally handled by myself to ensure 100% satisfaction. I love connecting to people online too so if you have any questions please reach out for a chat via any of my social media channels.
Looking forward
I launched CovertSubvert in August 2016 with just 5 designs! Pretty scary stuff but I’m also super excited to get my ideas out there and look forward to sharing them with the world. I’m constantly working on new concepts, hand-crafting custom typography and prototyping new ideas and will be progressively building upon the themed ‘sets’.
As time goes by I’m looking forward to developing some new product range ideas for you all to checkout and know you’re gonna love them. Exciting times!
Thanks for the support.
Damien Samwell | CovertSubvert
