Introduction:

The whole purpose of zenith was to push our selves in the content we produce. This project would however be different. We would have to set up our own deadlines and we had the choice of making whatever we wanted. For me, I choose to make my own clothing brand called Hand’s Down. I choose to make clothing because it was something I had never produced. I also found that it would a big challenge to produce.  The phrase “Hand’s Down” is a term that I came up with when I was learning ASL or American Sign Language. The whole point of this brand is to raise awareness of Deaf Culture in the United States. There isn’t much backstory behind it, I just thought it sounded cool. Below is a link to my photo gallery of some production shots my ASL teacher who would be the face of my brand. This will be followed by the process of me editing the photos into Photoshop and Illustrator.

Final Product:

For the whole printing process I choose to use custom ink to print my clothing. I am also grateful for those who have helped me with my project. I am glad that this is the last project that I have to do here at Freestyle. It projects like these that will help me in with future projects in college.

Zenith Reflection:

For my Zenith project, at first I had no idea what I wanted to do for my project. However as the deadlines drew closer I sorta had an idea on where I was gonna take this project. For the last two years for me in highschool, I was learning American Sign Language or ASL for short. As a way of giving back for what I have learned, I decided to dedicate this project to what I have learned. For this project in particular I choose to make a clothing brand primarily of t-shirt and long sleeve shirts. The brand that I choose to name it would be called “Hands Down”. The whole meaning behind the name is to point that the brand would be of high quality so people would buy into it. (Almost the same hype around brands like Supreme) As for the decals on the clothing, on the front there is black text that says “Hands Down” in the middle of the text there is a rose that is hidden between the two letters. The reason for the rose is that Deaf Culture in the United States is very hard to understand. It’s never crystal clear and the struggle in the initial phases of learning the language was hard for me. After learning more about the culture, I was able to gain a good understanding of the language.  That’s why I choose to add a rose between the text. On the back there are two illustrations of my ASL teacher signing “Hands Down” followed by some subtitles for those who don’t understand. 

As for the research aspect of things I knew I had to find a printing company and people to model for my clothing. When researching I found a company called “Customink”. I found it easy to print and had it shipped within a week. One I had my clothing it was just a matter of time before I had found my models. I choose to have my brother end up being the star of the show. Photos of him can be found on my Zenith website. If I had the choice to do the project over, I would include more people to model for me and also provide more detail on the clothing but I still do admire the simplicity of the clothing. Since the ending of this project, I have learned well that it takes lots of time to prepare and design clothing. All of these actions must be done in advance to secure the quality of the design. If it were all rushed, I would not produce as well as I thought nor would the people wearing the clothing itself. As for other Freestyle projects that I produced in the past, it was the one that I had the most fun producing. Since I have been hitting deadlines consistently, I found it easier to progress with my project. In conclusion, its projects like these will help me learn the reality of making more of them in the future. This was a great learning experience as I will find myself in these same projects in college too. It was a good send off before graduation.