Turning garments into an ARG
A behind-the-build note on how a question about making streetwear “entertaining” led to The Canis'; an ARG built from characters, factions, artifacts and resistance.
There is something about organic business growth that forces you to think.
I have started this from my own pocket, my own blood, sweat and brain cells.
Recently, I asked the question, how do I make garments entertaining?
A photo of my notes in progress on building an ARG from our range
The question led somewhere stranger
I started by looking at my characters. Things I drew when I was 14, 17.
What I was thinking about hasn’t really changed. It’s evolved. I started mapping alignments.
Characters became artefacts.
Artefacts became factions.
This is also where I decided Artifacts was cooler than Artefacts, sorry England.
Story had already been forming around them; each garment had its own ‘for who’ declaration based on the art.
What if you could “battle” or align in the street? Choose your faction.
Can garments carry allegiance, story and resistance?
Ancient pressures.
Ways of holding your ground.
The Canis emerged.
Recognise The Canis
Two weeks of game mapping, architecture and linguistic gymnastics led to The Canis.
Suddenly, it was alive.
Not just another shop, a small theatre of resistance. Rebellion.
Defiance.
The garments became artefacts in a wider struggle because, in ways both obvious and hidden, this is a battle for our lives.
Has it changed my social media habits?
No. 😆
It’s an exercise I’d recommend to any founder
Not because it will solve your distribution problem. It may solve nothing.
But asking the question led me to unearth the world that has been hiding in plain sight for over 20 years.
What is The Canis?
The Canis has been here longer than you know. Twenty years of characters, worlds, tokens and conditions; built before there was a name for any of it. The designs in this store are artifacts. Each one marks where something stands. Start with who you are.
Omens: A world within The Canis
The Canis can’t be entered.
Only recognised. That recognition is the doorway.
The Canis is a record
A world in development for over 20 years. Characters, villains, tokens, conditions, and the three primal elements, the Canes, that shape how you survive it. Every design in this store is an artifact from that world. Every piece marks where something stands.
Start with who you are.
Choose your element. Follow the marks. The record will guide you through.
Trouble is coming. Find The Canis.
How Organic Growth Effects Design
Building a brand with no money changes everything. With no ads or shortcuts, organic growth becomes more than a strategy; it starts shaping the design itself. This is what happens when you’re forced to build something that earns attention instead of buying it.
I started this business with an idea, a pencil and every free version of software you can imagine, from google docs to the first free-website blog.
I haven’t spent anything on ads, sponsorship or traffic. Yet.
It’s been 8 months since I launched the shop and over a year of solid build from websites to caps. I had to do it this way.
Organic cotton, emblematic of our organic growth journey
Socials are not the only strategy
Organic growth on social media, is like swimming upstream.
You are playing for free, in a pay to play environment.
Platforms that are designed to feed you sponsored content, are not going to prioritise unpaid content, that’s the simple version. Never mind algorithms.
It’s also unavoidable if you’re trying to sell something whether that is a t-shirt, a service or your personality. When you have a zero spend strategy, it’s a brutal combination. Unless you happen to have a large…personality.
It means slow growth, minimal distribution and many nights spent looking at every single little thing to make sure that I have done everything I can to move any kind of lever because that is all I can do.
Which also got me thinking…
What if all socials vanished tomorrow?
How would you promote your business?
No Instagram, no TikTok, no Reddit, imagine absolutely everything was gone or this list will get stupid.
What would you do to get the word out?
It’s made me look at what we offer in a different way.
On platforms made to entertain, how do I entertain? And how do I reach people offline?
I started looking for growth opportunity elsewhere, for story, for development, at strategy and landed on something interesting.
Recognise The Canis
This is fragment one. This is the start of what has been a seemingly endless development journey which has led me to characters, tokens and worlds. It’s unfolding and to be discovered. And the reason why I’ve been scribbling down notes at 1am again.
Cryptic I know
And for good reason. Find The Canis. This is an example of what zero spend can do to design, when you’re forced to design your way out of constraints. It’s conceptual and being slowly released but, on paper, almost brilliant.
Organic design is the outcome
I’m not going to lie, although it’s a constant constraint, zero spend is fundamental for another few months, whether that is fortunate, or unfortunate remains to be seen.
What it does to your design strategy, however, is worth experiencing.
What do you do when you can’t buy attention?
It’s an exercise I’d recommend to any founder. If you can handle it. I have started from zero. I have fully formed business architecture, a designer range in development, a sustainable, circular core system that has just morphed into The Canis, and it all started with a blog called The Pavement Special. I don’t mean to blow smoke up my ass, but no one else is so…
I’m painfully aware of how many businesses fail and how many challenges there are ahead. I just can’t seem to stop. Sometimes I think I should…but then I end up starting another design, or mapping out worlds or fretting over dye, or sitting down to write, or making tiktoks (shakes her fists at the sky), or working on strategy, or tweaking the website, or…
P.S Or that’s how you know this wasn’t written by AI. K’ Bye.