How To Make Garments Entertaining?

Visual exploration of The Canis; story telling through comics.

One of the reasons I don’t do too much ‘me working on this’ content, is the bulk of it is,
me sat behind a laptop occasionally staring into space,
me on the bathroom floor at midnight scribbling notes or
me being dragged through the woods by two dogs while deep in thought.

None of this is very TikTok friendly. But a consequence of having a job, dealing with life and building mythology.

The Canis

How could I make clothing entertaining? This was the question that started it all.

Well, there were a couple of big questions I was circling; how would you talk about your brand if there were no social media. Buffering on the second.

Some days of thought later I started mapping Mongrel Logic’s core range to games.

I had already been thinking of the drawings as characters, some of them having travelled with me across continents for the past 20 years, and that world was somewhat born back in the 90s and early 2000s.

I had this idea of Mongrel Logic trading cards for the longest time and not found a home for it yet, these two ideas merged and I found myself on the bathroom floor at midnight, (running a bath I don’t just go sit there) and scribbling notes on Pokémon, GTA, Minecraft, etc.

What about those games made people love them?

The language

I’m very good at some things, designing and systems is one of them; I build side entrances and back doors everywhere to allow me to pivot story, language, etc.

I already had some ‘for those who’ language in there, it sounded cool but had no real direction.
It suddenly found a purpose, the world started forming behind my eyes.
At the end of April “The Canis” had emerged, although it was called “The Pack” for about five seconds. And “hunt the logic” was floating for a moment.

The next steps were figuring out which character/design played which role in a newly evolving ARG with garments.


A couple of days of arguing with myself later, everyone had settled into their new roles, and it was like a light switched on. Things started making sense again. (First time in months)

The Canes {F}

The Canes are modelled after gravity, electromagnetism and the strong nuclear force. I circled this like a vulture for days.
Kar, Mur and Torn have Latin origins. For no other reason other than it sounded cool and like it could be unearthed, ancient.

While I was forming The Canes, I was simultaneously working on Spineless; the design that nearly broke everything, I wanted the world to carry meaning.
Spineless represents the real-world issues infecting The Canis.
If it worked, The Canis could have a repeatable ‘condition’ which I only realised after was kind of perfect; because jellyfish only appear in unstable conditions.

The Canes were forming while this condition was spreading and testing the world.

We came out the other side, tested, triumphed. Protected by tokens. Governed by The Canes, three cosmological forces that fight against conditions like Spinless.  

Oh. The irony.

Sun Eater is next

I put that stupid doodle on a garment because I had had the store for about 3 months, I had no idea what I was building but I was showing up every day to build it, and this stupid grinning face kept staring at me.

I coloured him in grey; by the way; grey drawings don’t do so well on socials. Hahaha.

I put him in the store. I was working with GPT4 at the time. It used to have a ton of high school energy, it said and I quote, “bwaaaahahahahaaaa, I ate the sun but I’m sorry”

That’s how Sun Eater got his name. I used to have that quote on a tee, it may return. Right now, Sun Eater is traversing the universe, munching his way through stars, heading in our direction.

I have around 7 iterations of him, none of them are where I want him to be.

I was watching a video on dark matter the other night and have had a brain wave that I plan on trying later today. Look out for the comic on socials, if I’ve got it right, you’ll see him.

And if it works, then he truly is coming.

Comic book socials

 Finally, finally, after months of trying to define what the hell I want to do with my socials that doesn’t involve my face.
The Canis has finally taken over my feed.
The Canis speaks. The Canes are governing. And Logic is transmitting.

Built To Endure

Building this world has led me through a universe of phrases, words, and slogans. Built to endure was one of the first.

 
With the unearthing of The Canis, which is currently worming its way into every SEO corner and page on our websites, our original language is being replaced.

Yours truly drawing Lilith’s Corsage, with an older landing page visible on screen. Dec 2025.

Hopefully not completely erased.  

Today, I removed the last visual trace of The Mongrel Studio page, it’s still there in practice, but our little placeholder now has a purpose beyond that. I’m feeling slightly nostalgic about stuff no one knows about but me.

The backbone of everything we do

Built to endure is and always will be at the heart of everything we do. From story to garment, it’s been designed to travel with you. Live with you. And be recycled once you’re done with it. Sustainability is and always will be at the core.  

Built to endure hoodies

When what you’re building starts evolving under you, calls itself “The Canis” and takes over your social feed, I find myself hesitating over the delete button. The ‘built to endure’ hoodie is still in the shop. I know it doesn’t fit.  I can’t bring myself to remove it. It’s already evolved once when we ran out of the recycled fabric colours.

The Originals

The designs that I started the shop with, will not be there for much longer either. My weird little teenage beasties are being absorbed into The Canis.

Sometimes I can’t believe I put them on hoodies.

Broken proverbs

I can’t tell you the story of where ‘Confusion Says’ comes from. Let’s just say I had a wild childhood, and this proverb was a product of it and my brother’s insane sense of humour.
I have no idea whether broken proverbs have a place to grow within The Canis.

Raise a glass

To the originals, to the early language, to the first iteration of Mongrel Logic, as we are absorbed into The Canis. If you have been here from the start, I hope you have enjoyed watching this happen. I feel like I haven’t slept in a year.

The Design That Almost Broke Everything

A conceptual piece testing if art styles can hold in the same world

When I set out to build The Canis, it was to try and solve a few problems at once.
I didn’t anticipate creating one instead.

Enter, the jellyfish.

I did not choose this design. It popped into my head one night.

I have a real fondness for political cartoonists. I grew up on Zapiro in South Africa and enjoy many of today’s artists.

The jellyfish concept was my own little protest. I shelved the idea for a couple of weeks until the jellyfish suddenly slotted into place within The Canis. A condition. Spineless. The enchanted ones.
It represents what confronts us. What we’re up against in The Canis.

Jellyfish nightmares

Spineless

I kept waking up at 5am with the jellyfish fading behind my eyelids. Hating it.
It took me 5 days to do. 3 of those were 7.5 hour sit ins.

The one that ended up on garment is the second third version.

I couldn’t see why. Was it conceptually weak? Probably. Was it good? I don’t know.

Nearly broke The Canis

Five minutes after I’ve built The Canis, I’ve designed a character that broke it. I could not tell if it was pushing one style of art too far.

If I have, which style do I go with, do I need to redesign everything and pick one or will this evolution of story be legible?  My brain was a rolodex of symbols and iconography.

The irony is this is exactly what Spineless represents

The conditions that spread and fracture our systems, that push to the brink and force change.
I bit the bullet and released it into the wild. I still hated it.

I mocked up the world. I needed to see conceptually if it held. No one knows that the Raptor design is really a sleeping geometric creature. No one knows that the Sun Eater doodle has morphed into a formidable Token. No one knows how dangerous it is. The fragments are only just being unearthed.

It didn’t break

To my surprise, it held. Even if the AI concept mock-up has gone a little literal with Raptor…He was inspired by the Bio-Raptors from Pitch Black. Still some of the best creature sound design ever made.

Spineless

The enchanted. Because pressure always finds a form. The condition. Organic streetwear for those who recognise.

The next 5 designs are planned.
The next fragment is being unearthed.
I thought the jellyfish was going to break The Canis.

It didn’t.
I like it now.