ANJO

A Hanko for Anjo

When André and I first met up to chat about the vision for ANJO, we explored what it could look like to weave in his identity as an Asian. I brought up the idea of the traditional Japanese seal — the hanko.

A hanko is essentially a stamp with your name on it, used for signing documents. André and I both love printmaking and “analog” experiences. This seemed like a great fit for the brand. So, we started exploring.

Photo by SEMLICALIGRAPHY

Then, André sends me this “back-of-the-napkin” sketch. “anjo” in a loose, hand-written style.

—

This will come back later. Hold on to it!

I start to ideate.

We’re on the right track

Then, we found “it”.

We had the Anjo logo and a strong preference for “wine red”. What more could you need?

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Parody logos, of course.

OK, enough goofing off. It’s time for the first ANJO show.

SRAM AXS, HI-CHEW, TIGER RICE COOKERS, POCKY. You get it!

So, ANJO the band had their first show. It was beautiful.

After getting some feelers out and building a following, it was time to slap that logo on some merch and sell it at the next show!

Everyone that knows me would call me a hopeless optimist and an in-over-my-head DIY’er.

I wish I could tell you that making the merch was an exception to this rule.

Alas, I wanted to build a custom-sized screen printing press and make bandanas.

So, I did. And it took me multiple attempts to prep the screen and get it right.

Remember André's sketch from the beginning? 
It snuck its’ way into the bandana corners!

I’d say they turned out nicely!

They certainly had a hand-made quality to them, which added to the appeal and linked us back to our core of “analog experiences” and printmaking.

For show #2, we had bandanas and HI-CHEW parody logo shirts to sell. My wife and I ran the merch booth and we were able to sell enough to cover material cost, with more inventory left for future shows.

That’s a success.