What is The Mongrel Studio?
The Mongrel Studio Logo
The Mongrel Studio is where I designed my first cap. It had no name back then. It’s a physical space as much as it is a space inside my head. Where the ridiculous and the incredible are possible. I am one of those people who is interested in everything. I have the good fortune of wide-ranging experience.
I love both the light and the dark, I can easily be found cleaning with Devil wears Prada running in the background listening to Lorna Shore whilst contemplating why we’re trying to terraform a planet with no rotating core. This example isn’t exclusive.
Why did I develop The Mongrel Studio?
I can’t help with Mars. But after I designed the cap, I developed the studio to answer the design questions I have been asking my whole life. Why we do things the way we do and how I could do it better.
When I was a kid; at The Kruger National Park my brother and I slept in a one-man tent that was dripping with condensation, listening to Hyenas sniffing around the campsite. I still hate tents.
One night, there was an infestation of black beetles that stank worse than anything I have ever smelled. They gathered around lights and died in the thousands. I will never forget that smell, it took my breath away like horseradish or wasabi. I love both of those, I just mean the compound in the smell, it knocks your breath back into your throat.
I was looking at the streetlight outside the other night, it was at about midnight, and there was one lonely bug swirling around it; getting ever closer to the spider web spun across the light. It made me sad. I have always loved nature and deplore how we live with it.
What does this have to do with caps? Nothing. And everything. It’s the backbone of everything I do. It’s important to design with nature in mind. We must do things better. It can’t just be about profit and eating up resources. I don’t have an answer to it all. But I finally have a home for my mad scientist to live.
From a Cap to Solving the world’s problems
I want to help that lonely bug, and I want to help people be able to earn their own money. If you can’t afford to eat, you can’t afford to care about insects. The focus right now is making a cap that, with care, will last you a lifetime. It’s something that your kid might dig out of your cupboard in 20 years’ time and claim it as their own. Using the right materials. Not producing landfill in the form of fast fashion. Creating products that have a life on the second-hand market. Limited, capsule drops under the label Mongrel Logic™.
Transparency is key as well, I think. I don’t have everything figured out yet, six months ago there was no brand, just a blog and me trying to figure out what my next step was. Now I am madly pulling together design files and hunting for the right collaborator.
The next chapter for the studio
The next chapter is finding a collaborator, making the cap and launching it. After that, I have more tricks up my sleeve and a vision. The vision being the development of a house that empowers others to do the same and bring access to those who don’t have it.
How is Mongrel Studios going to help?
I know this is bigger than me. The hard part will be getting it done, but I’m not sweating. It starts with our signature edition cap, motivated by a desire to see people win, because we can’t solve the worlds problems if we are all constantly losing.
Welcome to Mongrel Studio.
If you are still reading, thank you. Follow along to see the cap launch unfold and watch what becomes of this space. Collaborators welcome. Subscribe to the newsletter; coming soon and follow on socials. This is just the beginning.
