Dutchtide

So after my high on reddit I expected more to happen. But then a week passed, and another one, and another one. And in total I have sold 7 prints. out of the 28 that I ordered. Right now that is a big loss. The initial investment was 850 euros. So here I am to this day still having my product here at home. The investment goes a lot deeper then that, I've invested in the website which is 200 a year, packaging, which is 300. A 3d model I can use for cool animations 600 euros. A bunch of walkmans that I want to randomly sent with a print as a suprise. So yeah big investments, no return. But at least I got my reddit karma.

Yep, my design went trending on r/design and a bunch of vaporwave reddits (https://www.reddit.com/r/Design/comments/db6cam/i_made_this_season_one_gas_station_hope_you_like/) This happened with almost all my designs on different sub reddits like r/vaporwaveart
Best thing was sales. I sold 5 prints that week.

Managed to finish the last design gas station 03. People do not seem to love this one that much. However it is really pretty in print. The blue colors look deep and intense contrasting with the red gas station in front. Big milestone for season 01. Because now all designs are finished to make a true product!

I spend basically the entire year working on Amazons Undone, so I had very little time for Dutchtide, however I did manage to make gas station 02 which has become my most popular artwork. I am quite proud of it indeed. Initially Dutchtide was supposed to be a clothing brand. But since I could not find the right supplier, basically have no clue how to be a brand and have shit knowledge of marketing I decided to start with something smaller and that was art prints.

Both the name and logo were made by me in this period. Since my art is inspired by vaporwave, which is in essence nostalgia to another time and vaporwave borrows a lot of stuff from Japanese culture I figured the logo should be a combination of my dutch roots mixed with Japan. I started with some sketches in a vertical manner that look like the Japanese charms you can buy at the shrines. I ended up with 5 waves and a mountain shape. The waves representing the dutch tide, (as we are below sea level and I live on the coast) and the mountain representing mt Fuji.

I made the first draft of the website. The header being most important I slabbed a royalty free video down of the sea flowing up the sand. I figured the ocean being so desolate and empty it fits the dark side of vaporwave. As I work I make all these tiny connections that eventually lead up to my choices. Something like this: Header? > Vaporwave > lonely > dutchtide > coast > water > sea on sand > Logo on sand > animated water with wave in style of art

I know its a mess, but it works for me.

Dutchtide started out because my sister saw something in the recent designs I had done. These designs were based on a music genre named Vaporwave. We decided to make something out of it togheter. I had the designs, and the creativity. She is a photographer, so I thought it was not a bad idea.

At this stage there was no name yet, no nothing except for my art. Gas station 01. (art can be seen here https://www.dutchtide.com/buynow)

Vaporwave focuses on the emotion nostalgia. As I wrote in a tweet not so long ago: Being nostalgic to a time where the future is still seen as positive whereas the reality is very grim is not only to me the core of vaporwave, it also reflects the state of our society on a mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual level.