State of Devotion | Ohio-inspired clothing for the truly devoted. Respect your roots.

Posted in General

Excited for the Columbus Food Truck Festival

08/08/2013

Columbus Food Truck Festival

The State of Devotion team is excited to be a part once again of the Columbus Food Truck Festival. This year’s festival is August 16 and 17, and we’re happy to join this great event at the Columbus Commons once again.

The Columbus Food Truck Festival features more than 40 of central Ohio’s best food trucks, live music and arts and crafts. The event is friendly to food fans of all ages and offers a great opportunity to taste some of the fantastic foods we have here in truck form.

To us at State of Devotion the Food Truck Festival reminds us of how far downtown has come. From the old days to City Center to the Commons and now to the beautiful apartments, this area has seen an impressive amount of transitions over the years. This great two-day event is another reminder that Columbus is a progressive city that can quickly adapt and grow, which sets it apart from some other Midwest cities.

Food trucks and carts for the most part have formed an entrepreneurial alliance that is moving and shaping the cultural and even political landscape of the city. It’s good for business and it’s good for Columbus.

Join us next weekend August 16 and August 17 to enjoy one of the final weekends of summer with some delicious food and awesome entertainment.

Posted in Community

New GHFD Shirts by State of Devotion

07/19/2013

We’re so excited to provide the Grandview Heights Fire Department union shirts from State of Devotion. Thanks to Jason Kay, GHFD firefighter/paramedic and little Cole for posing!

Posted in Community • General

State of Devotion at ComFest

06/27/2013

It’s the eve of our first ComFest so I thought I would post a message about Community and what it stands for at this event. The Community Festival Statement of Principles goes beyond the definition of living in a specific area and sharing a common cultural heritage. It states that “people ought to work for the collective good of all people rather than for personal gain, the basic necessities of life are a right and not a privilege and people should strive to conduct their lives in harmony with the environment. It also goes on to say that “We recognize that there are primary attitudes which divide and oppress people. These attitudes are usually shown by prejudice against people on the basis of age, class, ability, income, race, sex and sexual preference/orientation. We seek to eliminate these attitudes.”

Sometimes people think about people-watching, drinking and partying first but when you step back and look at ComFest it stands for something, something much bigger. I think Columbus is lucky to have an event like this with organizers, vendors and patrons that stand for a cause or a belief. That is part of the fabric of State of Devotion and I try to embody all of the principles mentioned above. I’m proud of that and I’m proud to be a part of this communal event.

Community Festival Statement of Principals

Posted in Behind the Scenes • State of Devotion Growler Bags

Behind the Scenes: Making Growler Bags

06/03/2013

In a previous post we showcased our single growler bag made exclusively for The Ohio Taproom. A lot of folks like that the bags are handmade here in Ohio and ask about the process. Here is a little behind-the-scenes peek at our bag production.

As previously mentioned, the bags are made by my dad right here in Ohio. He retired a couple years ago from fighting fire after 37 years at the Cambridge Fire Department. When he’s not sewing State of Devotion bags he restores old motorcycles and gas pumps. This is a shot my dad and my first grader at one of his machines in his workshop.

Here they are sewing a seam together on the outer canvas liner.

With sewing, most of the work is done in reverse so you are constantly turning your inside and right side out to create the finished product.

After initial prototype work is done, cardboard templates are made and we can quickly cut out pieces to be sewn together. This is for the round bottom of the growler bag. A rigid plastic disc is sewn into the bottom between layers to give the bag strength and allows it to stand on its own.

We use this machine to sew the round base on to the cylidrical body of the growler bag. The long shaft allows access to the bottom of the bag.

When the pieces are combined, they create this outer skin of the bag.

If you look inside our bags you might notice a triple-thread seam of red, white and blue overlapping threads. That is one of our hallmarks and this Serger is the machine that makes those seams happen. It allows for a nice overlap keeping the ends of the raw fabric from fraying.

Our single growler bags cinch shut at the top using grommets which are pressed in to place using this foot operated press. The design of this tool has not changed at all in 100 years.

We are nearly finished with the final prototype of our double growler bag shown here. All it needs now are some straps and clasps.

My dad showing my son how to trim the ravelins off of what would become a lift-off lid for the double growler bags. If you were wondering from the first photo, yes that is a chamois on his head. Hey, it’s a great way to stay cool on a hot day around all these machines.

Posted in State of Devotion Growler Bags

Single Growler Bags from State of Devotion

05/15/2013

We’re proud to unveil our first single growler bags, the perfect way to keep your beer the perfect temperature.

These bags are our first batch of handmade in Ohio growler bags in our new “Black & Tan” series. All bags are handmade by J.H. Jackson, my Dad.

The State of Devotion growler bags are insulated with an outer canvas layer and an inner canvas layer. Sandwiched between the layers is a special, lightweight thermal blanket material to help keep beer the perfect temperature on the way home.

Coming soon, double growler messenger bags.

We’ll be carrying these growler bags at festivals throughout the summer as well as several retail locations…stay tuned!

Posted in General

Mother’s Day Ohio Link Necklace

05/10/2013

We’ve got the perfect gift for Mom this Mother’s Day, our Ohio Link silver necklace. Celebrate Mom and her favorite state with this one-of-a-kind gift. Necklaces still available while supplies last at our retail locations. Check out Simply Vague at Tuttle Mall, Celebrate Local and Bink Davies for the perfect gift for your Mom this weekend.

The idea for the Ohio Link necklaces started life as cut acrylic key chains. We worked with Griffin Hollow Studio to cut samples out of acrylic.

I had to add an additional loop to the design and adjust its size and placement to allow for the chain.

Ultimately the cutout link design was not strong enough in acrylic so we worked with another local company to prototype stainless steel versions.

While these might be sold at a later date, they were used as the basis for molds to begin casting fine jewelry. Once the mold was made by hand, additional pieces could be created using the lost wax casting process over and over again. You can see what the rough blanks look like when they first come out of the mold.

Each blank is cast in bronze and then ground and polished by hand before being plated in silver. Sometimes blanks do not come out of the mold right and are melted down to be used again later. Once the necklaces are plated they are ready for assembly and sale.

We also work with Griffin Hollow to make custom jewelry stands from reclaimed wood for our stores.

Posted in State of Devotion Designs

New Design: Short North T-Shirt

04/30/2013

I’ve been thinking about a Short North shirt for the last year, and I’m so happy that it’s come to life after stewing over how it should play out exactly. Here’s a bit about the process in getting the Short North T-shirt design to come to life. (And I hope you love the final product as much as we all do!)

First, the design started with multiple sketches, and I mocked up the best ideas in Photoshop or Illustrator. The team passed around and reviewed the mockups until we chose the best design and perfected it. We took about eight hours over a few days to finalize the Short North design.

Then, we created a screen and ran test prints.This determined ink consistency, and we diluted the ink and ran several passes until it was just the right mixture.

Next, we took the two best mixes and tried them on a test shirt.

And we chose the final ink color–

—then test printed it on a real shirt.

And when we were happy with the final ink color on a shirt, we went into full production.

We’ve been incredibly happy with the response for this Short North shirt, both online and at the outdoor markets we’ve featured it. We’re running a contest through May 7 on Facebook if you’d like to win a Short North T. Anyone who comments on FB to let us know their favorite part of the Short North will be entered to win. And go! Just in time for Gallery Hop season.

Posted in General

Adaptive Reuse

10/30/2012

I’ve been working with one of our retail partners, Celebrate Local, to figure out an easier way to display apparel for all of the vendors. For the most part we vendors fold our shirts and within no time they are a mess creating the need for a full-time Shirt Folder to clean up. It’s not easy for customers to view or test fit the tees without unfolding them. Leading up to the holiday shopping season we wanted to display multiple vendors in an easily accessible fashion as quickly as possible. We determined that racks were the best option but they had to be portable, adjustable, look cool and include signage to separate vendors.

Click the pics below for what I came up with. Details below each photo.

Posted in General

Retail Cart Build Up

05/15/2012

I thought I’d create a post detailing the assembly of our cart display at Celebrate Local. The base is a vintage Lineberry Foundry & Furniture Company railroad cart. The story behind it states the cart came from an old furniture store near New Philadelphia, Ohio that opened in 1926. I drafted plans for a metal shelving unit to mount on top of it in Google Sketch-Up and then my dad and I welded it up. I gave it a paint job, added some detachable features and signage to round it off. Check it out…

Posted in General

It’s All in the Details

03/17/2012

When I look at something I can instantly tell if it’s off by a pixel one way or another. That’s attention to detail and our shirts are no exception. We take the time to remove the American Apparel label from the necks of our shirts, screen print new neck tags by hand and sew custom tags on the hem of every shirt. It’s all in the details.

New batch of hem tags just arrived.

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