Four friends from different backgrounds came together to create their first artistic endeavor: making T-shirts.

Syracuse University alumnus Travis Adenau and his partners Jimmy Becker, Dan Mabie and Zachary Field knew each other throughout high school, when they started the beginning phases of their business.

One year ago, after graduating from college, the boys officially founded their Syracuse-based company, Overcast Clothing. Currently the only apparel on the company website are T-shirts — which are printed on material that is 100 percent organic cotton made in the United States. They also sell handcrafted cups and have featured prints.

While none of the owners have a background in business, they have been able to get the necessary help through the Couri Hatchery incubator at Syracuse University, which is a mentorship program that helps to promote and support student entrepreneurship.

In high school, they started off by screen printing and using a process that would create digital transfer of their designs.

“That’s actually kind of what got me interested in art,” Adenau said.

They decided that all four of them should meet up and combine their economic and creative resources to build a brand.

Adenau said that when the group was deciding which shirt they wanted to use, they bought a huge amount of samples, covered up all of the tags and numbered them. They then proceeded to each try on every shirt and rate them. The organic cotton one came out on top almost unanimously, as sustainability is an important value to the co-owners.

While the material of the shirts happened somewhat randomly, producing them in America was a deliberate decision.

Everyone involved in the company is an artist, and they each make graphics or some form of art. For a while they would have weekly meetings focused only on designs. Each person would start with an idea and work on it in together.

“We all have very different artistic practices,” Adenau said.

The website features a range of designs from graphic to more realistic styles.

“The diversity definitely comes from the fact that we come from different backgrounds,” Adenau said. “Everybody brings something unique to the table, and that ends up for a very cool collection.”

While Adenau has a background in animation, Mabie’s background is in architecture, so he is trained in more traditional skills like watercolor, and Becker is trained in glassware.

In addition to selling clothing, Overcast sells repurposed glassware that Becker creates for the brand. His glass background is incorporated into the business through the cups that he makes out of recycled bottles.

The vision of the recycled glassware markets the idea of repurposing restaurants’ used bottles into cups and selling them back to the restaurants.

Overcast has an advantage over companies that do this because they have added more craftsmanship with the flame polish that they use to create a smooth lip, like the rim of a cup or mug, and make the glass more durable.

“We already have a commission with local restaurants making cups, and it would be nice if we could grow that,” Becker said.

Becker also sees the glassware as an opportunity for expansion. He said he hopes to be able to make a more diverse set of products by also making cups out of wine bottles and putting their own designs in the cups.

Screen-printing on glasses is something that Becker hopes to expand to in the future because it is a very diverse technique.

Currently, the group is focusing on obtaining licensing agreements.

“We have a lot of artist friends who make really cool stuff and we want to have a much greater diversity of designs,” Adenau said.

They want to be able to set up legal agreements so they can give any artist involved a good cut of the money made off of their designs.

Adenau said they want to do it better than other companies where artists get a one-time cut and a couple hundred dollars and then end up printing the designs forever. They want to give artists a flat percentage of every T-shirt sale, so they are more invested in the brand.

“Right now, our goal really is to work with more of the people that we respect. I just want to do more work that is gratifying for business that want beautiful things designed and people who are following their dreams as well,” Adenau said.

Published on October 26, 2015 at 10:30 pm

Contact Stacy: sfern100@syr.edu | @StacyFernandezB