After the success of Kalapana’s initial merch offering, Aloha Got Soul wanted a way to continue offering merchandise without doing the same thing twice.
To coincide with the release of the Kalapana box set- I wanted to focus more on making collectable items. I initiated collaborations with three Hawaiʻ i institutions.
The result was a line down the street that attracted fans, press, and the police.

APB Skateboard
Creative Direction + Design

Portraits of the 4 original members screen printed on a Black bottom veneer. I wanted the board to look and feel like a collectors item, and to me “Autographs” seemed like a way to convey that. Signatures of the band members were pulled from a rare copy of the record that AGS has displayed in the store. I had owners from both APB and AGS “sign” their respective shop’s names in their own handwriting as a nod to the signatures on the bottom.

The plumeria lei top graphic was derived from APB’s previous use of lei around the board. I enlisted the help of my friend Alec, who created the lei series for APB, to help me with this one. I chose Plumeria because in the early days of Kalapana the band would string long plumeria lei from their mic stands during performances. Hawai’i Lei Stand strung us together a custom 4 ft Plumeria lei to photograph for the top veneer.

 
 
 

Sig On Smith Aloha Shirt
Creative Direction | Design

Making an aloha shirt based on Kalapana’s song “Black Sand” seemed like an obvious direction to go towards. I wanted to create something that was subtle, abstract, and that could stand on it’s own even without much of the bands imagery.

To showcase the collaboration between the three entities I had satin woven patches and attached to the bottom left of the shirt, utilizing lyrics and a tagline I wrote that summed up the spirit of the collaboration.

Toyota Hawaiʻ i
Creative Direction | Design

Toyota wanted to produce some collaboration items for the weekend, specifically a t-shirt. At this point, AGS had produced 10 different Kalapana shirts in a 9 month span- so I knew whatever I came up with had to stand out from the others in a loud way. What better way to do that than in Hi- Vis Yellow? It was a risky move, but in the end was our best performing shirt to date.

Over the course of the weekend, Plumeria scented air fresheners were distributed as a promo item for Toyota drivers. My first car was a Toyota, and it was in that car where I came up with the “Slow down...” phrase that was used for the bumper sticker years later. It only seemed natural to bring it back full circle for this project.