Teruo Artistry (awesome name!) is an interesting new brand from the Bay Area. My very first impression is that of a brand that is still somewhat trying to find themselves but are off to a good start. The idea behind the brand is a combination of being rather general, yet also thought out. What i mean by that is that i really liked their story (the name is the first name of the owner’s grandfather, read the whole story here: http://www.teruo.com/company.html) but their mission statement is a bit vague and sounds like some page filler most labels write (we didn’t like what we saw, we made our own, we’re creating something from nothing bla).

Their designs are clean, using nice coloring and a bit going against what is popular right now: their prints are rather small, in comparison with the full front prints or allover prints that flood the market at the moment. I’m a bit torn, since i like the idea, and their designs are simple yet expressive buuuut nothing new. A microphone, a boombox, a grammophone, a tape, a speaker…all elements of design we’ve seen a thousand times over. I guess it’s part of a lot of people’s lives (we all love music, we wanna rep where we’re from) but i don’t see a lot of originality from a purely iconic point of view. I do have to admit though that the colors are nicely put together, the designs are very clean and there is an undeniable Teruo look. I always appreciate lines that are put together well:

SOURCE: http://store.teruo.com/tshirts-2.aspx

They did send us the LIFE IN STEREO shirt though and i must say: excellent printing (very smooth), nice details (inside print, lining, embroidery on the back, sleeve print) and something i have never seen done before…..and i’ll quote “No Two Prints alike, handpicked fabric from around the world uniquely accents each print”. To clarify, there is a piece of fabric stitched into the back of each tee (near the bottom), that is unique with each tee. I am not sure how that would work, especially once you start selling 100’s then 1000’s of units, yet it’s still a really cool idea. I’m sure you’ll find some tees with the same patterns…i don’t really want to spend too much time speculating…still a fantastic idea which has not been done before (that i know of). Here are some pics i took and what i grabbed from their site:

All around dope shirt, interesting approach. Great way to stand out from the pack!

They also make 1 hoodie, which i don’t like design wise, it’s a bit cheesy and the gun design has been overdone, but once again, very nicely put together with printed stitched and woven details, colorful and on a clean dark background. So for those down with that design, this would be a dope hoodie to get, it’s a matter of personal taste, but you simply cannot deny the love for details and quality:

Last but not least they also make hats. One thing i don’t think is effective, is for younger companies to put their logo on hats, without any other adornments or in any other funky way. The brand is not strong enough yet for kids to rock simply the logo, even though it’s nice and clean, it’s smarter to focus more on design and have more interesting hats than just a majority of purely logo based ones. In Teruo’s case, they have too many logo hats and not enough design ones, but the two hats that are not just the logo are DOPE! Pure freshness. Check it:

This also comes in a brown / yellow sun colorway. Very, very nice usage of the logo and japanese influenced design. I was blown away.

In closing, this is a really cool up and coming brand, keep your eyes peeled. I’m interested to see how they develop their designs, and maybe add some more unique symbols. I highly recommend their website, it’s easy to browse, has a bunch of cool info in their blog (regularly updated!) and though i am not too hype on every single item, the line looks nicely put together, makes sense within their mission statement and could easily fit into a highly specialized streetwear shop or simply a skate / record store. Keep it comin’ Teruo! And send us some of those fresh hats

Make sure to hit up:

http://www.teruo.com/blog/b.html