The Garmentor
Back in August, I blogged about a new project I was working on called The Garmentor. It took a little longer to launch than I had anticipated, but it is finally live for all to read and enjoy.
To quote the site:
The Garmentor is a weekly fashion magazine for guys that features buying guides, trend tracking, and style tips geared specifically towards today’s busy, tech-savvy men who need to get advice and make a purchase, all in one stop.
I’m a fashion buff, always interested in the latest trends and the coolest new designers, and I figured that it was about time someone created a sleek, online fashion manual for men. I love what they do over at Uncrate, but because they cover such a wide range of topics, men’s fashion never receives the attention I think it deserves.
My goal for The Garmentor is simple: to find and share the greatest men’s fashion products in a way that is accessible and fun to consume. I wanted the clothes to be the star of the magazine, so I ultimately went with a very clean design that features a white background, black text, and lots of Helvetica. I’m a perfectionist and, therefore, never quite satisfied with my work, but I think that the design will serve its purpose as The Garmentor grows into the mature publication that I hope it will become.
One of the greatest lessons I learned while creating The Garmentor is the importance of having a specific objective and never losing sight of it along the way. It is very easy to forget your original intentions when you spend weeks working on a project like The Garmentor. Oftentimes, I had to take a break and remind myself exactly what I was trying to achieve. It’s probably a good idea to write down your objective and tape it to the wall so you never lose focus and try to do too much or accomplish more than you realistically can.
Perhaps in the future I will share some of the scrapped designs for The Garmentor, but for now I fear that some will look better than the finished product. I had to throw out a great deal of ideas because they simply didn’t work for a commercial website that was going to need specific ad placements. This brings me to another lesson I learned: know your design restrictions before you start working. This is an obvious one, but it’s easy to get excited and start working on a design before you establish its requirements. I’ve also had to accept that advertisements will uglify a design, no matter how hard I try to counter it. And so it is.
I’d really appreciate it if you guys could pass The Garmentor along to your friends, family, and anyone else that you think might like it. A great deal of time, energy, blood, sweat, and tears (yes, really, tears) went into launching The Garmentor and it’d be really gratifying to reach the large audience that I think is out there for a publication like this one. Thanks, and enjoy. :)