It wasn't until he went on a surfing trip to Indonesia a few years ago that he began to think about turning his love for the ocean into a career. He couldn't be more excited about the launch of his island-inspired KEEF shirt collection.
The inspiration for KEEF, the growing pains of launching a fashion company, and how Adobe Express is helping him create, plan, and publish his social media content without being a huge time suck, were some of the topics covered in a conversation with the man.
Credit: Keefer Charneau
He has been a professional graphic designer for over a decade but always kept his work separate from his surf life. When he started taking photos of surfers and monkeys in Indonesia, he wanted to do something different with them.
I started to think about making wallpaper and pillows with the patterns on them after I used the photos to create these really graphic patterns. For the surfer vibe, designing Hawaiian-style shirts made more sense.
Left: Credit: Keefer Charneau
Right: Credit: Keefer Charneau
Left: Credit: Keefer Charneau
Right: Credit: Keefer Charneau
Credit: Keefer Charneau
Credit: Keefer Charneau
Launching an apparel brand has been a big learning curve for him, but he is having a great time. The other side of manufacturing shirts was as much about the feel of different fabrics as it was about the footprints.
He had to research all the different types of fabrics and the different types of buttons for the shirts. Tencel is a fabric that is produced usingsourced wood processed in a closed-loop system that reuses solvent over and over again to eliminate harmful waste and conserve water, and it's a trademark.
Credit: Keefer Charneau
Another new landscape for him was learning how to build KEEFs social media presence. He doesn't have the time to post every day because he's still a full-time graphic designer.
Credit: Keefer Charneau
Credit: Keefer Charneau
It has a lot of cool templates I can use for all the different social media platforms, and I just drop in my own brand assets. I have the ability to make my content more dynamic with the help of animation. The scheduling tool allows me to carve out a few hours on a weekend to create a month's worth of posts and just be done with it. To get more interaction, I can schedule a post to go live at a certain hour. It allows me to post the first comment when I want to use the #surfsup dude phrase.
Sometimes he had to remove the background from the images he wanted to post because he had a cat on the sofa of his Brooklyn apartment. It has freed up more time for him to focus on other things since he started using Adobe Express.
Credit: Keefer Charneau
If I have a model on a plain background but want to place them on a surfboard, I can use the remove background tool. I can do everything in one place, even when I am on the go, because I can use the app on my phone.
What does the future hold now that KEEF has a social media presence? He wants to create KEEF fabric beach chairs and women's apparel, as well as open a shop in St. Bart's someday. He would be ready to catch whatever wave of inspiration the vibrant island lifestyle spurs him to create next if he was closer to the ocean that launched his inspiration for KEEF.
If you want to bring your brand vision to life quickly and easily, you need to use Adobe Express. It is possible to get a KEEF shirt as soon as they are available for pre- order.
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