Nigel Twumasi, the brains and creative co-founder behind the brand
Mayamada, has been with the Be On The Scene Community since its birth over two years ago. Since joining he has been hard at
work developing a brand that is soon to be the talk of the town. I was
fortunate enough to be able to meet him personally and get an insider’s view of
the brand and hear all the exciting news of upcoming plans.
We met at our offices and Nigel, sporting the recognized logo
t-shirt, was everything I thought he would be…interesting, charismatic and
driven. We begin our interview.
BOTS: Tell me a bit
about how Mayamada came to be
Mayamada was born over email between friends and one of the
emails involved making t-shirts and selling them to universities. That never
happened, but none the less we were all very excited about it, but it ended up
being a group of five people down to two, myself and Lao. After about a year of trying something that
clearly wasn’t working, we decided to start again, changing everything except
the name. We also brought in someone to work with us on the artwork side of
things while we focused on our strengths such as branding and coming up with
ideas.
We both have a background in engineering but with a common
interest in Japanese culture, anime and creating characters. Some years ago, we
started without any clue on how to do it, but the idea was there and we found
out very quickly that there was so much more to it. It’s not just designing a
t-shirt and putting it out there. Its developing a fashion brand, how to market
it, things we didn’t give much thought to in the beginning.
When I was younger, I liked the idea of starting a business,
not necessarily a clothing line, but I have always wanted to create something
from nothing. I did a lot of programing so the process of building something
from an idea appealed to me.
There have been a few difficulties in trying to
communicate who we are as a brand. But solving that is by accepting the
challenges and getting over failure, and taking a step back, starting over and
keep going.
BOTS: So, what exactly
does mayamada mean?
Mayamada is a mash up of the Japanese name “Mayazuki Yamada”.
When we first started we wanted to create a persona that represented us. We
decided to shorten it as in Japan, that is what they do with some names. So we shortened it and combined the two. It is
technically a made up word, but it lets us put our own meaning to the words.
BOTS: Could you explain
your logo?
The current logo was part of the rebranding and we started
off playing with a few logos, (see pictures)
And then we started looking for an artist, and she mentioned
that our original logo didn’t match what we were doing, so we took a step back
to reasses and we thought about what we wanted to achieve. That was when we
came up with a fantasy TV network so that was something that allowed us to
think a bit further out of the box. When looking for a logo, we were searching
through Japanese Kanji (one part of the Japanese alphabet) and this particular
“lettering system” was kanji for shellfish, but I noticed that when you flipped
it upside down, it looked like a television set. I thought, hey, that makes
sense. Let’s go with it.
BOTS: Let’s talk about Mayamada TV.
Mayamada is a fantasy television network with an all-star
animal cast. Within the world are
original characters that come from one of the shows in the network with their
own back story.
We want to create something that promoted imagination and this allows us to come up with different ideas and
create characters and stories for our t-shirts. This was a way for us to be
comfortable with the ideas we were playing with, and Mayamada allowed us to do
something like that.
BOTS: Where did you find
your illustrators?
We started with free-lance artists who were great as it got
the job done, but we loved the idea of someone on the team. We went to the MCM
Expo (comic book expo) we started looking around in one of the sections called
artists alley and we had the idea of “just looking around” we stumbled across an
artist by the name Pinali and we decided to explain to her what we were doing. She wanted to be a part of it. That was a couple of years ago and we have
been working with her ever since.
BOTS: You had some great
exhibitions of Mayamada at trade shows and launches, how did you get this far?
We have indeed. With Tutti Frutti, the frozen yogurt shop. It was the same scenario as when we were looking for an illustrator, we were simply looking around and saw the opportunity and presented it to them. Lao was out and about in Covent Garden and stumbled across the shop and took a picture. He then showed it to me and it seemed to be a perfect fit for our brand. As a new business, it was easy to set up and they were quite willing. We did a launch there- check out the video
We have simply kept in touch and we will be returning on 24th August to their Brighton Branch.
We have a plan and idea and it’s just about approaching
people, some people say no, but others say yes. You only need one or two people
good to work with. If people can see what your goal is and what your product
is, it makes it easier to want to be apart of it.
BOTS: What kind of items
can I expect to find in the Mayamada collection?
We started with T-Shirts with a range called Samurai Chef,
which is a cooking show where contestants make food and it gets judged by the
Samurai Chef who attacks it with his Samurai Sword. The other is hot lunch
which is a show about a crew of food thieves who pull heists on several
restaurants in an effort to bring down an elite cabal of chefs. We have logo
based designs too. That’s what we started with.
We have also started to do snapback caps, bags, oyster card
holders, posters and hoodies, jumpers and vests and comic books. We want to
expand to all different products.
BOTS: What kinds of
people are buying your products?
It all depends on the product. There are things that appeal
to both genders. For example, the T-shirts are still the best sellers to men.
There are a lot of anime followers that are drawn to the
brand, but interestingly enough, we have also found that people who wouldn’t
cast themselves as anime fans but are aware of it, want to get their hands on a
T-shirt
I love them all! But for arguments sake I will have to say I
like Samurai chef because a lot of the time I like to be random and that is a
bit of a random design and humorous. In saying this, some of our new designs
like one featuring Norio, which is Raccoon dog character, are quickly becoming
my favorite.
BOTS: Why have you chosen
the colour scheme?
Well we chose red and white for the logo as those are the colours of the Japanese flag.
In general we like colors like red, white, blue, yellow and they are prominent
in the designs. It wasn’t a conscious decision as we chose what our favorite
colors are. In the beginning we didn’t worry about what shades or hues we
wanted to use, now as the brand is developing, we are starting to think of
things like that. These are all things we are learning along the way.
It also comes down to what colors people would wear. For
instance, men don’t seem to mind the bright colors, but women prefer to go for
neutral colors like black, grey and white.
BOTS: So what kind of
people would you like to see wearing your designs?
This is something we are looking at, and I haven’t always
liked thinking that we can shove a t-shirt on a celebrity and for it to become
an overnight success. I want the product to be great on its own without having
to resort to that.
However, that being said, it does help with visibility and
credibility. In terms of the person I would like to see wearing Mayamada? That
would have to be anyone that’s creative. I love creative people, whether its
music, art, dance or something that sets them apart.
The brand itself is creative and the designs will work for
them.
BOTS: Why should people
be wearing Mayamada?
It’s a brand that promotes imagination and creativity. It’s
a positive thing that needs to be celebrated on a day to day basis.
BOTS: Where do you see your brand in a year?
I would like to be stocked in boutiques and independent
retail locations. I also want to
increase our brand awareness and eventually set up our own store in future. We
want to create a completely branded store that is an experience rather than just
a retail store.We definitely want to go further with our Comic Books which are
currently stocked in Mega City Comics, Orbital Comics and The Big Green
Bookshop. It’s all about taking it further and further.
BOTS: So,where can we
find you?
The best place to find everything you want is from www.mayamada.com where we have our online
shop that stocks everything we make.
From time to time we also attend different exhibitions so
the next one will be at the London Anime Convention so you can find us at our
store there.
Hopefully in the next coming months we will be in shops so
stay tuned!
No comments:
Post a Comment