From the outset Terrace Culture designs were at the forefront of Daft Laddie thinking. This can be seen from the first choice of No Barrier To Style, utilising a terracing crush barrier and various Claret & Amber trainers laid out on the terracing steps. The original photo which sparked this idea into life is shown here, a comment on the Facebook post suggested it would make a good T-shirt, which it duly did. If you’re interested in how I got to this stage go visit dosserdom.com where you will see the No Barrier design was the last one I made unbranded. I have been designing Motherwell related T-shirts since 1989 and this was the first design I chose after deciding to go for the brand name. Andy Lewis was the man responsible for bringing this idea to life so he goes down as the first Daft Laddie designer. The C&A actually produced for Daft Laddie was a 2nd version produced especially for the change-over as you will see from the photos.
There were 4 other colourways apart from the obvious Claret & Amber one. The decision to go for different colourways following requests almost killed the brand dead before it got started. After the initial investment to get the accessories organised came the first investment in stock. Some voices had called for different colourways, to avoid being seen as just a Motherwell brand. I took the plunge and ordered 50 of each in Blue, Green & Red, followed later by a Claret & Blue colourway to suit as many different teams as I could think of. And sold hardly any. It nearly ruined me and put me off acting on outside advice. I decided there and then to follow my own instincts and with the release of Ravenscraig, quickly followed by the original Dressers design I found myself back in the game. Luckily there were both hugely popular, no doubt they saved Daft Laddie so when I am accused of being Motherwell-centric as I have been, there is your reason for that approach. And long may it continue.
Ravenscraig artwork is a piece of pure genius by Martin Falloon. He produced it for the Dressers book and agreed to it being used on a T-shirt which brought the single biggest, and longest running, design on the Daft Laddie radar. I broke away from a group who were looking at T-shirt designs to back up the Dressers book success because they didn’t see the potential of this design. Best decision I ever made was to go it alone and trust in my own ideas. They still produced some belters but I was looking for something longer lasting, to make a going concern of it rather than a couple of short term options which was how it panned out.
Dressers original design was more of an afterthought than planned to be honest. I was looking for a follow up to the hugely popular Ravenscraig design and went for this simplistic take on the Dressers logo. It took off quite spectacularly if I’m honest, much to my own surprise and is still in demand to this day in its original form.
The photos show the vast array of colourways it became available in although most of them not to any great degree but it had potential.
The torn Dressers logo was another Martin Falloon creation, again it had to be printed using the DTG process due to the number of colours but it turned out rather well.
Trendy Not Rowdy was actually supposed to feature the Sunday Mail article featuring Crobie & Badger all those years ago, with the clipping used in the Dressers book. But it was proving problematic to have the image recreated so I eventually chose to use this drawing which came from an old Ellesse sticker page given free with products back in the day.
Keep Away From The Match came about by fortune rather than design. I was mucking about trying to figure out the graphics package I had and I accidentally produced this image in Motherwell colours. I had messed about with the rest of it previously to get the Keep Away slogan in the right place, but the colours were a pure accident.
Four Tops was my own creation, quite chuffed that my limited skills could produce this if I’m honest. The old Diadora advert fits nicely with the label from an old Motown single by the Four Tops, “I can’t help myself” mirroring my feelings at the trainers on offer when I first clocked it.
AMF design was also my own. Designers will notice the flaws no doubt but the average lad on the street like me will think it’s good enough. I kept that old TV image for years without knowing what to do with it. Eventually I had a lightbulb moment after seeing someone else doing an AMF design. At one time it seemed you just had to produce one to fit in.
Yesterdays Kids Today became the name I would use for this range because I needed to separate my terrace culture designs from overtly football or Motherwell related ones. I needed somewhere to showcase a specific range aimed at football lads of old. The idea behind it was to create images of us as kids taking part in activities we might have engaged in back then wearing the clobber we are likely to be wearing today or in later years at least.
Conkers was Zander Tollan’s last offering and what a belter he produced. Two young lads playing Conkers, I wanted the Stone Island badge, obviously using green and brown from the leaves gave us the option to bring in Stan Smith trainers, New Balance trainers as well and a CP Company jacket on one of the lads. The surrounding artwork was his own creation but sets it off nicely. Talented boy that. This was really the first design to come under the auspices of the Yesterdays Kids Today banner.
This reworked Dressers design was made in conjunction with Ricky in time for the Scottish Cup Final in 2018 and produced in navy & white featuring the same figure I used in the earlier Trendy Not Rowdy tee. This design marked the first involvement of Willie Kay as our graphic designer.
Bools was Willie Kay’s first creation from scratch, working on my garbled explanations by email, and he hit the nail on the head with the remit provided. A trio of young lads all clobbered up, playing the age old game of Marbles, just like we used to do in school playgrounds and beyond.
Another example is the Windrunner design. Originating from this photo of a young lad holding his jacket over his head and running into the wind. A pastime all of us will recognise going back to our Primary schooldays. I wanted to showcase Nike as one of the staples of our Casual youth, the Windrunner gave me the perfect example of how to marry up an innocent youthful pastime with the clobber we would grow into.
The Flicking Hard design is one I’ve long harboured an inclination to do, initially based on my Subbuteo fascination I wanted to do one using images from old Subbuteo catalogues and Willie Kay combined a few to come out with this design, obviously using my favourite colour combinations along with Adidas T-shirts and the old man with his Paul & Shark shirt with the double entendre tagline “You’re not flicking hard enough.” Any similarities between the guy in the design and myself is purely coincidental I am assured by Willie Kay.