Gitche Gumee

 

The second t-shirt design I launched after becoming the new owner of Northmade was very personal to me. From the time I could remember, I loved the music of Gordon Lightfoot. My dad was born and raised in Duluth, Minnesota so Lightfoot's "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" and its vivid descriptions of Lake Superior's early-winter wrath became a favorite of his and, eventually, of mine. 

By 2018, my six year-old daughter could sign along to "Fitz" and this classic song was into its third generation of my family. So, now that I had my own Minnesota clothing brand, I figured why not design a t-shirt for me? Gordon Lightfoot routinely sold out the Orpheum and the State Theater, so there must be at least a few thousand people out there who would know the meaning of Gitche Gumee if they saw it on a shirt. And maybe 50 of them would be willing to drop $25 to wear it.

The next step was figuring out a design that included those alliterative words and somehow tied in Lake Superior. Our terrific artist/designer Drew is a music guy and he was happy to take on the challenge. I didn't give him much help with direction and the first few efforts were a far cry from where we ended up.

 

I couldn't put my finger on exactly what I wanted, but I knew I wanted the two words to be part of the design and not just as text separate from the lake. What came next was a huge step closer.

But obscuring some of the letters was going to make it too difficult to make out the words and we weren't quite there yet. As I mentioned, Drew is a music guy and (like me) was old enough to remember the band The Monkees and the way they styled the band's name on their album covers. I was sold immediately on the concept and what came next is basically what we've been selling ever since. 

The Gitche Gumee t-shirt hasn't reached the level of sales as some of our best sellers, but that was never the point. It was something for me and anyone else who loves Lake Superior, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald", or both. It's a shirt that makes me smile every time I see it in our store, on an online order or in my dresser drawer. We recently added it to our sticker collection and a mug might be on the way soon. 

Thank you for taking the time to read about one of my favorite Northmade designs. I hope you enjoyed reading half as much as I did writing.

 

Brian

Northmade Co.