Meet Creamy Studios

Today we’d like to introduce you to Creamy Studios. 

Hi Stephen, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
We started working on Creamy while we both attended Ohio University. It mainly started out with buying blank tees from the thrift stores and hand painting little characters and designs onto them. I actually sold my first couple tees and sweatshirts with hand-painted designs to fund an outdoor leadership course I attended during the spring 2018 (I took a semester off and then went back to OU in the fall). When I returned to school, I decided that I needed to do a collection — I painted on some shirts, and my friends and I took campaign photos for them. Everything sold out instantly — and from then on, I knew I was onto something. 

I recruited my brother (Peter) to help produce stuff for the next collection — and the rest is really history. From there it grew into the full business it is today – the main goal the entire time has been to get our art and illustrations onto clothing. We bought an airbrush in the summer of 2020 and started organizing and dropping our collections in a more cohesive way at the beginning of 2021. I would say the business that is Creamy today is one that was birthed out of the pandemic — we just had a lot more time on our hands to develop and practice different ways of upcycling clothing until we finally settled on mainly airbrushed work. The way we market and present the brand too was developed over years of trial and error, but the version that is presented today also came out of the 2020-2021 time period. The years before (2018-2020) were very much testing ground for what was to come. 

We both grew up surrounded by and making art – so we have always been interested in art and creation. 

https://issuu.com/outhreadmag/docs/humans_of_athens (Page 120 for more in-depth on the background!) 

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Definitely not always a smooth ride – I’m sure most artists and entrepreneurs would agree — it’s the challenges that eventually make up the success that is enjoyed. 

We’ve always had a lot of support from family and friends along the way — and luckily, we have a very engaged following so the business has remained self-sufficient. 

Besides the weekly struggles of self-motivation and the yearly winter blues — some of the biggest struggles have been logistics and operations. For example, how to stay true to the “unique, 1 of 1, exclusive” model while also producing enough product to meet the ever-growing demand. We’ve always juggled this issue and probably will always be working and tweaking it. But yeah, overall, I would say logistical and operational challenges. A year ago, we were having a lot of issues regarding screen printing at home (washing out screens, storage, etc). Logistics regarding social media — challenges include what types of posts to share, how often do we reply to DMs, what do we want our social home pages to look like, what type of content gets the most engagement, etc. 

Since we’re mainly a two-person team, it’s a lot of work to manage. Trying to avoid overworking and burning out is a huge challenge too — sometimes we go through cycles of high productivity and then a slump — so evening that process out and making it more consistent is something we’re really focusing on in 2022. 

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Everything we make is 1 of 1 and produced in-house by either my brother, me, or some friends. The clothing we produce is considered art, more than it is clothing. 

We mainly focus on airbrush and screen-printed designs that incorporate our illustrative art style. Our big speciality is reworking and reusing preexisting clothing as the bases for our work – this process is known as “upcycling” or creative reuse. 

We’re mainly known for our all-over airbrushed sweatshirts. These sweatshirts resemble a highly graffitied wall or a page that has been doodled all over — some have even compared the sweatshirts to being “covered in tattoos.” Besides those sweatshirts, we’re mainly known for our graphics and art style. I would say the style is surreal pop art — essentially lowbrow art. It’s very illustrative and comic-like. Our illustrations are distinct to the brand are stand out from the generic graphic designs used by most streetwear brands. Another thing that sets us apart from others is the “world” in which we’ve build the brand and the brand’s characters in. “Creamy” is very much a style and a world that when you buy a piece of clothing from us, you’re buying into that world. 

All the clothing we work on is heavyweight cotton and high quality to ensure they last a long time. We never work on cheap blanks. Everything you buy from us is made on high fabrics — separating us from the everyday, generic t-shirt brands. 

We’re very proud of our Halloween Collections every year. Halloween was a huge holiday for us growing up, our dad always made these very involved costumes. Therefore, we like to honor that heritage by dropping a very intricate collection every Halloween. Our style leans to the “spooky” or “horror” genre anyways — so we really play it up around Halloween. 

We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
We both grew up thrifting – so that is a good, shared childhood memory. We would always stop at roadside thrifts, antique stores, flea markets, etc when traveling. We learned to appreciate thrifting like a scavenger hunt or gambling — you never really know what you’re going to find. It made the experiences fun and exciting — the unknown aspect of what could be there or what you may get a deal on. 

Contact Info:

• Email: heycreamystudios@gmail.com
• Website: https://www.creamystudios.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/creamy.studios/