Celebrating 18 Years of BurlyShirts with Shane Ruff
Few bear t-shirt brands have gone international, but BurlyShirts is one of them. Now celebrating 18 years in the business, BurlyShirts was one of the first t-shirt brands for bears and remains one of the best and most beloved by the community. Join us as we talk to founder Shane Ruff as he looks back on his time in the t-shirt business, the surprising way he got into it and his goals for the future.
John Hernandez: Can you specify the relationship and difference between Shane Ruff Studios and BurlyShirts.
Shane Ruff: Ruff Studio / Shane Ruff Studio is the main name of my company and BurlyShirts is the brand name of my t-shirt line. When I first started my company in 2007 I did a variety of things, from event design (which was what I did prior to my business for 8 years), to furniture making, tote bags from recycled materials, a stuffed animal line called “Earth Friendly Creatures”, hand tied rugs, and screen printing as wall art. I decided that my T-shirt line needed its own brand name as it began to have a life of its own, other than my main business name so I settled on BurlyShirts and it just stuck. One of the other reasons I did that was the hope that someday I might be able to sell the brand name and all the designs to someone else while still owning my main company name to keep that going with the other work I enjoy doing.
JH: How did BurlyShirts get started?
SR: The first T-shirt I ever made was a suicide note, I was in high school and struggling with being gay, depression and feeling like I didn’t fit in. So I wrote a farewell note on a t-shirt that I was going to wear when I did it. My mom ended up finding the shirt in my room and confronted me about it and I went into therapy to try and work out some issues. Soon after that, around 1988, I went down to NYC to an Andy Warhol exhibit in the city and got inspired to learn how to screen print. The bold graphics and bright colors in his work were a huge inspiration. So I went to a local art store and bought some screens and a few books and figured it out. I taught myself to screen print and in my Junior year in high school I started my first t-shirt printing business that I called Ruff Draft T-shirt Factory. I designed and printed shirts for local bands, catering companies, landscaping companies and dabbled with some of my own designs that I sold through a few shops in Rhinebeck and Woodstock NY. After that first shirt I made it felt like it became my life’s mission to help people communicate through the shirts they wear, and turn something that was at first a negative into a positive, which continues to be my mission today.
I continued to screen print during art school in Portland, Maine and on the side during various jobs I had after college. I showed my screen printing work at Open studios in Boston, was commissioned by the city of Boston to do a few public art pieces in the neighborhood I lived in and was on the Board of the Dorchester Arts Collaborative. In 2007 after getting laid off from an Event Design job, I decided to start my own business and become a full time artist. While initially dabbling in a few different creative areas I quickly settled in on getting back to screen printing and have a focus on T-shirts since it was something I knew how to do and always enjoyed doing it. I started screen printing in my apartment in Dorchester where I was living at the time, and just used water based inks and heat-set them in our clothes dryer and started to do small craft fairs in the area to sell my work. Then in 2010 I moved back up to Maine to live with my partner and set up shop in a business park in Eliot, Maine and bought my 6 color press and infrared dryer and other professional screen printing tools to get me up and running. The website got started around then as well and have since processed over 30,000 orders through that site at this point and it remains the main part of the business. At first as I began to design and print Bear themed T’s I also continued to do a lot of custom screen printing for local customers to build the business and get more experience using my new equipment. Slowly over the years I did less and less custom printing and at this point I mostly just focus my printing on my own designs and do very little custom printing for other businesses, but when I do it’s mainly for Bear clubs, or gay owned companies.
JH: Thank you for sharing that powerful story. You are living proof that it does get better.
What drew you to design specifically for the bear community?
SR: I had been involved with the Gen X Bears in the 90’s in Boston and attended a few other Bear Events and later Bear Week in Ptown a few times and saw the need for more Bear themed T-shirts for the community, so it was a no brainer for me to focus my designs in that area. See a need, fill a need as they say. So I initially did designs based on things I would want to wear myself and things that interested me, or my friends. I’ve always had a wide variety of designs, since I have a wide range of things that I’m interested in, but there has always been a focus on Bear Themed T’s and always will be.
JH: How do you come up with your designs? And please tell us about the printing/ production process.
SR: Inspiration comes from just about anywhere – movies, politics, conversations with friends, etc. I have a long running list of design ideas that I’ve generated over the years that I constantly draw on for the next shirt design. I work in Photoshop and Illustrator and do a lot of hand drawing and photography, some designs come together pretty quick and start as a doodle on a piece of paper. Others take months to complete. I’ve been an artist all my life, and my parents gave me a room in the house growing up to use as my art studio and were always very supportive of my creative site. After High School I went to a small art school in Portland, Maine in the early 90’s. I’ve been able to show my paintings and screen printing work in galleries around New England over the years, as well as other parts of the US and in a small gallery in Dublin, Ireland.
I work out of a small building we built on our property in North Berwick, Maine where I also manage our small farm with my partner. I do all of my own screen printing in my studio and have a 6 color press, it’s a traditional printing method with ink, screens and squeegees. I have done a few 6 color prints but tend to focus on just a few colors or 1 color, and like to keep things simple. I design my work specifically for the screen printing process, which is a little different than designing for the web or other printing methods. But being self taught with screen printing, I am still learning new things even after all these years. And new kinds of inks are available now and new printing techniques, so it’s exciting to try new things that I couldn’t do even just a few years ago. I’ve made a few videos of me printing in my studio that I post on social media to show people behind the scenes in my shop. It’s a fun process, but with my equipment set to 720 degrees it gets crazy hot in there in the summer months.
JH: How has your brand evolved over the last 18 years?
SR: My brand has changed a lot over the years and continues to grow and evolve. I think it’s important to constantly change and grow with the times and that’s something that keeps customers coming back. I always try and experiment with new ideas and techniques and try to always listen to my customers and give them the kinds of designs they ask for. A lot of customers email me asking about some of my older designs and if they can still get them so lately I’ve been pulling older designs back up and redoing them to give them a new life.
Aside from t-shirts I enjoy working in a variety of mediums and still enjoy furniture making, sewing, making disco balls (bears), and quilting. I find allowing myself to dabble in a variety of areas helps keep the creative juices flowing. I’ve always been just a Sole Proprietor business and like to keep things small and manageable, but as the business continues to grow and evolve I see the need to bring in help more and more and think that will be a necessity very soon in order to keep up and keep things going.
JH: You are a fixture at bear run vendor markets and you always have a crowd. What is the secret to your success?
SR: With my booth at vendor events I try to always create a fun welcoming environment, with an easy to shop display, good lighting and music and a hands off sales approach that lets the shirts ‘speak’ for themselves. I always try and keep things changing, and keep the designs unique and always listen to the feedback I get from people. Since I also print everything myself I am able to keep my costs down and have only raised my prices once over the years.
In addition to traveling and doing vendor fairs at MAL, IML, TBRU and many other events I’ve been organizing my own vendor fairs in the northeast since 2010. After doing some craft fairs in the Boston area for a few years I approached the Ptown Bears about starting a vendor fair in Ptown for Bear Week so in 2010 I started the Bear Market with a focus on showcasing up and coming artists in the Bear Community to help get them exposure and get their name out to the community. I’ve also organized craft fairs in the past for the Northeast Ursamen’s SpookyBear event in Ptown, and at Maine Street in Ogunquit a few times and other venues in the northeast.
JH: What do you envision for the future?
SR: I’ve always wanted to have my own retail store somewhere, so that’s something I’ve thought a little bit about since I’m never able to bring everything I make to shows since it would take up a ton of space. I currently sell my designs through about 6 other retail stores around the country, San Fran, Seattle, Palm Springs, Fort Lauderdale and others. I’ve also sold my shirts through stores in Melbourne and Sydney Australia, Toronto and Montreal, Canada, London, Paris, Rome, and Dublin. I would love to grow that side of the business a bit more. I wish I had a larger space to work out of and maybe a few employees, so I could take on larger retail store orders and custom printing work for some of my customers and maybe have a small retail space here on the property, or a seasonal Pop up store in Ptown. At the same time I am in my early 50’s and have to think about the long term plan, and the fact my partner is going to retire from his job with the Navy in a couple years. We have a 75 acre property here in Southern Maine and have always dreamt of building a cabin rental/camping business on the property since we are 30 min to Ogunquit and it’s a beautiful area. So lots to think about and options for where to go and what to do. But for now I feel lucky every day to be able to say I love what I do and will probably do it till the day I die.
JH: Anything else you’d like to mention? SR: When I first started there were only a few T-shirt vendors out there, and even fewer that actually printed their own T’s, and now there are a bunch that I see at different events and more starting every year. It’s very cool to see what other people come up with for designs and I am constantly asked for advice and guidance since I’ve been doing it for quite a while. And I’m always happy to give feedback and offer support and be a bit of a mentor for younger artists just starting out. I enjoy sharing my experience with other artists and only want to see people have success and enjoy what they do. Variety is the spice of life and I love supporting other artists and see them have success.
For more information or to stock up on some bear tees head to burlyshirts.com
