If you've been by Wolfbait & B-Girls clothing store in Logan Square or the new Andersonville Galleria, you've probably come across the hip, urban, graffiti-inspired t-shirts by Novem Collective, whose slick designs range from fairytale-like swing-set scenes to warped Chicago landmarks. But the collective does more than just that; it's got the whole graffic design thing down, too. I spoke with Novem member Rafe Pepin, via cell phone, about the group's mission, artistic vision and favorite Chicago spots.
How did you guys get together?
To take it way way back, we all knew each other through graffiti. Some of the guys I've known for 10 years. We were a graffiti crew of teenagers, and we were kinda, most people don't know but there was some strategy to that, so we were meeting every week. We started talking about it in 2003 and ended up actually going for it business-wise in 2004, actually legitimizing what we were already doing creatively, which was painting first and foremost, but taking that from warehouses and subway tunnels to live painting at bars and shows and stuff. And then at the same time, one of the guys was teaching himself t-shirt printing, so it all kinda came together at once.
Where did you all grow up?
Everyone's local to Chicago, the city specifically. We're all from various 'hoods of the North Side. Our first studio space was the basement of an apartment building in Uptown.
How many guys are in the collective?
Nine, roughly. We prefer to be referenced to as a collective. But nine of us started it, and that's what our name means in Latin. And our logo is an octopus with nine tentacles—novem.
What's the creative process like, coming up with designs?
Well, it's like a monster you have to tame. There's so much creativity going on and so many people are working on different things at times and everyone still does freelance stuff, or their own art. For the t-shirt releases, it's hard to get everyone on the same schedule, but we basically meet every other week now and what will happen is everyone will submit designs and usually during submission meetings we look at 40–50 t-shirt designs, but they might just be ideas or sketches or little images or logos or quotes, and they might not even be mocked up on the t-shirt. We review everything as a group and verbally critique it all. From there people go back to the drawing board and, based on the feedback they got on the meeting, they go toward the t-shirt design.
What are you working on now?
Nine sort of Chicago-related designs, and a sub-design called "Chicago Classics," which is like a sub-print of that. We started calling them that because the first ones we made sold so well that we started re-printing.
So if I were to come to your neighborhood, where would you insist I visit?
I live in Humboldt Park, and I would say if you were going to visit I would say the park itself. Especially on the 4th of July, it was crazy over there—like a war zone with all the fireworks and stuff. It's still developing small business-wise, so there's not a lot there.
So what's your favorite Chicago hidden gem?
I would like to think that the Andersonville Galleria [where I work] is like a hidden gem. We're trying to communicate that, but most people—when they come in—don't know how many things there are there and how far back it goes.
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