Pedro Castillo Capstone

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My name is Pedro Castillo and for my Capstone, I worked with two friends to start/begin a small company that creates clothing with a meaning. Our main goal is to enlighten the youth by making clothes that makes us all feel like one people. For this capstone, we launched and released our first drop, the staple “pill logo t-shirt”. It is supposed to represent the idea of revival after hardships in one’s life. When starting our company, Yùmèn, we had an idea for a project all about sunflowers, the meaning of them, and how it impacts us as humans. We moved forward with it and later saw that the project was much too expensive and we had multiple problems with the “business” that was doing printing on the t-shirts. We decided as partners that we would change our plan to creating a staple shirt that represented us a company. That is when I personally decided to do more research on the way people think, act, and feel about clothes and eventually, with the help of my partners, I was able to create the pill logo t-shirt. After the creation, we spent multiple weeks trying to plan out how the release would work; we also spent that time trying to polish our site. We launched on May 5th and the t-shirts are now sold out online. Yùmèn is more than just a Capstone for us and that is why we still have much more work ahead of us.

Capstone Bibliography


  • Catarinella, Alex. "Our 5 Favorite Emerging Designers We Saw At Berlin Fashion Week."Grailed: Dry Clean Only. Grailed, 24 Jan. 2017. Web. 29 Jan. 2017. <https://www.grailed.com/drycleanonly/berlin-fashion-week-fw17>.

    • This source is important for me specifically because of the fact that I am the creative director for our upcoming brand. The main goal for a creative director is to ensure that designs that are going to be showcased are ahead of current trends. They have to be ahead of multiple trends and this list from one of the most trusted menswear catalogues and sale site explains why these new designers are so great. This can be used to base multiple future designs on what clothing connoisseurs look for in order to gain attention the most attention.  


  • Ginsberg, Allen . "Sunflower Sutra by Allen Ginsberg | Poetry Foundation." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, 1955. Web. 31 Jan. 2017. <https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/49304>.

    • Our first project is dubbed, “The Sunflower Project”. There is an untold energy and art that the sunflower gives off that not everyone realizes. This is the piece in which our first release is based off of. Without this poem and the insight from Nigo, the sunflower project would have not sprouted.


  • Haywood, Emma. “Painting on Textile Fabrics.” The Decorator and Furnisher, vol. 11, no. 5, 1888, pp. 180–180. www.jstor.org/stable/25585466.

    • This source was extremely helpful even though it was about painting on furniture. Emma Haywood describes how to paint on fabric with oil paint. She states the dos and the don’ts very clearly. This was sourced because we plan on doing hand-painted merchandise as a promotional release before the first official release.


  • Kiper, Anna. Fashion portfolio: design and presentation. London: Batsford, 2014. Print.

    • Anna Kiper does a great job of covering the main components and concepts of designing apparel and a fashion portfolio. Most of the research conducted was about how to make a quality garment that will end up being successful in the real world. It is not as easy as it looks but Anna Kiper does a great job making it seem less difficult than it is.  


  • Lengwiler, Guido. A History of Screen Printing. Cincinnati, Ohio: Cincinnati, Ohio : ST Media Group International, 2013.

    • After multiple meetings, me and my partners have come to the conclusion that we want screen printing done on our shirts for the first couple of releases (no more than 3). There are many different ways to to screen print though and it is completely different from regularly printing a graphic on a shirt, one difference being that it is done by hand. Screen printing is much higher quality and that is what we want. This book explains the history of screen printing and covers multiple different techniques. This is essential for finding the best way to screen print since we only want to release high quality products.


  • Mcquarrie, Edward F., and David Glen Mick. “Visual Rhetoric in Advertising: Text‐Interpretive, Experimental, and Reader‐Response Analyses.” Journal of Consumer Research, vol. 26, no. 1, 1999, pp. 37–54. www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/209549.

    • Edward Mcquarrie covers the same topic that the Small Business Administration does except this looks at the art of advertisement through a more conceptual lens. This provides a more artistic view on what advertisement is and how do it successfully. This allows me to creatively grasp the concept of advertising in order to start creating more simple but original and creative ads.


  • NIGO. Atorie bai nigo. N.p.: Magajinhausu., n.d. Print.

    • Like Sunflower Sutra, this is another piece of writing that was an influence for me specifically. Nigo is the reason why the sunflower came into my mind in the first place. Atelier gives readers a peek into Nigo’s vast collection of, well… collectables. They are what influences him and draw out the genius that is Nigo. This book is also essential because it was another huge factor to starting The Sunflower Project.

  • Sartain, William. “Thoughts on Art and the Art Collector.” The Art World, vol. 1, no. 4, 1917, pp. 276–278. www.jstor.org/stable/25587749.

    • The art collector section is one that contains the most importance to me. Reason being that me and my colleagues want to, in the future, have many of our pieces be considered art. Why do collectors collect and why are collectors important? This source explains it. It talks about why collecting art is important and the type of art that typical collectors go for. This is very useful to me specifically because, like the Grailed article, I can base certain designs off of what collectors look for in art. Mixing fine art and great design with a great business plan ensures sales.


  • U.S. Small Business Administration Editors. "Advertising: The Basics | The U.S. Small Business Administration." Advertising: The Basics | The U.S. Small Business Administration | SBA.gov. U.S. Small Business Administration , 2017. Web. 01 Feb. 2017. <https://www.sba.gov/managing-business/running-business/marketing/advertising-basics>.

    • This source is important because it covers the basics of advertising. Whether it be food, a device, or clothes, advertising is crucial to getting the world to know about your products. Me and my partners have had no prior experience in marketing so being able to get tips from a trustworthy network is extremely helpful. We have not used all of the advice that this site provided but we have begun to implement multiple tips into our own advertisements.


  • Wagner, Eric T. "10 Rules To Build A Wildly Successful Business." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 07 July 2014. Web. 31 Jan. 2017. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericwagner/2014/01/14/10-rules-to-build-a-wildly-successful-business/#42671bfde287>.

    • This Forbes article contains a lot of valuable information for me and my partner. Although this is from a tea company owner’s perspective, this can be very useful because it touches on the business world in general. Applying some of these rules is essential in order for keeping a healthy business whether it be tea or anything else. Art and business are already a great mix, it is just a matter of being original and these business rules do not interfere with creativity and or originality.

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