Top 10 Betaworks Swag.

Having spent nearly six years at New York start-up studio Betaworks, I made and saw a lot, really A LOT, of swag. I think at one point we were keeping Swag.com in business. This is the stuff that survived my move back to London last year. Most of it I still wear.

Please feel free to weigh in with any comments. This is the definitive list and is 100% correct, but… well, you should at least feel like your opinion is valid 😗

10. Betaworks Logo on plain grey Everlane tee.

What does it all mean?

We’ll start simple. The new betaworks logo was a thing of rare beauty — or confusion — depending on your outlook. This is the story behind the logo, cooked up by myself and the guys at Franklyn Design. This is a thin Everlane tee with the logo printed on the back and the betaworks wordmark on the front, around the hip, not the chest.

9. Poncho Hoodie. Blue version.

Always take the strings out.

Poncho was a weathercat and bot and legend. There was a yellow version of this that had actual orange ears sewed onto the hood. I never really felt like I could pull that off being twice the age as almost everyone else at Poncho. But this was a goody (hoody)

8. GIPHY socks.

GIPHY went hardcore on normcore

When GIPHY were only about 10 people in the old betaworks office they all only ever wore black. Now they are hundreds and have their own fancy offices, they still only wear black. Other than white socks. Note how these socks are not uniform in size. Always breaking the rules those guys.

7. Betaworks Everlane Tote

Totes legit.

The thing about investing early in Everlane means you get a deal on the merch. This tote with the betaworks logo on one side is still going strong five years later.

6. Poncho Tee.

Still stacks up.

I did a sketch of this and passed it to Dom. He made it happen. That is pretty much what happened in our creative department for five years.

5. Bloglovin’ Hoodie.

Box logo. Tight.

A few things about this one. It’s super soft and comfy. I like that they went with the pullover vs the zip. The pocket is perfect for keeping your little handies warm.

4. Dots Hoodie

Great stuff from Patrick, Paul, David and the team.

What can you say? Classic logo, classic hoodie. I do miss seeing people play Dots on the New York subway. I always wanted to talk to them but I’m English. English people don’t do things like that. But I’ll wear this hoodie for days — as evidenced by the state of it.

3. Poncho Socks.

Pizza and Poncho 4eva

As Jessica Alba famously said when Poncho was on the Apple TV show Planet of the Apps,…..’Ponchos cute’. Yes he is, or was, Poncho was sold to Dirty Lemon in 2018 but his cuteness lives on in these socks that get a comment every time I wear them. #marketing

2. Bot Camp Tee.

Bit of Unknown Pleasures in there?

From 2016 onwards we ran thematic frontier tech accelerator programs called Camps. We did Bot Camp, Voice Camp, Vision Camp, Live Camp. Every camp got a tee but not every camp got a tee as cool as the first one Dom did.

1. Betaworks 10 year Party Long Sleeve.

Ashley had a Justin Bieber long sleeve shirt which was also inspiration. We just don’t talk about that as much.

When we were making this one in 2018 for the betaworks tenth anniversary / Studios launch party, I was thinking the long sleeve with logos on the sleeves coupled with the band tour idea might be a bit over the hill. But Dom took inspiration from a Fugazi record for the design and every single streetwear brand is still rocking this exact style. So we are still cool. And this was the coolest cos we only printed about 30.

Honourable mention to Brendan at Dexter who made some great tees. I used to wear the old school video game one all the time but I somehow lost it.

Ok, thx. Bye.

James