HOPE: Tell me a bit about yourself! How long have you been doing For the Love of Patch?

 

MATT: Well,  I grew up in Kansas City and went to college in Colorado and recently just moved back.  I find my inspiration in the mountains and love to hike, snowboard and camp.  The old cartoons like the Jetsons, Yogi the Bear, etc have been my design inspiration and I find myself in love with 1950's and 1960's classic design.  I used to be in the Boy Scouts growing up, which is where my love for patches started.  They're a way to show what you've accomplished and where you've been.  For the Love of Patch started when my friend came over to hang out and showed me a new patch he had just gotten with a bike on it.  He had just gotten back from riding his bike from the North to the South of Mexico.  I loved the patch so much that I thought it would be great to make my own.  I had a picture framed on my desk of the astrosloth and thought hey, part of patches other than showing what you've done is to express your personality.  I made up the final patch design on my computer and then sent it in to a local company to turn the design into a patch.

 

I've been working in the mortgage industry for the last two years and was getting tired of the 9-5, high pressure office environment and had always wanted to start my own business.  My friend from college and I had already started a company that sold our custom designed LED armbands but I wanted to do something where I could produce my own "ad" designs.  I try to make at least 3 new designs a week and have been using all of the profit from the patches to save up for my own embroidery machine...they're a little pricey :/  It's been about 6 months since I started the company and this summer I should be all set up and ready to go with my own machine and the ability to help others create their own embroidery patches, shirts, hats, etc.

 

It's been a lot of work but it has never felt like work :-)

 

 

 

HOPE: Oh cool, so you're a cartoon lover then! What was your favouite when you were a child?

 

MATT: Honestly my favorite cartoons as a kid were the Looney Toons series, Angry Beavers and Rocko's Modern Life.

 

 

 

HOPE: So would you say cartoons are your biggest inspirations when designing the patches?

 

MATT: Cartoons and movies I love are definitely my biggest inspiration for designs.  Before I went on Etsy I was just making designs I would want to wear but with the wonderful community on there I've received a lot of feedback from customers on designs they'd like to see.  It works out great for both parties because I would have to cross my fingers and hope a design would be popular enough to sell.  They usually give me creative freedom to add elements to the designs to give them that extra flair that I love doing.

 

 

 

HOPE: Your patches are so cool, do you have one of everything you've made sewed to a jacket or anything like that? Like a walking billboard!?

 

MATT: I don't yet have every patch sewed on to something of mine yet. I'm getting there, haha. The two places I have most of my patches are on my hiking backpack, which I use just about every weekend and my green vest, which I'm always wearing. I have a favorite jacket I use to go snowboarding but I haven't put any patches on it yet because I know of what upcoming designs I have and I really want to do a theme with it and make it special.

 

 

 

HOPE: So you've recently made the move from the office job to an enjoyable creative life, what advice would you give to someone who was considering making that transition? 

 

MATT: I would say the most important thing for someone looking to make it on there own is to realize that you might have to work places and do jobs you don't enjoy. The purpose I used office jobs for was to motivate me to always be working on a new side project so I didn't get "stuck" for too long. I went through several ideas and businesses until I found two that I really enjoy and have a lot of passion for. Remember at the end of the day, sometimes the simplest ideas are the ones that work.

 

 

HOPE: What's next for the brand?

 

MATT: I'm currently saving up and in the next month I'm purchasing an industrial embroidery machine.  I receive request for custom patches more and more and don't have the ability to produce them on the scale that I need to.  With my own machine I can start growing the business even further and even link up with new start-up companies like the one I'm currently working with that is designing a new style of hiking backpack and they want a unique patch to along with their design.  

 

 

 

HOPE: Are you interested in creating other items aside from patches?

 

MATT: I really want the brand to grow into a design company that makes different unique products designed around late 50's and early sixties mid-century modern and atomic design.  I'm currently planning on getting my first sublimation printer so I can start making mugs, mouse-pads and other products with my designs.  From there I would like to get a screen printing machine.  The thought of being able to create anything when I feel like it gets me really excited.  For now I'm building a design catalog and a lot of the designs I can't do much with yet because I don't have the proper equipment.  Then from there I've always had a passion for woodworking and have built most of my furniture and would really like to make wall or yard art with it in the form of customized national parks signs.  I live in Colorado and the national parks signs are the brown, white and/or green signs from the 50's and 60's and I've always love the look and style of them.  I would love to be able to hand a haha, legal version of that on my wall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                 Colorado Mountians - shot by Matt Hall.

 

 

For the Love of Patch was born into this world by cartoon lover, Matt Hall – a fun and entertaining patch brand that create one of a kind cool, cute and funny patches. Having grown up in Kansas City and spreading his wings to study in Colorado, Matt has recently made the college move, permanent.

 

A big lover of the mountains, Matt spends his free time hiking, camping and snowboarding. Having worked in the mortgage industry for the last 2 years Matt tells us the advice he wished he’d of gotten when he was starting out.

 

“I would say the most important thing for someone looking to make it on there own is to realize that you might have to work places and do jobs you don't enjoy. The purpose I used office jobs for was to motivate me to always be working on a new side project so I didn't get "stuck" for too long. I went through several ideas and businesses until I found two that I really enjoy and have a lot of passion for. Remember at the end of the day, sometimes the simplest ideas are the ones that work.”

 

“I was getting tired of the 9-5, high pressure office environment and had always wanted to start my own business.  My friend from college and I had already started a company that sold our custom designed LED armbands but I wanted to do something where I could produce my own "ad" designs.”

 

Matt currently sells his patches on the site Etsy and speaks with passion when he tells us how For the Love of Patch began.

 

“It all started when my friend came over to hang out and showed me a new patch he had just gotten with a bike on it.  He had just gotten back from riding his bike from the North to the South of Mexico.  I loved the patch so much that I thought it would be great to make my own.  I had a picture framed on my desk of the Astrosloth and thought ‘hey, part of patches other than showing what you've done is to express your personality’.  I made up the final patch design on my computer and then sent it in to a local company to turn the design into a patch.”

 

“I try to make at least 3 new designs a week’ Matt tells me, ‘and have been using all of the profit from the patches to save up for my own embroidery machine...they're a little pricey. It's been about 6 months since I started the company and this summer I should be all set up and ready to go with my own machine and the ability to help others create their own embroidery patches, shirts, hats, etc. It's been a lot of work but it has never felt like work”

 

Having grown up in Boy Scouts, Matt, explains that this is where his love of patched started. “They're a way to show what you've accomplished and where you've been.” Along with Boy Scouts, cartoons have also played a big part in For the Love of Patch’s journey.

 

“My favourite cartoons as a kid were the Looney Toons series, Angry Beavers and Rocko's Modern Life. The old cartoons like the Jetsons and Yogi the Bear have been my design inspiration and I find myself in love with 1950's and 1960's classic design.  Cartoons and movies I love are definitely my biggest inspiration for designs.  Before I went on Etsy I was just making designs I would want to wear but with the wonderful community on there, I've received a lot of feedback from customers on designs they'd like to see.”

 

Given that Matt lives in America, I haven’t actually met him, however, I picture a wild haired young dude with big round glasses wearing jacket covered in his cool patches ready to head out to the mountain – maybe I'm completely off pace, and this will probably quite embarrassing when Matt reads the article, but its pretty fun making up caricatures of people you ‘meet’.

 

“I don't yet have every patch sewed on to something of mine yet. I'm getting there. The two places I have most of my patches are on my hiking backpack, which I use just about every weekend and my green vest, which I'm always wearing. I have a favourite jacket I use to go snowboarding but I haven't put any patches on it yet because I know of what upcoming designs I have and I really want to do a theme with it and make it special.

 

What's next for the brand? Well Matt’s hoping to get his hands on an industrial embroidery machine pretty soon, which will allow him to create one off custom patches and thus grow the business in way he couldn’t when he was outsourcing the patches.

 

“I really want the brand to grow into a design company that makes different unique products designed around late 50's and early 60’s mid-century modern and atomic design.  I'm currently planning on getting my first sublimation printer so I can start making mugs, mouse-pads and other products with my designs.  From there I would like to get a screen-printing machine.  The thought of being able to create anything when I feel like it gets me really excited.  For now I'm building a design catalogue and a lot of the designs I can't do much with yet because I don't have the proper equipment.  Then from there I've always had a passion for woodworking and have built most of my furniture and would really like to make wall or yard art with it, in the form of customized national parks signs.  I live in Colorado and the national parks signs are the brown, white and/or green from the 50's and 60's and I've always love the look and style of them.  I would love to be able to hang a version of my own on my wall.”