There’s no shortage of coastal T-shirts. Walk through almost any beach town and you'll find them everywhere: palm trees, coordinates, waves, anchors, the name of the town printed across the chest. Some of them are fun and some of them make great vacation souvenirs.
When we started building 5 Twelve Designs, that wasn't what we wanted to create. We wanted something that felt connected to the coast without looking like something you bought simply to prove you'd been there. That distinction has become more important to us as the brand has grown.
Coastal, Without the Costume
One of the questions behind almost everything we create is surprisingly simple: Would someone still want this if they weren't standing at the beach? If the answer is no, we're probably not finished.
We want our pieces to make sense on a Saturday near the water, but we also want them to work on a Tuesday morning when the closest you're getting to the ocean is thinking about where you'd rather be.
That's one reason we've become increasingly selective about what feels right for 5 Twelve Designs. Being a coastal brand doesn't mean we have to put a palm tree on everything. In fact, we'd rather not.
The coast gives us the inspiration but it doesn't have to provide every graphic.
Building Different Sides of the Same Brand
As 5 Twelve Designs has developed, we've also realized that “coastal” doesn't mean just one thing. There's the casual, recognizable side of coastal life with hats, tees and graphics that feel right at home on the water, around town or thrown into a bag for the weekend. That's a big part of the personality behind Beak & Tide.
Then there's a completely different side of the coast that interests us.
The weathered buildings, old docks, working waterfronts, and architecture that has been standing near saltwater long enough to show it. The little details you might pass every day without really noticing. That thinking led us toward Saltline Studio, where the approach is quieter and more art-driven.
Now we're exploring the coast from another direction with Atlantic Coastal Study; looking more closely at the natural forms that actually belong here and treating them almost like specimens worth documenting. The things that make a particular coastline look and feel like itself: sea oats, kelp, coral.
Those collections don't look the same and they are not supposed to. What connects them; however, is the place that inspired them.
Sometimes the Hardest Part Is Leaving Something Out
One thing we've learned while building this business is that adding something to a design is incredibly easy, but knowing when to stop is harder.
A graphic can have more detail. A collection can have another product. A photograph can have another prop. A website can have another section. More doesn't automatically make something better though.
We spend a surprising amount of time asking what we can remove. Does this design really need that element? Does this product belong in the collection, or are we adding it simply because we can? Does this artwork still feel like us?
Those aren't particularly glamorous parts of running a creative business, but they're becoming some of the most important ones, because eventually a brand isn't defined only by what it makes. It is also defined by what it's willing to say no to.
Designed in St. Augustine Means Something to Us
5 Twelve Designs is designed in St. Augustine, Florida, and we don't want that to become a line we simply put at the bottom of a website. Living here influences the way we see coastal style. This isn't an imaginary version of coastal life created around perfect sunsets and pristine beaches.
It's seeing the Bridge of Lions on an ordinary drive. It's old architecture beside tourist shops. It's marsh grass, docks, boats, weathered wood, and afternoon storms. It's tourists discovering the town for the first time while someone who lives here is just trying to get across downtown without getting stuck behind a sightseeing trolley.
That's the version of the coast we're interested in, the real one, and the longer we build 5 Twelve Designs, the more we want the brand to reflect it.
We're Still Building It
We don't have every collection planned five years into the future and we're okay with that. Part of building 5 Twelve Designs has been figuring out what deserves to become part of the brand and what doesn't. Some ideas work immediately. Some get changed repeatedly. Some get all the way to the point where they seem finished and then get scrapped.
It can be frustrating sometimes, but it's also necessary because we'd rather build this slowly and end up with a collection of things that actually belong together than fill a store simply because empty space makes us uncomfortable.
The goal isn't to become another company selling beach stuff. There are plenty of those already. We're trying to build something that feels more considered than that; a coastal lifestyle brand shaped by the place where it's being created, with different collections telling different parts of the same story.
We are still figuring out exactly where that story takes us, which has been part of the fun.
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