About The Brand

First of all thanks for digging around the site to find this page. You're probably looking for the origin story of this thing. I'm happy to share it, but heads up, it might not be as glamorous as you think. The whole idea spawned from my mid-30's mid-life crisis. I (Aaron, on the right) found myself about 10 years (and counting) into a career as an insurance agent wondering how to satisfy this creative drive inside me. I had tried for years to quench it by marketing my insurance agency... but that didn't quite cut it. No matter how creative I got, it was still insurance... not that exciting. After seeing first hand how much fun my wife was having with her business I decided I needed a side project like that. 

So I called my surf buddy Rob (on the left) we pooled a bit of dough together and started working on the brand. That was literally the 4 months before COVID interrupted the world. So bad timing to start a business in some regard but I found myself working my day job from home and having a bit of extra time to grit out the foundations of Twig & Fin. 

Website, manufacturing, building a clothing line, a ski press, working on international business platforms, samples and alterations, branding, label laws, content, the pop up shop build, advertising... man there's a lot that goes into any brand and I found myself loving it. All of it. The work was hard and complicated and for some reason fulfilling. There was a kind of satisfaction here that I had been looking for. 

In the end Twig & Fin has been gelling into a personal brand that represents in a very pure way the people, places, and passions of my life. Skiing, surfing, boating, family, friends, and the PNW outdoors. 

I guess I saw myself slipping like many Dad's do, farther and farther away from the adventurous kid I was in my teens and twenties... Kids and careers, as great as they are, tend to do that to people. I needed a little excitement and creativity in my life again. It felt like a kind of freedom that didn't take away from my rolls as a father. I needed to reignite a bit of the "stoke" inside. That became the true north star of this venture.

I refer to it as one big art project and do my best to stay true to my life perspective. It's a place where my video edits are allowed to get experimental. A bit of life philosophy gets to creep its way into the advertising. Its a platform for me to draw on my younger years in retail and design my own clothing and equipment. The brand has been a hub for me to meet new people, make more friends, and build a bit of a community around. It's been a project that keeps me balanced, focused, and alive. That makes me a better husband, father, and friend. Twig and Fin is literally me in brand form. 

I'm a creator. Making surfboards, skis, clothes, videos, and any other cool-craft I feel like. I try to do it in an authentic way and am simply crossing my fingers that there's someone else out there that think it's as cool as I do.

Some aspects of the business were right in my wheel house. In many other ways I'm just a dude trying to figure it out along the way. I've never let not knowing how to do something stop me from trying it anyways. That attitude has served me well in the past and as I continue learning, new lessons always seem to present theirselves. T&F has been a fun and rewarding platform for me personally, but I also hope that it can in some ways improve other peoples lives as well. Likely in simple ways for most, but for some I hope in more profound ways. I want to accomplish more here than just sell tee shirts. With aspirations to grow the brand in an unselfish manner there's another mission of helping reignite the stoke for others who forgot how to keep that flame fanned. Surfing does that, skiing does that, family does that, friends do that... I aim to help be part of the fun and to do it with the outdoor loving people of the the PNW. 

See you out there, 

Aaron