University student Logan Steinfeld doesn’t own a car, so he walks everywhere.
And wherever his feet carry him, he says he sees designs to put on clothes.
“I get so lost just looking around at things,” Steinfeld said.
The University junior started a clothing company in high school called Ethic Grown Clothing, and he’s hoping to expand the company in Eugene. He networked with high school friends to start the company and is working with other Oregon university students in the clothing business to expand the company. The skating world influenced Ethic Grown’s beginnings, and the clothing line is based on designs rather than logos.
Steinfeld is in charge of the designs put on the clothes, and University of Portland student Evan Schleining manages the company’s money. Steinfeld said he types text messages on his phone when he has an idea for a design and writes the idea on a pad of paper at home.
Movies and the Animal Planet channel – he recently got a new cable package – inspire Steinfeld’s designs, too. After watching a TV special on jellyfish, Steinfeld said he wants to design a T-shirt with a jellyfish holding a parachute. Another T-shirt features a design with tree eating its own trunk.
“I’m always trying to be fun and creative,” he said. “I always want to make a joke. I ask myself, ‘What would make this funnier? Where’s the punch line?’”
Steinfeld started Ethic Grown with high school friends while skating in Ashland, Ore. The friends thought they could improve on the designs on skating clothes.
“The skating industry is smothered with logos and brands,” Steinfeld said.
Although Steinfeld said Ethic Grown has a “skater vibe,” he said he wants the clothing line to appeal to everyone.
“I just want to appeal to anybody with an artistic expression,” he said. “I want to try to inspire people.”
Steinfeld learned to sew and screenprint for a high school senior project. After he graduated high school in 2005, he didn’t work with clothes much his first year at the University, Steinfeld said. He now sells his clothes to skating and snowboard shops in Ashland, and on the side, the company screenprints for other companies, businesses and schools, including Ashland High School.
Steinfeld said he wants to create a buzz in Eugene about his clothing line.
“We’ve been talking to some local stores, so we’re hoping something works out for us,” he said.
Steinfeld works with fellow University student Gabe Di Chiro to screenprint the clothes. After Steinfeld prints a design on a tabloid-size piece of a paper and copies the design onto transparency paper, he takes it to Di Chiro, another high school friend. Most of Ethic Grown’s screenprinting takes place in Di Chiro’s garage. The garage walls are covered in prints.
Di Chiro said he had no idea how to screenprint before he got involved with Ethic Grown. He said he watched a DVD on screenprinting and learned a few techniques from a friend.
“I feel so much more confident now,” Di Chiro said.
Most of the clothes are printed on organic cotton.
Ethic Grown clothes will soon be sold at www.absoluteattire.com, a Web site started by Portland State University student Jeff Bond and University student Zac Farrell.
Bond said the market is ripe

for clothes that focus on the design aspect.
“The big draw to independent clothing now is that a lot of people want to be different,” Bond said. “When they walk into a room, they want people to say, ‘Hey that’s a great shirt! Where’d you get it?’ If you have a logo, though, everyone knows where you got it.”
Bond said the biggest challenge for Ethic Grown is getting the word out about the company. He said Ethic Grown will have to get its clothes in as many outlets as possible and possibly give clothes away for free at first.
“The hardest part is designing something new and different that people are really going to enjoy and want to wear,” Bond said.
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