During his senior year of high school, Dustin Martin (CC ’11) was out for a run when he had the idea to start creating t-shirts with a new logo he had designed. Unlike most of us, who probably would have just gotten back from the run and gone to band practice or whatever we were involved in during high school, Dustin actually followed up, and began creating t-shirts with his own designs using stencils and spray paint.

The designs, which employ Native American motifs printed on thrift store-acquired clothing, have a distinctive New Mexico-meets-Brooklyn aesthetic that Dustin has painstakingly cultivated since he began printing shirts. His long-term vision is for his clothes to engender public awareness of issues affecting indigenous people, and he is careful that his designs ring contemporary. “I think the vision that I have is not so much a design as it is the idea that people gravitate toward attractive things, and they listen and they learn and they’re attracted to the aesthetics,” he said. “My vision is really to use that appeal to articulate a cultural message.”

The designs came to real fruition last spring, when Dustin began to silkscreen thrift store shirts in his room in McBain. That semester alone he was able to sell about 50 t-shirts, simply through word of mouth. He has since set up a boutique of sorts in his current room in River Ruggles, and has an assortment of t-shirts and other articles available for sale. Most items are $15. If you’re interested in any of the designs, you can contact Dustin at resisthype@gmail.com.

More photos (including pictures of the clothes) after the jump.