ROSA x Brother Brother

Something we're extremely enthusiastic about at Brother Brother is encountering fresh perspectives on the things we love. Remember finding your group in school? For some it's a little harder than others. Especially if you've got a broad span of interests, but are obsessed with the minutia that compose those interests.

My name is Dave Flynn. I’m from Upstate NY. I currently live in Portland ME. I’ve lived in almost every corner of New York State including middle-of-nowhere Western NY, Upward-Eastern NY and Brooklyn. I have a Bachelor’s in Painting + Sculpture and a Master’s in Furniture Design + Woodworking. I dig interesting style, good design, vintage clothing, ocean waves, pizza and nerdy pursuits.

I started Rosa 10 months ago in search of a fresh creative outlet. Before moving to Maine about 1 ½ years ago, I was the co-founder of a creative studio called Hey, Porter: we specialized in furniture, interior and graphic design. Our studio space had an unreal view of the glowing-red Kodak Company Tower in Rochester, NY. After 3 years, I came to realize that the furniture-game was not for me…I felt super-duper-wicked burnout so I decided to move to Maine for a fresh start. Rosa started as a way to fill that creative void and was a connection to a new community.

Rosa lives and breathes the influences of subcultures within fashion, music, art, and places etc. Our graphic-led approach borrows ideas from DIY punk vibes, bootleg graphic shirts, skateboarding, and general nerding-out-ness. We strive on constant curiosity and questioning.

When designing graphics for Rosa tees, I take a research-based approach. If I’m unfamiliar with a subject that interests me, I try to learn everything I can about it. I get really stoked on all the weird, slips-through-the-cracks type of information I can uproot. For the Brother Brother union tee, Greg & Gary wanted to create a piece that illustrates their major appreciation for the infamous Japanese actor-director-duo Toshiro Mifune & Akira Kurosawa. I’m a huge Mifune-Kurosawa fan…so it was frickin’ perfect. I re-watched all the films with my personal favorite Mifune characters; "Seven Samurai", "Miyamoto Musashi", "Red Beard", "Throne of Blood"…then, I tried to get an understanding of the overall vibe setting that they have created for Brother Brother in LA. It became a study of color, mood, aesthetic motifs, time period, influence, Los Angeles, mid-century cinema, and style.