“I was born six blocks from where I’m sitting right now,” says Mike Draper, fielding a phone call in Des Moines, Iowa. “So geographically, I’ve not come very far in life.”
But in business (and, arguably, art and culture) he clearly has.
“The space has become so much more than just a t-shirt shop,” Draper says, nodding to his 10 RAYGUN stores that are “kind of what the internet would be if it came to life.”
Inside his expanding (hello, Chicago!) shops are, yes, t-shirts, but also clothing for practically the whole family, a home and kitchen section—basically anything that has space to slap a design on it.
But not just any design. RAYGUN has a distinctive flair, beloved by Midwesterners, famous politicians, and the O.G. internet. Its products, which are unpretentious and simple, are full of Midwestern inside jokes, over-the-top positivity, and general silliness. Draper calls his style “midimal.” It’s pop art with a meme-y, whimsical twist.
“It’s just the kind of stuff that comes up with me and my friends, me and our coworkers, just giggling about stuff in the group chat,” says RAYGUN graphic designer Ali Peters says.
‘Memes in Real Life’
In the early 2000s, Draper’s college buddy suggested they start selling t-shirts. Why not?
“It started just as a project like my senior year of college, and then something kind of clicked. I’m like, ‘Oh my God, this is it. This is something that I could totally do by myself.’”
And he did: For RAYGUN’s first three years, Draper ran the show alone. Full stop.
“It was just me. So, I ran the store, designed everything, printed everything, rang up every sale, cleaned the bathroom, unclogged the toilet after you clogged the toilet,” Draper says with a laugh.
And, slowly, he grew up along with the world. He brought on a growing team that unionized, opened more locations, and kept expanding existing ones—all while the Internet blossomed, too.
“I think the landscape has changed in a bunch of ways that make (RAYGUN) easier to digest,” Draper says. “One would be the fall of traditional media replaced by little snippets online and especially meme culture. And if you think about it that way, a lot of our t-shirts are essentially, they’re like fungible tokens. They’re like memes in real life.”
Peters, who has been designing with RAYGUN for two years, says much of what she creates stems from what’s happening in the news, right now. She’ll often see customers in shock at their products, saying, ‘This just happened yesterday,’ or ‘I just heard about this.’
“I think that’s kind of been an interesting part of designing here, is just being able to be on the front end of things as they’re happening and bring them to the Midwest and take a fun approach to it,” says Peters, who grew up in rural western Iowa.
Her creative process: See it, laugh about it, put it on a t-shirt. RAYGUN is bold and right here, right now.
“I’ll just kind of be playing with and experimenting with [designs.] And Mike is just like, ‘OK, f*ck it. Send it.”