Our names are Joelle Workman and Justin Arawjo, and Fennec Design is our line of apparel and accessories. We specialize in hand-pulled, screenprinted goods featuring our unique style of original illustration and design, and we pride ourselves on using non-toxic, water-based inks, sweatshop-free apparel and recycled paper goods as the starting point for all of our pieces.
Fennec began in the fall of 2010. We were living in West Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, adrift in the milieu of twenty-something indecisiveness and in the midst of a particularly memorable stint as seasonal workers at a haunted house. Justin had been screenprinting part time for the better part of a decade post-college, and I couldn’t sit near a piece of paper or stray napkin without doodling on it. We didn’t anticipate that our first collaborative t-shirt – designed for a band we were playing in together – would elicit such a positive response. Four years, several moves, and more than a hundred craft fairs later, that single design has served as the catalyst for an ever-expanding collection.
On any given day you can find Justin in the studio, audiobooks in the background, pulling screen after screen (and drinking cup after cup of coffee). I’m usually bent over my desk, inking the finely-detailed pieces that will eventually be burned into a screen. Rather than strict divisions of labor, we both enjoy the complicated and rewarding challenge of a truly collaborative process; most of our pieces are drawn together, with each artist contributing elements to the overall design.
