CityEvoke didn't start as a clothing brand. It started with a pencil, a YouTube channel, and a mum who said the right thing at the right time.
Where It Started
Before CityEvoke, I ran a drawing YouTube channel called DRAWISMYMIDDLENAME. I had around 3,000 subscribers and spent my time drawing anime characters from Dragon Ball, Attack on Titan, Spy x Family, and Demon Slayer. It was something I genuinely loved doing. Then life got in the way and I went on a hiatus.
When I started thinking about coming back to it, my mum said something that changed the direction completely. Instead of just drawing other people's characters, why not create my own original anime design and put it on a tee? That one suggestion planted the seed for everything that followed.
I started working on the idea in 2024. But at the same time, I was still chasing my basketball dreams. The brand existed in my head and in early sketches, but it wasn't the priority yet. Basketball was.
The Decision That Changed Everything
In 2025, I made the call to quit basketball for good and commit fully to building this brand. That decision wasn't easy. But once it was made, everything shifted. CityEvoke stopped being a side idea and became the main thing.
Around that time, I went to my first anime convention, Smashcon. Walking around, I saw clothing stands selling anime-themed pieces. But most of it was copyright work, designs built on other people's characters, and none of it told a story. None of it felt like something you'd wear because it meant something to you. I stood there and thought: I want to be here one day, selling something original, something that actually says something.
That visit made the vision clearer than it had ever been.
The First Design: Neon Dreams: Zira
The very first character I ever designed was Zira. She became the foundation of the Neon Dreams: Zira T-Shirt and the first tee CityEvoke ever dropped. I had sketched the original version back in 2024, but it wasn't ready. It wasn't polished enough. And the first print test I ran came back looking cheap, more like merchandise than something you'd actually want to wear as a streetwear piece.
That result told me I had more work to do.
Finding the Right People and the Right Process
My aunt found a local printing company and a manufacturer selling premium 300 GSM boxy fit tees. I went there, learned about the process, and discovered something I hadn't accounted for: I still needed to halftone my designs properly for DTG printing. On top of that, the artwork itself needed to be rebuilt to a higher standard.
So I went back and did exactly that. I refurbished the design from the ground up. Then came the test prints. Multiple rounds, months of back and forth, getting the halftone right, getting the colours right, getting the placement right. It was slow and at times frustrating. But every failed test print was information. Every round got closer.
By late September 2025, the design was finalised. And on 10 September 2025, CityEvoke received its very first order.
The launch collection was two pieces: the Neon Dreams: Zira T-Shirt (Boxy Fit) and the CityEvoke 'CE' Logo T-Shirt (Boxy Fit). Both on 300 GSM premium cotton. Both original. Both the start of something.
What Drives It
The reason I keep building this is simple. I want people to wear anime tees that actually tell a story. Something they can connect with, something that means something beyond just a graphic on fabric. The tee is my canvas. Every design is my way of putting my own emotions and ideas into something wearable. It's art, just in a different form.
That's what CityEvoke is. Not just a clothing brand. A way of creating something original and putting it into the world in a form people can carry with them every day.
Where It Is Now
From two boxy fit tees at launch, the collection has grown to include multiple original designs across two fits, an everyday tee range on 240 GSM cotton, international shipping to New Zealand, a zip up hoodie dropping end of May, and a kitten named Zira who showed up on the front porch after the Wollongong road trip and decided she lived here now.
The brand is still being built. Every drop, every blog post, every TikTok live is part of it. And it started because a mum told her kid to stop drawing other people's characters and make their own.