Let’s be clear: Max Novak likes to have fun
. And his fun usually means performing wheel grabs,
360’s and a variety of other tricks with his BMX bike.
But to the fifteen-year-old, high school sophomore from Oakland, California, fun also meansplaying tenor sax in a select jazz band at school while launching and building a brand of streetwear clothing that he already envisions will be his ticket to a life without office cubicles, suits,bosses and mandatory work hours. Since founding EXCLMTN(pronounced
Exclamation) earlier this year, Max hasalready managed to produce twobatches of clothing and get hiscustom-designed t-shirts andsweatshirts into 510 skateboarding, apopular skate shop in Berkeley, as wellas a hip clothing store in Oakland. Heis carefully crafting the Exclmtn brandand is working to build a devotedfollowing in the street wear industry.And along with it, he has alreadymapped out a clear strategy for the future.
“I want to grow the brand, get experience, get it into more
stores across the country and grow
as a person,” Max says, reflecting on stores in San Francisco and Ann Arbor Michigan that he
has tried to pitch his brand to in person. His self-
belief is so strong there’s no questioning wherehe’s headed in life.
“I think that starting now enables me to grow it slowly so that by the time I’m in college, the
brand will hopefully be able to sustain itself and give me the experience I need to be involved in
the skateboarding street wear industry in a bigger way,” he adds.
“I know I don’t want a typical
white collar job
–
that scares me.”
Max, now a slim, amber-eyed brunette who seems to never stop going, discovered hisattraction to art in first grade, after undergoing bilateral leg surgery as a result of a mild case of cerebral palsy caused by complications at birth. Given that he was stuck in double leg casts and
couldn’t run around like other boys his age, Max started gravitating to something he could do
with his hands, and was soon creating cartoon characters and other art (one of his comic strips
was chosen for the Stanford Anthology for Youth.) His entrepreneurial side was already kickingin by the fourth grade when Max made a clay slug in art class and realized he and his friendscould make some quick cash by starting a slug production line and selling them at an upcomingcraft fair.But his art teacher taught him a life lesson: she said she would only donate supplies if the
proceeds went to charity. So Max chose Children’s Hospital Oakland, where he spent the first
three months of his life living in Intensive Care and undergoing many surgeries.The excitement of creating something of his own and then exchanging it for money left a lasting
mark: in two years, Max donated hundreds of dollars to Children’s from the slug s
ales alone.This year he plans to donate a portion of his Exclmtn profits to the hospital as well.By the time Max hit seventh grade and fell into the skateboarding and BMX bike scene, he wasan avid doodler, taking a sketchpadand pens with him everywhere hewent. He began thinking aboutlaunching a street wear brand andbegan playing around by spray-painting his original designs onto t-shirts in his back yard. Soon he wasexperimenting with Photoshop andby the spring of his ninth gradeyear, Max had already come upwith the name and logo for hisbrand.He took a few of his initial designs to his parents who agreed to give him seed money to launchthe business (Max had to successfully sell out the first batch of shirts before they would fundthe second order.)Then it was a matter of finding a silk screening partner, deciding on the right fabrics for hisdesigns (some required tougher cotton than others) figuring out how to produce the customEXCLMTN labels for his clothing and learning where to have the labels hand sewn into thecollars.
Max, who says he doesn’t know of any other kid his age that has launched their own brand,
chalks up his ambition, in part, to a fear of getting lost in the masses.
Search History:
Result 00 of 00
00 results for result for
p.
Exclamation of Independence
Max stakes his independence with Exclmtn, a hip clothing line reminiscent of the skateboarding, BMX scene.
3.6K
Reads
21
Readcasts
2
Embed Views
More From This User
Notes
Load more
