About Intro

What do you want to know about?  When you clicked this link, did you want to know about the product and Hanger 3?  Or did you want to know about the creator of Hanger 3?  Because that’s what I have been thinking about while typing this up. Do I talk about one or the other? Or do I talk about both, and make it long? Well, like any book, you can skip what you don’t want to read, or read it all. I’ll start off with how Hanger 3 came around, and I’ll finish with a little info about the creator of Hanger 3. Have fun, and thanks for taking the time to care about how this has all started.

About Hanger 3

Like everything, it all started with a dream, literally.  Several years ago I had a dream about this cool clothing store. I can’t go into details, but let's just say it was weird, because I am not a fashion type of person. But in my dream, I walked through this store, and woke up with the images still in my head.  Years later, this vision was still in my mind, and from time to time I would sketch what I think this store would look like, and try and figure out how to get it started, being that I know nothing about clothing. But how does one just all of a sudden start a clothing store?  It’s impossible.

After struggling on ideas for t-shirt designs, I focused on coming up with a new product that nobody has seemed to do anything with. T-shirts design sites are a dime a dozen. Some are imaginative, and creative. And others have no creativity at all.  They steal ideas from TV shows, and movies. If I was going to do shirts, I was going to do it the legit way, and be completely unique. But it was those unique ideas I was struggling with. So I had to coming up with something else. But what else would people buy besides t-shirts? And then it hit me. And that’s how you now have urban inspired necklaces, with the main feature being transit tokens. Besides retail stores, there seems to be nobody else that has done this very same thing. So I am officially stating that Hanger 3 is the first Un-Official pioneer of necklaces to compete side-by-side with t-shirt sites. 

And now that Hanger 3 has its foot in the door, you will start to see some of the creative t-shirt ideas pop up on the site. And to make my dream come true, you may very well be walking though the mall, and be able to walk though a Hanger 3 store. Screw the surfer, west coast clothing stores.  You want Midwestern Urban clothing stores, with over-priced, and undersized clothing. Right? No? Ok, maybe reasonably sized clothing. That’s where Hanger 3 may stand out in years to come.  Have you ever gone to one of those stores, fell in love with a shirt, or a hoody, and the only sizes they come in are kids sizes? Yeah, me too. And that’s one of the things I will never let happen at my store.

And there’s a glimpse from past, present, and future. Hope you enjoyed reading it, and hope you enjoy my products. I know I do, I wear one every day. The only time it comes off is when I take a shower. And that’s my stand with my product.

About the Maker

Well, my name is Dustin Wood. (www.dustinwood.com) I grew up in a small small town in Midwestern Illinois called La Harpe. And I can hear you thinking in your mind right now that your town was small too.  You may be right, but most of you will be VERY wrong. What was your graduating class size? 700? Huge. 500? Huge. 150? Still huge. Try like 36. Town population? 20,000? How’s 1400? Yeah, that’s not a typo. Our town population probably wouldn’t fill your community colleges basketball stands.

I graduated in 1999.  Never flunked a class, never advanced early, I was 18 when I graduated.  So instead of giving you my current age as of typing this and having to make sure I update it every year, I’ll let you figure out my general age. After high school I went to a 2 year community college for 4 years.  Kind of a shame isn’t it? But I came out with two degrees. One in Graphic Design, and one in Web Design.

After college, I went to work for an e-commerce company that sold quilt patterns online. I was in charge of maintaining and designing over 100 individual quilting sites. These were the sites of the quilt pattern designers. In my two years there, I learned some terms that no man should ever know the meaning to.  Like fat quarters.

After there, I moved to Toledo, Ohio where I currently work. I work for an advertising agency that deals with all sorts of mediums. Print, web, TV, etc.  We do it all. So in my free time after work, I would spend hours designing Hanger 3’s site and products. I currently do it all. Make, manage, design, market, package, and ship.

I love what I do. I love designing, and learning new things. If Hanger 3 ever gets so big that I need to hire a full team, I will still be an active member of the branding of the products. I don’t think I’ll ever fully retire from this profession.

About Conclusion

I see you're still here. What’d you think? Ticked off that a person like me has started his own business and is doing pretty well? Or do you feel that you must go and seek the next best thing? Or did this just touch your heart, and bring a slight tear to your eye? Lets hope it was the 2nd of the three. I encourage anybody with any kind of dream to keep pursuing it. Like my dream, I knew I couldn’t just start at the top; I had to find the crack at the bottom to start through. There’s always that start somewhere. Start small, and work your way up. This is still new, and my steps are small, but I can see I may have to pick up the pace to keep moving up.

Take care, and thank you for taking the time to learn about me and Hanger 3.