Heartskulls, the Garden City and Otherness: Our Designs

Every design in our store starts with something from our world. Here are the ideas behind some of our favourites.

Why so many heartskulls?

A skull drawn in the shape of a heart is the mark you see most on our merch, and on this store's icon. We have it four ways: Heartskull in classic black ink, Heartskull Reverse in white, Broken Heartskull under stencil letters, and a big distressed one on the back of Anime Knife Fight.

What is the Garden City?

St. Catharines, where we formed in 2001, has long been called the Garden City. Garden City Peace Punks and the tongue-in-cheek Keep Kids Off Drugs both sign off with that hometown nickname, and Sweet Dreams St. Catharines puts the city's name right on the front.

Which designs come from Otherness?

Otherness, our fifth album, came out in 2022 and won the Juno for Rock Album of the Year. Its first single, "Sweet Dreams of Otherness", gave the album its name. Otherness Arch shows a posterised face in a gothic window, and Otherness Face pairs the script wordmark with a bold face on the back.

What is Born and Raised?

It's a song on Old Crows / Young Cardinals and also our own festival in St. Catharines, first held in 2022. I Saw Born & Raised is the classic "all I got was this lousy shirt" joke for everyone who was there.

Anything just for fun?

Plenty:

• Guitar Turtle, a grinning cartoon turtle with a guitar
• Happy Dog Photo and Puppy Circle, for the dog people
• Melting Skull and Skeleton Scribe, for horror-comic lovers

See every design in the shop.