We travel to discover. It’s movement that makes us feel alive, and the unknown that we are drawn to from the very beginning of our lives.

Humans are restless, curious and captured by an endless obsession with exploration. It’s the departure from routine where new ideas are born or new friends are made. Sometimes, we even get lost only to find ourselves.

Our capacity to feel inspired, to be moved by beauty or filled with awe, is one of the fundamental characteristics of human life. For me, nothing inspires like travel.

I can think of few things more exciting than venturing outside with my camera strapped around my chest, ready to explore new unknown places. It’s in these moments I feel free from any attachment or responsibility. It’s just me with my camera, taking it all in.

Introducing the Urban Explorer Sweatshirt

Over the last couple months I teamed up with my friends at Unsplash to create something special. Unsplash embraces this spirit of discovery, so it only felt natural that we join forces. The Urban Explorer Sweatshirt is our first collaboration. It’s an attempt to make something for our fellow explorers and creators.

We aimed to create a piece that is high quality, yet subtle in its design. The Explorer Sweatshirt is a limited edition crew neck, made custom by hand in Canada.

We used 100% French Terry Cotton, 400gsm for a reason. It’s not only super comfortable, but French Terry Cotton is known to keep you dry and cool because of its water absorbent properties. The sweatshirt can be worn year round and works great for layering.

The print design is a subtle black foil on black cotton that reads “Fernweh & Wanderlust.” Fernweh is German and roughly translates to “The longing for distance and a strong desire to travel.” These two words describe everything we’re about.

If you’re interested in The Explorer Sweatshirt, you can purchase one here. It’s a very limited edition, so you’ll be one of just a few of us wearing it out there in the wild. And you’ll be warm.

Ships in one-of-a-kind packaging designed by us and sealed with a custom sticker, courtesy of our friends at Stickermule. Thank you so much Stickermule for the support!

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I hope you enjoy this project I've been working on for the past 6 months. For those who like to read a bit more about the inspiration and process, here you go:

The sweatshirt was all handmade in Canada with three different vendors involved. First we designed and produced the actual sweatshirts together with one vendor, then we shipped it to the next to get on all the custom labels followed by the third vendor to finalize the black on black foil print. If that sounds a bit complicated and painful to you, you're pretty much right about that.

While designing the sweatshirt, everything we had in mind was the theme Fernweh & Wanderlust and the stories we tell after we come back from one of our journeys. The type design itself was inspired by old fable book covers and type treatments of the early Walt Disney. There is something magical about these letters, they feel clean and geometric (which fits our modern black sweater design) yet each letter has deeper character and a certain playfulness & story attached to it.

The circles in the middle simply stand for an abstract representation of movement.

Thank you
Tobias