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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Just last year, Sarah Erasmus was selling her original design t-shirts out of her car.

Erasmus Apparel founder Sarah Erasmus stands inside the graphic design and custom printing company's workshop on Monday. - Thandie Vela/NNSL photo

Today, the 25-year-old Yellowknifer's designs have brand-recognition, and her new graphic design and custom printing company Erasmus Apparel is booming, with new corporate clients every week.

"It kind of started from me loving t-shirts and wanting to come up with funky designs to doing other stuff as well to keep me busy," Erasmus said of her catapult into corporate sales. "I have the machine to put out my own stuff, why not do corporate company stuff as well?"

The recent SAIT Polytechnic graduate's Yellowknife-inspired t-shirts and hoodies, including her most popular Giant Mine design began garnering attention when she started selling them at different events, including Folk on the Rocks, where Erasmus Apparel sold more than 200 items.

With the help of her business partners Shannon and Warren McLeod, the 100 per cent aboriginal-owned Erasmus Apparel was established in January, and her 1,000-plus-pound manual screen printing press hasn't stopped running since it arrived in May.

"It all kind of just happened -- a bunch of jobs all at once," Erasmus said, noting she hired a student over the summer, to keep up with the demand.

One of Erasmus's first jobs was printing t-shirts for popular Yellowknife band The Dawgwoods.

"It just started trickling in after, through word of mouth," Erasmus said.

Other clients the business has provided apparel and promotional items for include Deton'Cho Corp., Ryfan Electric Ltd., The Nexus Group, Tli Cho Logistics, the City of Yellowknife, Aurora College,

Basketball NWT, three uniform contracts for Sir John Franklin High School, and contracts with her own former high school, St. Patrick.

"They definitely like to support past graduates and local business," Erasmus said, adding her clients appreciate that the company has a lot of merchandise in stock, so they are able to have emergency orders in within a week. The average turn-around time for orders, which can be up to 200 items, is three weeks or less, Erasmus said.

"Everything she says she'll do is provided to us in a very timely manner and professionally done," said Jane Arychuk, Aurora College vice-president, community and extensions.

"I've been very impressed."

"She's young, she's vital she's aboriginal, and from the North," Arychuk added. "I think it's important for us to support our Northern youth born and raised in the North who have gone on, gotten educated, and started their business in the North."

Erasmus Apparel is sold from the workshop in Kam Lake, at the Quilted Raven, and online.

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