My name is Marcus Harvey and I have a passion for Portland and product. I’ve always been attracted to the Portland energy and wanted to harness it into something tangible.
Growing up in the suburbs of Portland Oregon my whole life I just loved sports. Call it being a 90’s baby, the rise of Michael Jordan and Ken Griffey Jr, being brainwashed an Oregon Duck fan by my parents, or proximity to the Nike World headquarters but man did I love sports. Naturally I would go on to become an Oregon Duck. There, I graduated in 2012 with a degree in Digital Arts and Business. During my time at school I developed a love for marketing and art, specifically screen printing and branding. In moving back to Portland in 2012 I started a freelance apparel design business where companies from all over began asking for me to make apparel that had “Made in Portland” tags. As Instagram was just beginning to grow I started @portland as a way to build community, and share in my love for the city through photography. Starting at 0 followers, it has now reached 324,000 followers with people using my #portlandnw 350,000 times over the past five years.
In managing and running the page, I saw the pride that Portlanders had and began getting requests for shirts and other items to show it. On Black Friday of 2014, using my background in apparel design and branding, I launched the company with two t-shirts, two photos on the @Portland page and a website I built the night before. Since then we’ve seen our products all over the world and have shipped a piece of Portland to every state in the USA and 40 other countries. Knowing I wanted to eventually open a retail store, but also knowing it wasn’t the right thing to do as a new business, I bought an old 1973 VW Westfalia as a tribute to my Nike love and started selling gear at Saturday markets, street fairs and other Portland events. As demand began to grow I knew it was time to open a retail store and we found a home at 627 SW 19th Ave Portland Oregon 97205 (right by Providence Park). Over the past two years we’ve been fortunate to do collaborations with Portland Trail Blazers, Water Avenue Coffee, Widmer Brothers, Bella Organic Farms, OHSU Doernbecher, University of Portland and have become friends with many of the players and coaches from the Blazers, Timbers and Thorns.