Meet Brendan O’Shaughnessy

Today we’d like to introduce you to Brendan O’Shaughnessy.

Hi Brendan, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Ocean & Sea was founded in 2013 as a creative vessel for myself and wife, Amanda. In the beginning, we used our platform to share art, design and photography. There was no agenda outside having fun together and engaging with others.

Fast forward to today and we are now a design & branding studio, helping clients realize their dreams through artful illustration and conceptually inspired design.

In addition, we make a lot of product. We’ve sold many thousands of shirts, prints, hoodies and accessories. You may have seen our LA KC NY design floating around—that’s us!

Our studio and shop are located at 5602 Johnson Drive, in Mission, KS. We have retail store hours on Saturday from 10am-4pm (also by appointment, we’re there all the time).

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I think the biggest struggle has been embracing change over the years. We started as a creative project but quickly found ourselves managing product operations on a large scale. From there, we naturally evolved into branding services for clients. Both of us have our Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art—mine in Graphic Design and Amanda’s in Drawing & Printmaking. You can see how each progression of our business makes sense based on our areas of focus. Each one of those steps felt like massive leaps of faith but we chose to follow our intuition.

Branding has always been our core passion. We love the process of seeing a client’s brand go from sketches to a fully-fledged design system that can serve their business for years to come. It is a rewarding process of living out our dreams while helping others realize their own. Our mantra is to dream again; we love partnering with people who are willing to take risks.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Our specialties include design and branding, illustration, marketing, interactive, art direction and even consultation. We’ve learned a lot over the years and we love getting to share our knowledge and skills with others. I regularly speak with college and high school students, encouraging them in their pursuit of art. Not only is it possible to make a living in art—contrary to popular opinion—you can thrive in it if you have the tenacity to push through the challenges.

Stylistically, we have a deep-rooted history in fine art and printmaking so we consistently bring those tools to branding companies. The logo is just the starting point in many deliverables that we ultimately provide (including iconography, photography, illustration, color palettes, patterns, typographic systems and how those all combine to make a memorable brand experience).

We are Kansas City brand ambassadors for life, it’s been our privilege to make an abundance of creative designs that showcase our pride for this city. Part of the reason we’ll never stop releasing products is because we enjoy it too much! Plus, it makes us more accessible to the masses where the barrier of entry to supporting our brand is a two dollar sticker.

Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
Amanda (my wife and business partner) has been my biggest supporter from the beginning. I simply could not have done this without her and the invaluable contributions she adds to our company. It’s imperative to have someone in your life that you trust who is willing to critique the work you are making, it only makes it better.

Also, my parents (John and Caryl) have been there for me with their encouragement and support since my early teenage years. They have always supported my desire to make a living in art. My mom has also contributed countless spectacular drawings towards our brand, many in the early days while we were doing the Daydreams creative project.

Beyond that, we wouldn’t be where we are today without the help of the thousands of customers who have voted for us with their hard-earned money at our stores, wholesalers and events. We can’t thank every single person enough who has ever contributed towards supporting us. Thank you so very much!

Contact Info:

• Email: dreamagain@oceanandsea.com
• Website: www.oceanandsea.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/oceanandsea
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/oceanandsea
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/ocean_andsea
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCNRVTwbgw0gae8DaYZRHPjg/featured
• Other: www.thestudioartclub.com