Today we’d like to introduce you to Diana Garcia.
Hi Diana, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
Land of Joshua Trees: A Palmdale Original was established on January 1, 2018…yup new year, new project. When I did my senior project in high school circa 2008 (truly showing my age…) I wanted to build and start my own design brand. But when I went off to college in Las Vegas, I went into a different field of work, Architecture design. Through my years in an immersive collegiate program, I gained knowledge of Adobe programs, i.e., Photoshop and Illustrator. My love of desert vegetation came from when I was a part of the Landscape Architecture division in the program. I enjoyed knowing about how resilient a desert plant can be with the environment it’s given and with little to no attention to its care.
Years passed after finishing college and I was slapped in the face with the reality in late 2017 that I had graduated high school 10 YEARS AGO. I thought back of the idea of making my own brand and selling items designed by me. And that’s where Land of Joshua Trees: A Palmdale Original was born.
During the time I was envisioning the brand, I wanted something that could represent where I came from in a unique way. I felt that there had to be others who saw Palmdale, CA as more than a reference in a stoner song. I chose a Joshua Tree because I always felt connected to a Joshua Tree that was near my house. I would see how it would stand tall in the middle of nothing and look so majestic.
I started the IG on January 1st and had no idea where to even begin. I was working in web-presence marketing at the time and tried my best to use those skills with this new brand. I designed the logo and nothing much. I took some photos of Joshua Trees while in Palmdale for winter break and were posting them every so often.
I started with t-shirts that were funded by my generous friends on a Kickstarter in late 2018. (Shout out to one friend in particular, a true Day one, and they know who they are) The brand was just a baby then so support had to grow with time. I built out stickers and pins with the logo to build brand awareness. October 2019 was when a Halloween design was created and received positive response. It was so much fun getting to imagine the brand in a more spooky sense.
2020 was a year I wanted to explore more shirts and products for the brand, but you know…the pandemic. I did manage to build the brand’s first Halloween collection including a shirt and sticker/button bundles. The break gave me time to plan for what I wanted the brand to be in the future.
In 2021, our focus was to bring more shirts into the brand and we ended up with six in total. We created our staple logo shirt so it could replace our first shirt from three years before. We introduced our Desert Romanticism collection for the lovers and our third chapter in our Halloween collection. It was wonderful to see people react positively to the shirts!
This new year is still young but we still want to find new ways to bring awareness to this majestic tree and to the City of Palmdale. As everything starts going back to normal, we want to do more tabling events so we can get to meet more people or have more people meet our brand.
Our fifth anniversary will be next year and it’s crazy to see all that the brand has done. I’m excited to see where we will be at in year five.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It was definitely rough in the beginning. It was a transition period in my life where I left Vegas after ten years and came back to Palmdale. I was looking for work while building a design brand so brand awareness was slow during this time. I think it was for the best because I just don’t think the brand would be where it is today if I was located in Las Vegas.
We did a tabling event (shout out to Crunch Fitness in Lancaster) and it was not as great as we would of hoped for but it was our first step. We count those as trial runs and I hope at least ONE person saw the brand and liked it.
You have your highs and your lows as a small brand, but it’s a matter of taking the lows and learning from them.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I want a brand that captures the interest of those that reside in the city of Palmdale. Something they would be proud to wear anywhere in the world they go. I want a unique representation for this desert city.
Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
Creating this brand was a risk. What keeps me going though is knowing that if I were to meet 17 and a half year old Diana, her mind would be blown knowing that she was going to design and build out a brand representative of her.
You have to take risks in life, even if you start off slow. I’m amazed at the knowledge I have gained with this brand that I wouldn’t have if I didn’t create it.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: www.landofjoshuatrees.com
- Instagram: @landofjoshuatrees
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/landofjoshuatrees
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/lojt_palmdale
Image Credits:
Diana Garcia
