Designer: Burton Durand

The most prolific of all the designers we have had the luck to work with over the years. Burton Hals from Lafayette and was for a time a full-time designer for Dirty Coast and our other company, Bayou Brands. If you bought a fundraising shirt from us over the years, chances are, he designed it.

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Blake

How did we start working together? Was it 2010?

Burton

Yeah, yeah—it took me a second to remember, but I dug through my old emails. What really brought us together was the BP oil spill. So in a way, we can thank BP for all the fun we’ve had since.

Back then, I was just finishing college, maybe my first year out, working as a designer at an ad agency. I wanted to make a poster to raise awareness about the spill. I designed one that said Save Our Gulf—it had a busted pipeline with a speech bubble, and inside the bubble were the “bones” of Gulf wildlife.

I reached out to you and Dirty Coast asking how to get it printed. I was just a designer in Lafayette looking for advice. You said, “Cool art, great message,” and suggested I look around Lafayette to get it made. Then not long after, you reached out about doing freelance work.

Blake

I looked back, and beyond that first exchange, the first real project pitch came in July 2010. That was the Believe in the Trinity T-shirt design.

Burton

Yep, that was the first one—the Cajun Trinity, the triptych design. I still see people wearing that shirt.

Blake

We still carry it. It’s one of the mainstays—one of the regulars.

Burton

Yeah, that was the first one. I guess I didn’t realize it was that far back. For some reason, I thought it was closer to 2005, but no—it wasn’t until 2010.

Blake

Yeah—so what are some of the other memorable designs you’ve worked on with us over the years? Which ones stand out for you?

Burton

From that early period—I wish I hadn’t cleared out most of my emails from back then—but one that stands out was the Come Hell or Bywater design. I even tried searching online the other day but couldn’t find an image of it anywhere.

Blake

Oh yeah.

Burton

It was one of my favorites. I had the shirt for a long time until it finally gave out. While digging through my emails yesterday, I actually found a note from a woman in 2018. She wrote me saying, “This was my favorite shirt—Come Hell or Bywater. I lost mine. Do you know where I can get another?” I had to tell her I thought it was out of production, but suggested she check with Dirty Coast directly.

Blake

That’s definitely one we’ll be bringing back. We’re reissuing the neighborhood shirts.

Burton

That’s great to hear.

Burton

Another one that’s always top of mind for me is the Union Justice Crawfish shirt—the Louisiana flag pelican holding a tray of crawfish. I still see people wearing that one.

Honestly, I almost had a panic attack just opening my Dirty Coast folder the other day. There are like 400 subfolders in there—the sheer amount of stuff we’ve made over the years is wild. Even just opening the Mardi Gras folder, there are so many designs. You could probably find a designer who hasn’t done that many designs in their entire career.

Speaking of Mardi Gras, another one of my favorites—though it was, let’s say, “legally discontinued”—was the King Shake Baby shirt. Nobody puts baby in the corner.

Blake

Nobody puts baby in the corner. Yeah. I really wish we could bring that one back. At some point, we’ve got to convince the Pelicans that it’s a good idea for us to.

 Burton

I don’t see why not. I still have that shirt—it’s one of my few bright green ones, with a giant pink baby head on it. Very funny. That’s definitely a highlight for me. It might have been legally questionable, but the King Cake Baby has always been hilarious.

Blake

Of all the designs you’ve worked on, the one I bring up the most when people ask where our ideas come from—or which designs are personally memorable to me—is the Save the Gulf Walrus shirt we did after the BP oil spill.

I tell the story all the time. Patrick, Manny, and the team pushed back on it. They said, “It’s such a small news story—people will forget about it in a week. It’s not worth making a shirt.” But I couldn’t not do it, because it was just so absurd.

Burton

Exactly.

Blake

We needed to do it as social commentary. I didn’t give you much direction—just the concept and tagline—and you came up with that great design of the four made-up entities.

The team was technically right: it wasn’t a great seller at first. We only moved a handful. But then, about four weeks later, people started coming in asking for it. What happened was the people who did buy it wore the shirt, and it sparked conversations. Folks would ask, “What the hell is that? What does it mean?” Then the story would spread.

It was the perfect example of a T-shirt as commentary—as a storytelling tool—especially around something so ridiculous.

Burton

It seems like that kind of quick, witty turnaround really became part of Dirty Coast’s whole vibe—at least one of the main ones. I remember the No Rats shirt. That was right after the news broke about someone stealing the police department’s weed stash. We cranked that one out fast, and it even ended up in the news. So funny.

Blake

Yeah, that was a great example of the team coming up with a concept, running with it alongside you, and getting it out while the iron was hot. And it didn’t just hit in the moment—people kept buying it because the shirt itself sparked conversations.

For me, those social commentary designs have always been some of my favorite work. It’s where the company really started—commentary through T-shirts.

The ability to collaborate quickly with designers like you, work with Michael at Pro Monkey to produce fast, and build tools for pre-sales and quick turnaround—that all became part of our identity with customers. Now it’s almost expected. Every time there’s a big news story, we’ll see people on Facebook or Instagram asking, “Where’s the Dirty Coast shirt?”

Burton

Like the Sewerage and Water Board Sex Room. Can’t make that stuff up. New Orleans keeps giving ideas.

 

Looking back through my design folders now, it’s hard to even keep track of it all. There’s just so much. But I’m glad I was able to help out.

Burton

One of my favorite collaborations was the work we did for Morgus the Magnificent. That was super cool for me—I was really happy to be part of that.

Blake

Yeah, that was a perfect example of the original intent behind By Your Brands—to not just create within Dirty Coast, but to develop products for other partners in the community, whether nonprofits or other local brands.

Being able to take what we’ve built with Dirty Coast and then collaborate with partners has been huge. Morgus was a great example—a core New Orleans character and identity. Getting to work with his daughter and produce a merch line was incredible.

Same thing with more recent collaborations, like with Fats Domino, or others like that. Those kinds of projects have always been some of the most rewarding.

Burton

I’ve always loved how open Dirty Coast has been, and how big a proponent it is of helping the community. Rachel reminded me about the Good Things Come in Small Packages design we did to raise funds for restaurant and bar staff during Covid.

Blake

We wouldn’t have been able to do Screens For Good—and raise funds for all those organizations—if you hadn’t been on staff designing all those shirts for each cause.

Burton

Looking back through my design folders now, it’s hard to even keep track of it all. There’s just so much. But I’m glad I was able to help out.

It’s funny—whenever people found out I worked with Dirty Coast, they’d ask, “Oh, did you do anything I’d recognize?” And I’d be like, “Probably.” Then they’d start naming designs. I’d go, “No, not that one… nope, not that one either… oh yeah, that one—that one’s mine.”

Blake

And here we are at Saints season again—time to think up new designs.

Burton

I know. I was looking back through my folders, and between Saints and all the Who Dat stuff, it feels like we did everything. Some of those really stand out—like the In That Number shirt, which had that web-style illustration feel. I loved that one.

Then there was the Drew Brees shirt, after he hurt his hand, with the bandaged finger. And of course, all the Falcons stuff—so many iconic Dirty Coast takes over the years.

Blake

There’s also all the work you did during Covid. That really tied into the social and community commentary side of Dirty Coast. At that time, you were still on salary, and we were cranking out tons of designs—specifically around how to respond to what everyone was going through.

It was this strange mix: on one hand, an opportunity to create meaningful work, but on the other, a moment of panic—like, “Oh crap, what’s happening to society, and how do we keep the lights on?”

Burton

I was looking at the Golden Girls one yesterday.

And honestly, the whole time we’ve been talking, I’ve been trying to find this one poster—soething a designer made that wasn’t mine, but I really liked it. I couldn’t track it down.

The ongoing series of New Orleans Patron Saints designs has always been a favorite. People really respond to those. It’s always fun to revisit.

Blake

Yeah—whenever we nail down a series like that, it’s a win. It becomes something we can truly own as a brand, part of our IP. 

I’d put the Nola Tones concept in that same category. Super simple, but it’s ours—and something we could expand on.

Well, thanks, man, for chatting about all of this.

Burton

For sure. My pleasure. It was fun.