What started as selling old clothes turned into a small business run on Depop. Sydney Tall, began her business YikesPDX, her sophomore year at UO. Tall is an art minor who always enjoyed scrolling on Pinterest, looking for inspiration of things to doodle and spinning her own style on it. She then learned about screenprinting and brought this new found skill into her art pieces. Screenprinting her designs onto thrifted clothing for fun, transitioned into making pieces for friends. One of the difficult parts of starting her business, was the name. Tall is originally from the Portland-Metro area, so including “PDX” felt right. But, the addition of “Yikes” came to Tall later on. “I liked the ring to Yikes. It had a playful ring to it and put together with ‘PDX’ flowed really well,” said Tall on how she came up with the name. 

Tall created an Instagram account for YikesPDX to show the process of making her prints. Her posts would include timelapses drawing the designs to screenprinting them onto clothing items. At first, Tall would produce a select quantity of products she was working on and then launch them on Depop or Instagram to sell. The products included stickers, t-shirts, and tank tops. Tall would thrift different sizes for the t-shirts and tank tops from Goodwill to use. As Tall gained more experience with screenprinting and expanding her designs, she started selling at local Eugene markets. Asking Tall about the turnout from these markets she said, “They were super successful. I was sold out of majority of my merchandise each time.” 

Tall has had great success with YikesPDX, especially getting the word spread about her business. She has collaborated with Rival Skate Shop, house show venues and multiple markets to sell her products.Tall’s friends have shown great support from the beginning, “I love wearing my YikesPDX pieces and helping out with it in any ways I can. I even got to model in a photoshoot Sydney had for her first collection,” Tall’s friend, Peyton Brennan said. Even though, Tall thinks of Yikes as a passion project, she wants to keep her small business going.