We were lucky to catch up with Tyler Russell recently and have shared our conversation below.
Tyler, appreciate you joining us today. Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?
This is such a great question – and there is probably enough here to write a mini novel. No joke. I started working with leather in 2018 after losing my cheap Amazon wallet and wanted to make something that I actually would care about keeping an eye on, something that would make me upset if I lost it versus just being upset about losing the important credit cards and ID inside it. I was carrying a meaningless wallet, but everything inside that meaningless piece was very, very important in order to just get by.
In 2018, I had a full time job. I ran a lacrosse program, spent at least five days a week with kids between the ages of 4 and 16. That wasn’t that bad, but with that came calls, emails and texts from their parents. I was fully immersed in this world and it was hard to escape it. I would answer their calls and emails deep into the evening. When I started working with leather, mostly making small wallets and card holders – it was something that cleared my mind. I could use my creative side and kind of zone out – in the best way possible.
Tyler, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I am a pretty average dude who stumbled into making card holders out of leather after losing my wallet in 2018. It started with a simple leather DIY kit from some random site, turned into a few card holders for ‘Secret Santa’ gifts that holiday season, and then my first market in person in 2019. The rest is history I guess? In 2020, I spent a ton of time working on bigger projects while the world was on pause. I got into making belts, tote bags, different styles of wallets and even ventured into making a few custom leather backpacks.
HFA Goods has grown naturally, as I have grown I guess. There hasn’t really been an agenda or blueprint. I joke, but the brand has kind of grown as people have approached me with new wild ideas. You want a new bag or have an idea in your brain? I will try my best to make it, and then from there it may or may not become an HFA staple! It’s sort of a brand of the people I guess when you look at it that way. I constantly tell people to stay on top of me if they have something in mind, just because my brain goes all over the place and I need those constant reminders.
If I could list out one thing that I would want the readers to know about HFA it would be this – I pride myself on working in reverse and doing the exact thing that most companies you probably support DON’T do. I want you to know exactly what goes into making your custom item, I want you to see photos as I build it, I want you to be able to pick the thread color and when the items shows up to you I want you to touch and it feel and love it, but already know what you are getting because you talked to the human being who crafted it specifically for you.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
One simple mission – make things that make people question where and why they are buying their current leather goods they have.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
Seeing something I make two years later and having it look just as good or better than it did when I sent it out.
Contact Info:
- Website: hfagoods.com
- Instagram: @hfagoods