About

I created Eclectig to celebrate everything I love about Wales. My designs are inspired by Welsh pride, the beauty of our landscapes, our rich culture, and the words that connect us. As a Welsh speaker, husband of a Welsh learner and the parent of two boys who attend a Welsh-medium school in Cardiff, I'm incredibly proud to see the Welsh language thriving in a new generation.

Whether you're a fluent Welsh speaker, learning a few phrases, or simply proud to call Wales home, I hope my designs help you wear that pride with confidence.

Diolch for supporting my small business. I hope these designs inspire pride in Wales, spark conversations, and remind us all of the incredible country we're lucky to call home.

Cadw'r iaith yn fyw!

A note on Cymraeg

For a website that bangs on about its love of the Welsh language, you may have noticed that there isn’t actually that much Cymraeg around here yet. There are a couple of reasons for that. Partly it’s practical - Eclectig relies heavily on people finding us through search, and the reality is that the majority of those searches are made in Saesneg. Partly it’s a time thing. Translating and maintaining a shop of this size in two languages is a bigger job than this little independent operation can manage at the moment.

That doesn’t mean I’m happy to leave it that way. I’ll be adding more Welsh to the site wherever I can and, over time, I hope to put that imbalance right.

Ian Rush on a surfboard

A Rush of Inspiration: To Begin Ian the Beginning

This is a website born out of a dream. A metaphorical one, - a dream of bringing together Welsh culture, nostalgia and great design to make things that the people want to wear. But also a literal dream. A dream of Ian Rush on a surfboard decorated with the classic Wales home top from the early 90s. So vivid was this dream that when I woke up I was sure that this picture must exist and that I must have seen it somewhere online. So I searched and searched but I found nothing. A sadness came over me.

Then one day, my 3 year old son came up to me. He must have noticed that I hadn't been myself over the previous few months. He said "Dada are you still sad about that picture of Rushie? I can draw one for you. I can draw lots of them". "That's it" I exclaimed, "Ian you genius!" He was really excited before I clarified that I didn't need him to do the drawing as I'd seen the quality of his work. But, in his own way he had given me an idea. I could do the drawing myself. I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier as I have been drawing stuff professionally for the best part of 20 years. So I set to work and what I came up with is pictured above. It's not quite as I saw it in my dream. In the dream there was a terrifying shark like figure with the face of Peter Shilton water chasing Rushie through the water. I felt the Shilton image would have sent out the wrong message politically and would have drawn focus away from Rushie. The idea of footballers on surfboards is something that I have returned to since - see also this image of Neville Southall on a surfboard.

Breuddwyd Macsen Wledig

Students of medieval Welsh literature may already have spotted the parallels with Breuddwyd Macsen Wledig, in which Macsen dreams of something so vividly that he becomes determined to find it in the real world. Admittedly, Macsen dreamt of the beautiful Elen. I dreamt of Ian Rush on a surfboard. Macsen sent messengers far and wide to track down the woman from his dream. I used Google Images in my search. Neither journey was straightforward.

Unlike Macsen, I eventually discovered that the object of my dream did not exist. So I did the only sensible thing - I made it exist.

Take me to Rushie