In June of 2020, St. Louis entrepreneur Devonna Smith took a tour of MADE Makerspace and fell in love- she immediately started taking classes and bought a membership. Since then, she has been working in the shop almost every day, building her brand and growing her business.
In case you haven’t heard of her, Devonna is a St. Louis native and founder apparel company See Me I Am Human Too. Her clothing and accessories are wearable statements. Devonna shares that the work spawns from her experiences, “The past few years I have experienced racism and injustice in places I considered myself once safe…. I am afraid for my brothers and sisters… for my friends and family. I am afraid for my own life.”
Devonna’s mission is clear: “See Me I am Human Too Clothing Brand was created for anyone to wear who is ready to be seen. Stop with the prejudgment. Stop with the injustice. Stop with the senseless killings. See Us We Are Humans Too.” She makes t-shirts, designs jewelry, and is venturing into more materials that demand to ‘Be Seen’- to be understood, fully and with compassion, by someone.
Smith’s shirts display in big, block letters, “SEE ME”, or, “I SEE YOU”. At MADE, she has begun exploring new ways to spread this message with the equipment in our community makerspace. She’s learning new skills, like screen printing on t-shirts and tote bags, laser cutting wood packaging, and embroidering onto hats. She’s been taking training sessions with her team, pictured below:
See Me I Am Human Too will be moving into their first office space on August 1st, home to their new corporation, See Us Enterprise. Their focus will be helping others build, brand, and grow their ideas into businesses.
We See You, Devonna. If you want to see Devonna’s business too, check out the links below: