Josh Patterson has worked as a clothing designer for nearly 20 years, working for brands like Rip Curl, Quicksilver, FMF, Dakine, Fox Racing and most recently PrAna. He himself connected more with the off-road, desert crowd and felt a little out of place with some of these companies. As a designer he never saw a brand that really got behind the off-road, motor-driven lifestyle, so he started Off The Grid in 2012 as a side gig.
Josh is a creative and an artist through and through. He started making designs with the newly created flagship logo in which the "THE" is a creative representation of tire tread on a dirt trail. Josh would take these designs to local off-road races and shows like King Of The Hammers and Easter Jeep Safari to support the local scene.
The brand started picking up steam when Josh started hanging out with some of the coolest people on the planet, guys like Justin from Factor 55 and Bill from JK Forum were some of the first contacts.
Josh continued to promote his side hustle. You could find him sleeping in his 2008 Toyota Tundra at the 2015 KOH in 18-degree weather or, when he finally mustering enough cash to get a vendor spot at Temecula Off-Road Nights, slinging product in his very own booth. It didn't feel like a second job for him, he was having a blast.
As a cut n' sew designer, Josh had a dream to build out the best pair of everyday pants for this audience he felt so connected. So... late at night, after an already long day of work, he would continue working. Most brands can slap a logo on a blank and call it a day, but cut n' sew clothing design is no joke. Josh is a total pro. From finding inspiration to the hand-sketch, to graphic design and building out the tech packs, he does it all.
In the Trailblazer Pant Josh wanted to take all the best features of an outdoor pant, a workwear pant, and a tactical pant. In 2017, he launched an IndieGoGo campaign, with the help of his then partner, Darren North, to make his dream a reality. After raising $10,929, backed by 134 OG Off The Grid supporters he made the deposit to make the first round of Trailblazer's a reality.
Off The Grid's mission is to inspire more connection through adventure.
Now that Josh had a product that he could scale, he hired a marketing consultant, Bobby Klein, to sell the pants direct to consumer. After hundreds of preorders that typically followed our Trailblazer Video (shown below), the pants were ready to launch. When it was time to drop the final deposit to release the pants from port, Josh found out that the $10,000 he wired to the factory was stolen in an email scam. Bobby ended up loaning the company the money to get the pants in, and they were diverted directly to KOH Hammertown in Johnson Valley, where OTG was vending that week.