Sometimes the individuality of a person is judged by his or her sense of fashion. For a few Sacramento State students, the idea of clothing as a benchmark for uniqueness has sparked a desire to create their own clothing lines.

“Jist” and “Transgress” are two clothing lines that have recently been launched. Their developments are the upshots of graphic and fashion design students and graduates of Sac State.

Aristotle Ramirez, graphic designer for Jist Online Clothing Co., has been working in the company with three other members for about six months. But they’ve all known each other over a year. The company became active in August and has been slowly progressing, according to Claire Catalan, fashion design graduate and Jist money caretaker.

“I knew I always wanted to do something like this,” Catalan said.

The other members of Jist are Olivia Bonifacio and Tina Ngo. Bonifacio, who is also a fashion design graduate, does a lot of the designing with consideration of the season. Ngo, a current student who is specializing in marketing, has been honing her skills for the company.

“We work as a team,” Catalan said. “We each have different things to contribute.”

Ramirez has always wanted to work with friends, so this business was his start.

“We’re all partners,” he said. “We kinda do everything together.”

Coming up with the name was the beginning of their partnership. According to Ramirez, they were looking through the dictionary one day and found “gist,” which is defined as “the main point of a matter.” But they decided to use the phonetic spelling with a “j” to be different.

Jist clothing is only available online at JistOnline.net, but the availability off-line could be a possibility in the future, said Ramirez. At the moment, shirts are being sold for both men and women, and accessories and dress clothes are in the planning. The Jist style is geared toward those interested in urban fashion.

On a similar route is Transgress Boarding Industry, another clothing line whose developments have been conjured up by fellow students in 1998. Inspired on the shores and mountains in Lake Tahoe, Transgress is made of three elements: wakeboarding, snowboarding, and skateboarding.

Like Jist, the name is a result of a search through the dictionary. According to Transgress member Andrew Duong, it means “to go above and beyond, almost to the point of sin.”

“Transgress is a word that is not commonly used,” Duong said. “For a brand name, I thought it was pretty right on.”

A triangular design has been developed to correspond with each element. Graphic designer Duong experimented with previous designs for their logo and finally came up with one that fits their purpose and identity. According to Duong, the final design in comparison to their previous ones, is “subtle but strong, smooth, eye-pleasing and gets the point across.”

Duong works with three other people who make up Transgress. Kevin Thelen, Andy Busch, and Chip Moreland are all long-time friends who grew up in the same neighborhood. They see their company as an equal partnership where they all share the same interests.

The first line of clothing includes short-sleeve and long-sleeve shirts, and baseball style t-shirts. The next winter line will include hooded sweatshirts and windbreaker jackets.

“We don’t want just any design,” Duong said. “You see people walking around on campus with backpacks on and you can’t see the logo. We don’t want our design on the back because it gets totally wasted.”

For Transgress members, a design needs to have a meaning behind it, which needs to be placed on a visible part of the clothing to enhance its meaning.

“But if people get our clothes just for the logo, so be it,” Duong said. “We’re grateful for that.”

Transgress Boarding Industry is planning on creating headwear, vinyl stickers of their logo and more functional gear. It is also working on a Web site at www.transgressboarding.com, where clothing will be available for purchase.