About ARTEFACT

ARTEFACT is detectorist streetwear built around real finds, real places, hidden history,
and field culture.

Created for people who value the story more than the trophy.

ARTEFACT was built from the meeting point of field culture, real finds, and graphic design.

FROM THE FIRST SIGNAL

My name is Vasyl Sheremet. I am a graphic designer, a metal detecting enthusiast,
and the founder of ARTEFACT.

My own story with metal detecting began around the winter of 2017–2018 in Ukraine. Like many people, I first discovered the hobby through YouTube — old detecting videos, open fields, signals in the ground, and coins coming out of the soil.

All winter, those videos stayed in my head — and by spring, the idea still had not let go.

In February 2018, I bought my first metal detector. I could hardly wait for the ground to thaw, ready to go out and search for pieces of history.

Of course, real detecting was not like the videos.

At first, I came home with nothing at all. No experience, no car, no knowledge of good places to search — only long walks, bus trips to nearby villages, and a growing feeling of disappointment. For a moment, it even seemed that the detector might have to be sold.

Then everything changed.

I went to a field near my home in Cherkasy, close to an old road between Cherkasy and Ruska Poliana. There, I found my first coin: a silver 20 kopecks from 1911.

That small silver coin changed everything.

It was not about money. It was the rush — the signal, the digging, the moment when something real finally appeared from the soil. After weeks of empty trips, that small silver coin hit me hard.

Any detectorist will understand that feeling. One good find can put the hook in you for years.

Later, I came to understand the deeper side of the hobby: the history, the lost object, the person who once held it, and the story behind the find. But that first silver coin gave me the first true dose of the feeling — and I never really left it behind.

The first coin that kept me detecting — a silver 20 kopecks from 1911.

NOT ABOUT TREASURE. ABOUT STORY.

Metal detecting became more than a search for objects. It became a way to step out of ordinary life for a few hours, to walk old ground, listen for signals, and reconnect with history in a physical way.

For me, the value of a find was never only in metal or price. I never saw this hobby as a way to profit from relics. The real value was in the moment: the signal, the soil, the object, and the question of who lost it and why it was there.

That is why one of the core ideas behind ARTEFACT is simple: 
the story matters more than the trophy.

My first filmed detecting trip for the ARTEFACT YouTube channel, with my wife behind the camera.

FROM GRAPHIC DESIGN TO DETECTORIST STREETWEAR

I began working with graphic design in the early 2010s. Over the years, I created visual work for freelance clients, competitions, companies, and advertising projects.

Later, when I started learning YouTube, video editing, and content creation for my detecting channel, I discovered the idea of merch. That was the moment when two parts of my life suddenly connected: metal detecting and graphic design.

I looked at the detecting niche and saw a gap.

Most metal detecting apparel felt generic, comic, or too simple. I wanted to create something more serious — clothing that respected the hobby, the finds, the people,
and the history behind every object.

The first idea of ARTEFACT was born there: not just T-shirts with detector jokes, but a stronger visual language for detectorists.

From screen to garment — ARTEFACT designs are built through graphic design, testing, and real printed products.

REAL FINDS. REAL PLACES. REAL HISTORY.

Many ARTEFACT designs are inspired by real recorded artefacts, including objects documented by the UK Portable Antiquities Scheme.

A recorded find is not just an image. It has a place, a period, a material, a reference, and a story. That makes it different from a random decorative graphic. It carries the weight of something that really existed, was lost, found, studied, and recorded.

ARTEFACT takes that idea and turns it into wearable design — a meeting point between field culture, archaeology, graphic design, and modern streetwear.

Some collections are built around historical periods such as the Bronze Age, Iron Age, Roman Britain, and Anglo-Saxon England. Others explore detectorist identity itself: the kit, the signal, the field, the search, and the quiet obsession with what may still be hidden beneath the surface.

A SMALL INDEPENDENT BRAND

ARTEFACT is a small independent brand created by one designer and detectorist,
with the support of my family.

My wife and son were there from the beginning — on early detecting trips, in the mud, in the cold, in the field, and behind the camera. ARTEFACT grew out of real experience, not from a marketing trend.

Today I am based in the Czech Republic, but the roots of the brand go back to Ukraine — to those first fields, first signals, first videos, and that first silver coin.

ARTEFACT exists for people who understand that feeling.

For those who hear a signal and imagine a story.

For those who know that a fragment of metal can carry a fragment of time.

For those who value the story more than the trophy.

Wear the signal. Honour the history.