Change is good!
6.15.2007
JUST IN TIME. I ordered these about two weeks ago and was getting a little nervous since I was down to my last two stickers after sending out a few orders yesterday! Actually I was especially worried yesterday when they didn't show up at my door even after UPS's tracking site listed the package as "delivered". I checked every door of our house and didn't find a thing. It was only after trudging around outside for a bit that I finally located it next to the bushes by the garage door... Not too impressed with that. :(
In any case, these kilt-inspired stickers have arrvied safe and sound and are ready to accompany future orders!
Things have been pretty hectic around here lately with the next batches of shirts in production. It's always a frantic process of exchanging emails, print proofs, invoices, and phone calls. I learned early on to put forth 110% to make sure that every detail is to my liking. There were a couple of early prints where I OK'ed things that I had nagging doubts about, and sure enough it caused problems in the end. I even had to send back a batch and get them reprinted once... So now I really bug the printers about stuff, and that takes lots of time and energy. But on top of this usual craziness, I should probably mention that with these new tees I'm testing out a totally new printing company based in Florida. Their prices are a little bit better due to them being smaller than Customink, and they seem to be even more responsive and cooperative, which is crucial for me.
Because printing is cheaper with the new company, I'm upping the quality of the shirts. Starting with this next batch, both guys and girls shirts will be on American Apparel!!! (Styles 2001 and 2102, if you wanna check em out). The benefits of this decision are overwhelming. For example:
- AA's product quality is one of the highest in the tshirt industry
- Their shirts are super duper soft and comfy
- All labor is sweatshop-free, meaning high wages for their employees, health benefits, and excellent working conditions. (Made in the USA)
- A better color palette than Fruit of the Loom (my current brand for guys' shirts)
- Identical colors for guys' and girls' (no more re-choosing pantones!)
Of course, printing on AA products pushes the price up for me a bit (about $1.50 a shrit, actually). Additionally, I plan to start using more colors in the designs and printing in more unique locations like back and sleeve, so this adds to the cost, too. Still, these new printers are so reasonable that when all is said and done, I'm only paying a little bit more per shirt. So while the price of shirts is likely going to go up, it'll only be by a dollar or two. My goal in all of this has really never been profit. Although I'd love for it to be my sole source of income one day, my first priority is to make the art I love and share it with people around the world!
Labels: site info, tshirt info
posted by Mr. Linty @ 8:30 AM,
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A plethora of blah
6.05.2007
So the sale's going well with an average of 2 shirts selling per day! I know that must not sound like a whole lot, but when you're used to that many selling in a month (the way it was about a year ago), it's a MAJOR deal!
Does it mean I can quit my day job any time soon? No. Not that I mind it a whole lot; the job I have is at a print shop and the skills that I've learned there-be it designing, doing layout, packaging, etc-have already proven invaluable to LF. Plus I'm only there part-time through the week and I enjoy the work (I get the warehouse to myself since we're a small company). So I'm not griping.
But the idea of running LF as my sole source of income is SUPER alluring. It's funny, I fantasize a lot about opening up an actual shop in Atlanta all the time. Whenever I'm down there and I see a vacant storefront I get all antsy and excited picturing a giant clothespin on the awning and "Linty Fresh" scrawled on the window. A good friend of mine even pitched a bunch of ideas to me about how the inside could be set up, complete with washing-machine window panels for shirt displays and a dry-cleaner type conveyor system constantly going with shirts... Seriously, how cool would that be?
In the meantime, though, I'm happy with just running this as a little venture from my closet. There's a certain appeal to the smallness of the operation at this point. Shirts are litterally designed, stocked, and shipped from one room-the same one I'm sitting in now, typing away.
ANYWAYS, my real reason for posting was to share some pics of these tags I printed up last week. I bought a fastener online for a few bucks and it just came in last night, so I was busy fastening tags to all the shirts. They look really cool! (Click the pic for more)
Also, new stickers are coming in mid-June. I never thought I'd see the end of the last batch (from September), but after these 40 or so, that'll be it. The new ones should be a lot better than the old. I designed them with bleeds (no white borders) and it's a completely new design, too.
Finally, there's a massive batch of new shirts currently being worked on by the good folks at CustomInk. It's the biggest order I've done so far, so I'm a little nervous about it... You'll see them in probably about 3 weeks. It should be interesting to see how they go over.
This is such a learning process...
Labels: designs, Eric info, site info, tshirt info
posted by Mr. Linty @ 10:57 PM,
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