Archive for the ‘Blog’ Category
Cupcakes on the Move
It’s no secret that I love food, but what people might be surprised to know is that not so long ago I didn’t like cupcakes, or any cake really. A couple of years ago I was fortunate enough to write a review of More cupcakes before their opened their doors and after I left, I was officially on the cupcake train.
I recently had a chance to catch up with the owner of More, Patty Rothman, and she told me about the More Mobile that will be launching mid-August. You may be familiar with Flirty Cupcakes – the idea is similar, but I think it will outshine Chicago’s first cupcake truck. Part of the reason is because More sells a better cupcake and secondly, they have some really great ideas for the truck itself that will make it stand out.
For more information about this highly anticipated truck, check out the post I recently wrote for Gapers Block.
10 Things You Didn’t Know About T-Shirts
You Design It just put together a pretty interesting list of the “10 Things You Didn’t Know About T-Shirts”. For instance, did you know that it takes six miles of yarn to make one t-shirt?
Peep the full list here.
1.) Cotton has been grown for over 6,000 years.
2.) The word “t-shirt” first appeared in the Merriam-Webster dictionary in the 1920′s. Two other best-selling books during the same time period were Farewell To Arms and The Great Gatsby.
3.) That’s a lot of dough for some t-shirts!
4.) In 1939 the first promotional t-shirt was printed for the movie “The Wizard of Oz”.
5.) “Absorbent” cotton will retain 24-27 times its own weight in water and is stronger wet than when dry. Get you some of that polyester!
6.) There are 35,000 cotton farms in the U.S. and 98% percent of cotton is grown in Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.
7.) T-Shirts made from recycled cotton prevent over five billion tons of textile waste from entering landfills each year.
8.) Top 5 Cotton Producing Countries (2009)
- – China: 32 Million Bales
- – India: 23.5 Million Bales
- – United States: 12.4 Million Bales
- – Pakistan: 9.8 Million Bales
- – Brazil: 5.5 Million Bales
9.)Annual Dollars Generated by Industry
- – Cotton: $25Billion
- – Candy: $17Billion
- – Jewelry: $7Billion
- – Music: $3Billion
10.) It takes six miles of yarn to make one t-shirt.
Half A Year Of Thoughts
It’s been just over six months since Katie & I shipped out the first Scared Panda t-shirt. Since that first tamale t-shirt went out the door we’ve created two more rounds of tees, shipped shirts to Austria and Australia (and all over the US), met some really awesome people and learned more about t-shirts than I ever thought possible. The first six months gave us the time and experience we needed to see what was working and what wasn’t.
What Works
- Get off line. The internet is a great place to communicate and find people, but we found that nothing beats solid face time with customers and potential customers. Getting out to festivals and art fairs has been an effective way for us to meet customers, artists and to generally pimp the Scared Panda brand.
- Limited prints. I never want a t-shirt that I know a million other people have and I’m guessing I’m not the only one who feels this way. Therefore we decided to make each Scared Panda t-shirt part of a limited collection. We are only printing 100 t-shirts of each design. Once that design sells out, its done and you now own a collectors item.
- Pandas. The Scared Panda logo tee is one of our most popular t-shirts. In fact, it’s so popular, we only have one left. The next generation of our Scared Panda will be more artistic and will reflect our brand more accurately. Since this is a new design, we will print another batch of logo tees.
- Social networking. Facebook, Twitter and Flickr have been great tools for us to spread the panda love and communicate with customers. Through these sites and applications, I’ve been able to meet and talk with different people from all over the world about our company, what we are about and what they think about our product.
- Women’s shirts: Our yoga t-shirt did really well and we’ve learned that a lot of ladies like our Scared Panda shirt as well. In the future we’ll print each design in both men and women’s t-shirts.
What Doesn’t Work
- Online advertising. Google Ad Words, Facebook and miscellaneous ad time online have led to very little page views from our target market.
- Assuming people know what I’m talking about. I do this all the time, I start talking about something and assume the person I’m talking to sees exactly what I do and they will automatically understand and just ‘get’ what I’m saying. When working with designers and printers its important to lay out every aspect of the design, t-shirt and process that I am thinking about and to double check to make sure the person on the other end is making out what I’m saying clearly.
- Expecting people to just show up and buy stuff. I have a kick ass product and just need to put it out on the web and people will start buying it up. Yeah, that never happens. Running a business takes time, dedication and lots of hours promoting and pimping the product, in this case, getting t-shirts in front of people want them. Part of this includes becoming friends with other t-shirt vendors and t-shirt review sites. Over the past six months we have become very close to some great t-shirt reviewers, bloggers and general fans through out the world and each have helped significantly in helping us promote Scared Panda.
A New Direction
With the popularity of the Scared Panda logo tee, we decided to create a more centralized theme for our t-shirts. The new theme will still involve Chicago, but we are expanding to incorporate other cities as well. In addition, each of our designs will incorporate the Scared Panda somehow – sometimes it’ll be obvious, sometimes it won’t. A few ideas we’ve been floating around: a Scared Panda climbing the Empire State Building, a Scared Panda conducting an out-of–control el train and a Scared Panda matador (Scared Espanda). The new t-shirts will be inspired by my travel experiences and from stories that I hear from friends, family and other random people I meet along the way.
We’re excited about these changes and hope you are too. Have any travel stories to tell that would make a great t-shirt? Drop a comment below and tell us about it!
Time Flies With AMEBA
It’s going to be a hot one this weekend and what better way to stay cool then to spend a couple hours in a nice, cool theater taking in some amazing acrobatic dance that will surly motivate you to head to the gym (these people are fit!).
Last night our friend Heather invited us to see a dance show called Time Flies by the AMEBA Acrobatic & Aerial Dance studio. AMEBA is a Chicago-based nonprofit that dedicates itself creating, performing and teaching in the realms of Acrobatic Dance and Aerial Dance. The group is co-directed by her brother Kip Conwell and sister-in-law Chloe Jensen – who rocks multi-tasking by dancing and choreographing in shows.
This weekend will conclude their three-week concert series Time Flies. It’s a matrix of dance, bungees and trapezes to take the dance floor up. All set to the music of artists like The Chemical Brothers, Moby and other well known musicians. If you’re looking for something fun to do and change up your regular weekend, then go check this out.
When
Friday, July 23 at 7:00 PM
Saturday, July 24 at 2:00 PM (matinee performance)
Saturday, July 24 at 7:00 PM
Where
The Ruth Page Center for the Arts
1016 N. Dearborn, Chicago, IL map
Costliness
$25/ticket, or $20/ticket for groups of 5 or more
Special rates can also be arranged for very large groups.
Tamales On The Water!
My Dad, the captain, sporting his Tamale! Tamale! tee while captaining his little ship.
That’s No Moon…
It wouldn’t be the upper Midwest without at least one solid thunderstorm. Over the weekend the Twin Cities metro area got pounded by a couple rounds of thunderstorms, some even packing a tornado or two. As the storms closed in, the sky turned green and the atmosphere turned the clouds into crazy egg cartons. One insane cloud, reported to have dropped a tornado, looked like a mushroom cloud after detonating an atomic bomb. Here are some pictures of the clouds I took while watching one of the storms roll on by. View the whole set on my Flickr page.
“Up North”
I’m about to head “up north” for the weekend. It’s been brought to my attention that when I refer to the little town of Battle Lake, Minnesota as “up north” that it’s a bit unclear to people where that really is. It’s a quaint, peaceful, beautiful town where the air and water are clean, people are overly trusting and at night, on the dock, you can see stars for miles. It’s also so remote that I’ll have no access to the internet during my couple of days there – and I’m kind of excited about it (no offense, internet). I’ll report back next week on what it really means to be “up north.”
Have a great weekend!
Kate