ORIGIN STORY TIME
A STORY AS A OLD AS TIME...
Husband and wife watching reruns of Brooklyn 99 for the 12th time instead of watching something new and one says to the other "That would make a hilarious sticker" and the other one takes it too literally and starts a spreadsheet of ideas.
It genuinely started like that.
We looked online and we saw that there was a huuuuuge gap in the market: while the traditional "geek market" was brimming the "pop culture" market left a lot to be desired with what it offered. 9/10 of it was just "show logo on a tshirt".
"That's just lazy."
One of us said. Why is it that one is and the other isn't? Why is there so little to offer fans a way of deeper connection with their fandom depending on what the fandom is? That made no sense at all.
So we saw an opportunity.
After a few months of just collecting ideas (all of them winners, of course) we sat down and selected our favourite ones and started what could loosely be called "drawing". A lot of these were just random doodles on paper, but that's the beginning of all great art. Sometimes it's a great idea, but you just can't figure out to communicate it visually.
BUT WE FORGOT...
None of us a graphic designer. So, I reached out to a friend, Kryza Talavera, that had been nice enough to offer help before and she walked us through the process and even helped us with a few designs (more on that later). But as we all know, it's one thing to talk and another to do. So after many failed attempts we ended up with this!
IT WASN'T OVERNIGHT
It took months and months of trial (and mostly) error to figure things out. Maybe there's a better way. I don't know. But if you're thinking of something and you want to make it come to life, you really can't discard the errors you make along the way. At least you shouldn't. They can teach you way more than you think.
As I write this, we don't even have our store open. In fact, I'm struggling with shipping profiles, sticker printing, and 30 other things. I should remember my own advice!
One day I'll look back at the first blog post and chuckle at a time when my problems were so small. That'll be the day.