gearing up to open

Dear existing and potential friends,

As “odd guy art” prepares to open its virtual doors, we look forward to getting acquainted with you. We can’t wait to show you around our studio, and to help you into some unique, artistic, and witty T-shirts. If you have a sec, post a comment here and say hello.

How was your day?

Ours was busy in the best of ways. We placed our final shirt design order from our most excellent screen printer, Mountain Promotions in Oostburg, Wisconsin. They are currently undergoing a business identification upgrade (and adding services to boot), yet they’ve continued to serve customers like us promptly and efficiently. We cannot say enough wonderful things about the quality of their printing and the kindness/helpfulness of their staff.

While the last of our designs are being printed, we are working furiously on our website, registering our business, opening a bank account, organizing shipping materials, ordering shirt tags and business cards, and developing our marketing and web presence. We rarely sleep and drink lots of caffeine. But amid all the hard work, we laugh a great deal and are truly delighted to have set off on this venture. We hope we can spread some of that joy to you.

Bye for now!

Marie

PS: Here’s Graham looking very serious as we opened our company bank account yesterday. Ha. Smile, Graham!

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photo shoot… fun

Yesterday was a beautiful 68F day here in Sheboygan. But even better than that it was the day we did our first photo shoot for “odd guy art.” I would rather be behind the camera than in front of it, but I ran out of excuses. So with camera and tripod set up, lighting organised, and laughing barely under control, we got down to it. We shot photos for much of the afternoon, downloading onto the laptop as we went. After much discarding of images, we had a selection of photos which will be used around the web site and other media. The whole experience was great fun. Not the least because we got to wear our shirts for the first time and discover just how good they look and feel. The deeper satisfaction for us, though, will come when you can enjoy these, too. We don’t want to give too much away just yet, but remember that raspberry cap? Imagine how good it will look on you!

We worked late last night (until midnight) and put together our web site home page. Take a look if you’d like; it’s now there at www.oddguyart.com . Now we don’t want to be sending you on a series of wild goose chases through unfulfilling hyperlinks. So for now there are none, apart from the ones which brought you here of course. We will be working on the rest of the web site ready for the full launch of “odd guy art” on May 7th. Marie is right, as described in her last post, I do look spooked every time I think about how much we have to do before that date. But, deadlines are great motivators, right?

Graham

tick, tock… tick, tock:)

So we’ve imposed a May 7th deadline to launch this business. Truth be told, I imposed a May 7th deadline; Graham just looks utterly spooked whenever I mention that date. But that’s the goal, and we’re hoping to have everything in place by then – or shortly thereafter.

Today was a grand and notable day. We picked up our first shirt samples from the printer, and they look fabulous. They did a perfect job with the alignment and the registration of our artwork. The colors are exactly what we asked for. We were thrilled with the result, which prompted me to literally skip all the way back to the car.

Back to the rest of the T-shirt designs and the website!

Woot!

Marie

caps…!

Sneak peek time. Today we picked up the first of our “odd guy art” caps from the embroiderers. I could not wait to get one on my head! As mentioned last time, Marie laid claim to the raspberry cap, but I am very happy to try out this khaki version. Initially we will have the caps available in khaki, denim, and raspberry. All three have the “odd guy art” logo embroidered in yellow, black, and white, with “oddguyart.com” in black on the side.

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our first shirts are underway

As we drove to our screen printer I felt remarkably calm. We were going to collect some T-shirt samples and place our second order. I expected to be more nervous because this was the moment of truth in some ways. Yet I was quite calm; the decisions were already made and our commitment to this whole venture was already decided. It was going to be another  important day in the progress of “odd guy art.”

Back in the studio. The T-shirt samples are amazing, I just want to wear them now – blank even – imagine that! They are made by Comfort Colors and are dyed and distributed by a company in Vermont. The colours are earthy with a nice washed and worn look to them; just what we are looking for, in fact. As the samples were so pleasing, we did go ahead and place our first printing order for two shirt designs, almost a hundred shirts in total. I need a cup of tea after writing that – good simple brown tea made in my real English pottery tea pot. Excuse me while I put the kettle on (or as we say in my home county of Yorkshire, England, “put t’kettle on lad”).

I’ve got a hot brew now so where was I? Ok, yes, so we have selected two of our designs to have printed, one from each collection. Each is a two-colour design (actually three, with Marie’s clever use of the shirt colour). Every shirt will also have a small two-colour rendition of our “odd guy art” logo on the back. When these shirts are done we are going to have great fun wearing them for our web site photo shoot. Hopefully that will happen next week. Maybe I’ll slip a few photos into the blog, too (as a sneak peek for you).

This is good tea.

Oh, the caps are coming along well, too. These are also pigment-dyed with a worn look, in three soft colours. The embroidered logo of Art (the guy on the canvas) will adorn the front of the cap with “odd guy art” on the left side. I have a feeling that Marie and I are going to be fighting over the raspberry sample. Oh, apparently not (she just explained: it’s hers).

Until next time,

Capless Graham…
gotta love that raspberry!