odd guy’s index

As our one year anniversary approaches, let’s take a look at what we’ve accomplished, shall we?
 • Hours spent defining and researching our target audience: 84
• Number of logo fonts considered before deciding on “Hasty Pudding:” 23
• Number of hours logged on Skype: 328
• Miles from Lake Michigan our OGA studio is located: .2
• Hours spent hand-drawing much of website: 42

• T-shirt designs created: 16
• Miles walked/ran for mobile business meetings: 124
• Ranking of “raspberry” among best-selling OGA cap colors: 1
• Hours spent ironing tote bags: 35
• Number of T-shirt-shaped OGA brochure designs created: 2
• OGA YouTube videos launched: 6
• Number of foreign cameo appearances in videos: 1
• Number of cameo appearances by Walmart employees: 1
• Number of small fires accidentally set during filming: 2
• Penalty points assigned for finger quotes during filming: 10
• Hours spent editing footage: 853
• Size of OGA festival canopy: 10′ X 10′
• Ratio of Diet Cokes consumed to ounces of water: 245 to 1
• Miles biked round-trip to printer, per trip: 26
• Ranking of EnMart among most-active OGA Facebook friends: 1
• Number of celebrities named Yoko Ono who follow OGA on Twitter: 1
• Number of national magazines that featured OGA on the cover: 3
• Number of stores in which OGA shirts are currently sold: 3

Thank you for joining us in this, our first year of business. If you have any questions, or if we can help you in any way, just let us know!

Marie and Graham

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here comes the sun

“Little darling, it’s been a long, cold, lonely winter.”
(“Here Comes The Sun,” -George Harrison)

Even spring’s first robin is frozen.

Selling T-shirts during one of the snowiest Midwest cold spells has been nothing if not challenging. BUT… we’ve kept our scarf-covered chins up, and fully anticipate getting our line of T-shirts into more and more stores as the weather warms.

Being our first winter in the T-shirt world, we did what we thought most seasonal businesspeople do: We worked inside. There were many cups of hot tea consumed as we designed new shirts, made new contacts, and pursued new ideas. We researched the T-shirt forums and read about the successes and failures of those brave souls who’ve ventured into this business before us.

And now it’s March – halfway to April, actually – and we’re looking forward to flooding the market with “odd guy art” T-shirts. We hope you’ll see something you like!

Cheers,
Marie
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middle-age moments

We’re six months into existence and it only now occurred to us to showcase our products on the “odd guy art” Facebook page. D-uh.

What other blatantly obvious opportunities might we have forgotten? Which glaring epiphanies will strike next? We shudder to think…

• Review “supply and demand” model, consider implementing
• Check on that guy who took some of our shirts into the dressing room to try on last week
• Pay government its share of sales tax (minus our share for not utilizing curbside garbage pick-up)
• Replenish XXXL merchandise prior to Mississippi trade show
• Promote holiday sales before the holiday
• Sell merchandise

Who knows what else will occur to us in the coming days? (“Practice fire escape route plan?” “Unplug the iron?” “Back up computer?” [D-oh!]).

As our brains continue to calcify, we look forward to serving you.

Marie

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our first gig

It’s Thursday and we’re busy preparing for our first local show: a display table at a local coffee shop.

Marie at work. Groovy shirt!

This particular coffee shop is rather cutting-edge for our little town. They hire some great independent musicians as they travel between bigger gigs in Milwaukee and Madison, so we get to hear some wonderful talent without having to travel. (Not that we don’t like to travel. “Road trip” is our middle name).

Anyway, tomorrow this coffee shop is hosting a “Bike-In Movie,” with food, live music, and… “odd guy art!” We’re excited.

Since we’ll be indoors, we won’t need to purchase a canopy, but we did buy a display rack for our T-shirts. We’ve got a nicely-covered table for our cards and a cool stone pedestal for our hats. We’re working on signs today. Since our business focus is “art,” we’ve continued the theme with a price list that reads like an art gallery price sheet. The magic is in the details.

Our goals are these: To make some connections and to sell some merchandise. We’ve only been in business five weeks, but we’re eager to make this happen and frankly it can’t happen soon enough. It’s exciting to finally get out there and introduce the masses to our designs. Fingers crossed.

That’s it for now. Back to the drawing board.

-Marie

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!

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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