Today is my last day working for Spreadshirt, hopefully I’ll write a proper long goodbye to OLP crowd post over Christmas. But for now I’d like to thank you one last time for taking part in the OLP. Its the most fun project I ever worked on and thats because you made it so entertaining. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all.

Where are I going? Find out here

One step closer, no steps back. The ball is well and truly rolling now on the finalization of our new logo. On Monday both agencies (read about them here) submitted their initial review and developments on both Lovetab and Play With the Forms. This stage was about the agencies delivering a:

- A first reaction (what do you think, what makes the biggest impression etc)

- Usage examples (one colour, small sizes, stationary, web, marketing initiatives lets see them in action)

- Development Opportunities (break it, twist it, show how deep the logos rabbit hole goes)

The results are really promising. We’re so proud of both logos that I’m certain we’ll find ways to use them both in some capacity - marketing, special campaign etc. But only one can become our new logo, and we’d welcome your input on the agencies work and your recommendations.

Here are some highlights from the proposals, showing different usage possibilities of both logos:

Play With The Forms By Lufograf

Lovetab by Kim Larsen

And here are both pdf’s the agencies submitted. Let us know what you think.

Kocmoc.net (read Kosmos) - There’s also covers Frankensteining which wasn’t in the brief, and we’ve been pretty strongly against since the start. But its nice to see their interpretation of it.

Beau Bureau - Lovetab pdf & Play With The Forms pdf

I was impressed how well they worked when used together though. Not combined but supporting each other as in this advertising campaign proposal from Kocmoc:

So what do you think overall?

Look for an announcement of which will become our new logo soon.

At the moment we are working out both submissions further so that we can have a better comparison - and finally a decision about the new logo before Christmas. Since our graphic guys are busy with xmas (not only decorating the office) we decided to do this step with support of an agency.

We’ve asked a few agencies from Germany and the UK, some of them knew spreadshirt and already worked with us before, others didn’t. Here is our choice, and the title of the blogpost is right: we actually picked 2 agencies :)

Read the full post

I spent Tuesday writing up the OLPs project review. Its not over yet, but looking back its incredible to see just how fast the months have flown by since we kicked this project off back on August 7th (the day I first announced it internally). Its been full of tough choices, long nights, stressy meetings and decisions, and joyous ups when all was going well. Now its over and I have my rose tinted retrospective specs on it feels like it was a lot of fun. But I don’t think I would do it again anytime soon, none of us envisioned just how much work this was going to be :)

Anyway here is the full project review, its quite long i’ll warn you in advance.

Read the full post

I’ve been trying for a little while to get my own law. Anyone who’s anyone has their own law, Michael Moore (Moore’s Law), Kid Rock (Rock’s Law), Eddie Murphy (Murphy’s Law)…..See all the greats. I call my law Adams law, because my last name is not so catchy enough and it goes a little something like this

“Anything you want to do the Japanese already did better”

Further proof of its existance came up today, we had a little meeting Eike, Rebekka (PR), Ami and Me to discuss how we’ll handle the winner unveiling on Saturday at Designers Open. We were brainstorming some funny ideas around a sort of fashion show, we made a little plan I went back to my desk and look what made the front page of DIGG this great Japanese fashion show, which replaces human models with penguins dressed up as Elves and Santa Claus. How are we supposed to top that? Adams law says we can’t. Watch the video:

Welcome to Jesse and Leah our new extended US OLP team. They’ll be helping out approving designs, answering your questions and generally hanging around the site. Welcome guys, glad to have you aboard! This should also stop the approval queue getting too long, especially as Ami and I are in the US next week (but still around and online as well as at a conference)

Sorry for using these horrible staff directory photos guys :(  - please don’t hate me……too much.

Manuel is the head of Graphics here at Spreadshirt and a core member of the OLP Team. In this feature he gives his thoughts about the contest so far, and what he’d like to see more of in OLP entries and gives examples by modifying some existing entries to the contest. Its a long feature, but I encourage you all to read it, its full of great insights:

Read the full post

Last week I sat down with Jana Eggers, who as you probably know is Spreadshirts CEO. We sat down to discuss the OLP! We talked about how the project is going so far, last weeks shortlisted designs, and some tips and advice for your future submissions. The video is about 5mins long, I’ve also summarized the main points below for those not into video or on dial-up. Jana’s only one voice, so don’t take these suggestions as things you have to do to win, but obviously as CEO her view is very important and I think shes speaking for us all.

Update, longer version now available. In this one we talk more about specific designs and just more in general really, running time is 10mins. Watch it here
Key points:

- Great start to the project, shes having a lot of fun commenting the entries

- Really impressed with the quality of submissions, even those submitted by less experienced designers but whose concepts have been really strong.

Tips for future submissions:

- We’ve seen enough hang tags :) If your going to do tag ideas though, maybe we could explore the tags inside the neck idea further.

- Feel free to be more artistic, and a less literal with your designs (ie they don’t have to include shirt, tag, etc)

- Prefers stacked (one above the other) Spread & Shirt, with more emphasis given to Spread. Our research has suggested that people can best understand it that way.

- Feel free to go a little crazier, surprise us a little more.

We have a longer version as well that we’re editing, we’ll blog it in a day or two.

Just a few mails to sort out, but ready drafts have now been approved. Theres a ton of new logos awaiting your comments, go, now, run don’t walk……take me to the action

Sorry to all of you with waiting drafts, we’re a little stacked up at the moment :(

Pete doesn’t work friday, most of graphics seem to be on holiday and Ami and I spent most of the day in meetings. This is the result:

100 or so drafts awaiting release, anyone a wordpress ninja with too much time to kill ;)? We’ll get through it tonight and tomorrow, I apologize to all you eagerly waiting seeing your logos moment of glory!

Have a nice weekend…