You have been wondering when we make the switch and show our new logo. Of course we would have liked to implement and put the shiny new logo on our website, instantly after the end of the OLP. However, things were different, and this may sound like an argument: It wasn’t about a “marketing stunt” - we had to take our time, since we wanted to wait until things are fine, and we are really really happy with what we developped. Which is, what we are! You will guess which draft finally made our frontpage, it is …

the LOVETAB! And I can assure you that we tested and played around with both winning concepts a lot, which means we still like Lufografs concept and maybe we will see some elements of “Playing with forms“, even if not today or tomorrow.

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Sorry for any inconvience that has ocurred yesterday - it was no evil planned spamletter-campaign. It was just the forgotten mailinglist olp2007 .. and this is what happens: One sends a spam (or virus) mail to the regarding mailinglist olp2007. After this a few people complain, want to unsubscribe and respond to the sender, which is the mailinglist address olp2007. Then of course this mail is sent to all addressees again, and again some people complain and want to unsubscribe. It’s called a “mailinglist echo” and is a very oldschool web1.0 issue - the only thing you can do about it is not responding and waiting until the admins delete the mailinglist. We are very sorry for this — I still have no idea where the mailinglist address leaked but we’ve deleted the olp2007 mailaccount after we got notice (and, well, of course still around 100 mails).

But then, we also do have good news: we have a cooperation with the guys of ZEIXS! Think of an OLP for Design-Books: You submit your Shirt Design and we will print it in a book! Everyone of you who runs a Spreadshirt Shop can submit his design and it will be printed (well, if we get too many entries we have to select of course). ZEIXS already has released 4 books last year on Graphic Design, Logo, Typo, and Illustration - and is not only looking for Shirt Designs but also ie CMYK, Characters, Letterheads&Businesscards - so make sure you check the site, maybe you want to submit some of your OLP stuff, too?!

Happy happy new year, all of you!

We have two short news: First, I wanted to tell you that we get closer! In this week we did some more trying and testing - we agreed on the typo and decided between one- and two liner. Currently we work on the rearrangements of the logo for our website and business units etc. So hopefully, we can expect the new logo until beginning of february.

Second: It seems that we can start to send out the OLP Loser-Shirts in the next week. I was also told they look very chicque and it was worth waiting after all the Christmas delays. Nothing is for sure yet, and this is just what the little birdies in the trees told me, but of course we will give you an update as soon as we hold them in our hands!

In the meantime, we could share and enjoy more predictions for 2008, for example this one by iA. What is your favourite one?

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 :)

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Hey everyone, I’m back from my little break in England.  It was awesome to be in the home of prepacked sandwiches and junk food. I had a lot of fun staying with friends in London, Cambridge and Nottingham where I studied. Now I’m back and I have lots of news:

1. I was a judge on Computerlove’s t-shirt design contest. I’m delighted that our very own Mootsie and his Moustache Man scooped 2nd place.

Its a really funny design, congrats Mootsie!

2. Our friend Dr Frank Piller is involved in a new design contest with a twist. This one allows you to design the shoe of your dreams, which will give you all a nice break from logos and t-shirts.

Here is the blurb

“Your task is to design a shoe model along a theme called “Original Origin”. This category of aesthetic trends expresses cultural values, regional roots and techniques and at the same time uses authentic materials and innovative shapes. The contest asks everyone to play with the theme and interpret it in the most creative, but still feasible way.”

If you submit something mail it to me and we can show it here.  Read Franks post about it here, or jump straight to the competition here

3. The Losers shirt design is ready. I’m not sure if i’ll blog it here or keep you waiting longer :)

I’ll talk to the printers today, we only have 4 weeks until I leave so hopefully it will all be ready and sitting on your doormats by then.

4. The Logo Design CA special is out. With interviews with Kim and Nicolas. I picked it up in London at the weekend. They’ll be a full post about this in the next days :)

5. Page the German design magazine did a whole article about Crowdsourcing but didnt mention the OLP once :( Boo, hiss, boo!! Still if you want to read more about Crowdsourcing in Germany give it a read, we’re not bitter (much).

6. Spreadshirt has nice little anti-christmas design contest running. All you have to do is create an anti-christmas design and submit it to the Spreadshirt Marketplace with the tag “Anti-Christmas”. Prize is approx €350 in Spreadshirt gift vouchers. Deadline is this Friday. Again if you take part mail me the link to your design so we can show the other OLP peeps here on the blog!

Have a good week gang!

Thats me and “Diggers” my roommate for 3 years at Uni and my host in Nottingham. You’re probably not interested, but there you go.

Hello OLP homies, I’m chilling this week in the land of scantily dressed women and pre-packaged sandwiche’s. So far I’ve spent two days in London, three in Cambridge seeing my family and I’m now in Nottingham where I studied. Even with the €21 I just lost at the Casino backing bad blackjack bets its nice to be home. I’ve seen a few mails and although they weren’t in a language I can do more than order beer in, it seems there might have been a few crossed wires (babelfish seems unsure) if so are a few points:

- The OLP was a big success. Internally we’re chuffed. But if I take the project document and stamp it with “massive success” we wont learn very much. The review is a little critical but we want to do better next time, good enough isn’t. So I was candid in sharing my learnings with you all, because thats the spirit of the OLP and being honest about where you can improve is Spreadshirt style.

- We’re delighted with our logos (soon to be logo). Crowdsourcing is not dead. Spreadshirt is going from strength to strength. There will be no “Frankenstein-ing”. Its one or the other, an agency will lend their experience to this. We’re stunned by the quality of the finalists, we could have picked any of the finalists as our new logo. It’s that the quality was too high that we ended with 2, not that it wasn’t high enough.

- I had booked my flight tickets even before the OLP. I love my job, I’m gutted to leave but I’ve always been a nomadic little pup, at last count I’m on my 18th house now. Spreadshirt is the best job i’ve ever had x100. If you got mails from me at 2am during the OLP that was because I was too excited to sleep, not because I was under pressure or obligation to make this work ;)

I’d love to go back to Spreadshirt after travelling, we’ve discussed it and lets see how it goes. I can’t imagine a more fun company to work for. When I started there was no Brand and Comms team, Ami and I founded it and now we’re up to something like 15 people. Everyday the work we do is challenging and fascinating. I wouldn’t walk away from that for anything but the trip of a life time.

- Polarbears hair is not white, but actually clear. Its their skin that is white and gives them that complexion from distance. This is in no way related to this post, but I’m sure you’ll agree its damn interesting.

Now some cheekies then bed, see you all next week for some more OLP action (the losers design is looking awesome, I’ll reveal it soon ;)

Now that Adam posted a video with me looking really stupid with my non-ironed shirt (it’s “formal thursday” at spreadshirt and all of us are nicely dressed up .. well, in theory - but even adam came in without looking like a rally driver and without muddy sprinkles allover his cloth) so I thought I need to blog this away - best by: giving you a quick update what happens at the moment.

We are in talks with several design agencies to help us developping the drafts further:

1. Milestone: Shoulder view until end of november to get an impression which one works better.

2. Milestone: Beginning of december - having a set of materials for both submissions to make a decision between the both designs.

3. Milestone: Mid of december - further development of the winning draft.

4. Milestone: Roll-Out starting (hopefully) in January, incl. new tagline and all that.

We will select the agency beginning of next week. We also will involve Kim and Nicolas and send them our drafts before we will publish them. And of course there is still the vectors for both designs avaible for a download, just in case you have spare time and feel energetic, yet creative and want to fool around with them :)

The past two days I’ve been attending the web2.0 expo. A full report to come, but here is a little update of how I’m filling my days.

I’m helping out here, the official merchandising booth. My job is very complex, I’ll attempt to summarize it for you (sorry if you go cross eyed).

1. People come to the stand and ask for a shirt

2. I check their badge

3. I give them a shirt.

Heres one happy punter now:

We ran out of s and m sizes, so i’ve also seen a few men wearing the girlie shirts which brings me more enjoyment than it should. I’m not on the stand that much, so also checking out some panels and keynotes. If i’m slow to respond to your mails, this is why.

Oh some more entries to the losers shirt concept. Remember your design doesn’t have to cover the whole shirt, it can just be one element as we’ll make a collage anyway. Come and vote the entries

“Think Spreadshirt” by Inadimova

Yep this one was Scotts number one vote for overall winner, and now deservedly wins his ISO50 award. Here is what Scott had to say about it:

“This is excellent; clean, concise, recognizable. The color and icon variations really take this concept to another level. This could be applied in many ways and scale to various sizes and applications while remaining legible. The icon is distinct and could stand on it’s own without any confusion as to it’s implication. Overall it’s minimalist and unobtrusive; it would sit well with any design, something that’s very important when you’re going to be branding other people’s work. It would work great with all sorts of promotional materials and campaigns, fitting well into various form factors. “

Congrats to Inadimova, great to see such a popular design win an award. You’ll get a special ISO50 gift pack.

All the prizes are now revealed, but the gifts keep coming. Remember that any of you who submitted a design to OLP1.6 can have one of the free Officially Unofficial OLP1.6 goodbye shirts. It will be a collage of all your work about the theme “Losers” created in a special contest on la Fraise. Come and submit a design and reserve your shirt here

Sorry for the wait guys, are last two panelists have been busy/on tour as of late. But one down, one to go and the winners are……………………………………………………………

The Scientists aka Legofish and Shahin.

The decision to choose Molecular Goodness for the Collaboration Award was not so easy. I guess most companies’ logos are the results of collaborations between marketers, designers, and executives. But in most case the design process is an individual one. So what is the point when more than one designer works on a logo?

Also there are many criteria for judging a logo for a big brand like Spreadshirt with a lot of support and media where the logo should be applied. Does the logo translate the Spreadshirt strategy and message? Is the design scalable? Does it reflect the brand-company spirit? Whats the balance between effectiveness and originality? How does it differentiate itself in the “on demand t-shirt market”?

A lot of this questions are solved by The Scientists and their “Molecular goodness“. To be honest, the vote doesn’t go the logo itself as a sign. The logo to work alone would need a redesign. But the vote is for the branding system. When a company can play with visual elements to develop a strong branding system based on different media environments, is there a need for a logo?

The Molecular Goodness, as a logo, message is more about the community represented by Spreadshirt. But by using different forms constructed with different shapes, the branding system takes a new level and offer Spreadshirt a new way to express “Your own label” in a lot of manners, adapted to context. The system is strong, simple, widely scalable, and fun because it can be different every-time. I guess this kind of approach has not been explored yet in this market area.

What better represent the collaboration, when a team can use the same elements and produce each time something very different… That’s why the Computerlove vote goes to Molecular Goodness. Congrats to the Scientists Team! Clap clap

Congrats to the Scientists, that makes Legofish our first double award winner!

And thats not all….

Last but not least we have a special goodbye gift for you all. What could it be? A million pounds? A customized toilet? Chocolate King Kong? Well we’ve been racking our brains to come up with something better than all of them.

The eureka moment was a comment I read that I now can’t find. It was about how most of us that took part in the OLP aren’t winners in the normal sense (ie we didn’t come 1st, 2nd or 3rd). We’re losers, but happy losers. There were a few comments I saw like this:

Grafismo: “So congrats to the winners, and for the losers as myself don´t get desperated. Life doesn´t end up here. Jebs keep up those good ideas! Surely you will apply them somehere further on.”

Yonda.tv: ” “Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire.” Anyway…..the world is for winners and there is no valid explanation that a loser can bring.”

Nelson: “Congrats to everybody for your good jobs and your goods concepts. Spread wings by RemQ is really good! and The Signal By Laurent is woow! And the loser salute to them! ;-)”

So fellow losers (my spread your cape design not even making a shortlist) lets all be losers together. Everybody who takes part can have a free special OLP “losers” t-shirt. The theme of the shirt and the only brief you’ll get is “losers”. The idea:

- We use la Fraise as its designed for this type of contest, so we’ll manage it on the english la Fraise blog and using a la Fraise gallery

- Anyone who wants to can adapt parts of their logo entries or design whole new images that representing “losing” or being a “loser” can submit them.  Upload to the special contest on la Fraise. There’s no prize as such, just the fun of taking part (these wont be for sale).

- We take them and build a collage into one super awesome “loser” shirt.

- Anyone who submitted to OLP (and special friends like t-shirt talk) can get a shirt for free (well you might have to pay shipping).

How does that sound? We’ll reveal how you can reserve your shirt tomorrow when submissions will open. You’ll have just seven days to complete your design elements.

Yay i’m really excited to see what you’ll all come up with and hold in my hands my own official losers shirt to confirm what I always feared (I’m a happy loser).

Good night OLPers!