Friday, March 17, 2006

ETC: Three Completely Unrelated Points

Three things:

1. I've been meaning for a couple of days to refer you to landismom's site, where she mentions that the New Orleans Public Library system is seeking book donations. If you've got any good books for people of all ages, head on over and get the shipping info cash donations. Go here for detailed information on how to help rebuild New Orleans's libraries.

2. I've had this idea swirling around inside the ol' melon for a couple of weeks now. Let me run it past you, and tell me what you think.


Ever since Kim posted an awesome found quote in the comments section here a few months ago, I've been haunted by thoughts of how great it would look on a t-shirt. (You should know that my sartorial motto is "A plain t-shirt is a waste of real estate.") I looked around the internet to see if it already exists, and lo! It does not.

So without taking any credit for the original quote WHATSOEVER, I've been thinking about getting a bunch of tees silkscreened with this saying. I've found a good source for silkscreening, and they use American Apparel t-shirts, my favourite. They look good AND they use fair labour practises... sexxxy!

So I went ahead and did a rough mock-up of how the t-shirt could look, which is something like this:

I might change it up a little bit, but I'd keep the text small and left-justified and sans-serif. I personally like the plainness of the design. It looks bookish to me.

And because I'm just a teensy bit of a whore, I'd probably want to put my URL on the t-shirt, too, but I swear it'll be tiny and super discreet, maybe kind of like this:

(For you Americans, that .ca designation is the domain suffix that Canada gets to use for its very own. Isn't that cute? We Canadians are so perky!)

So what I'd like to get an idea of is how many of you folks might be interested in getting one (or two or three or twelve) of these. I'm not asking you to order them now, nor does your expressing an interest now mean that you've committed yourself later. I just want to see if it's even worthwhile to keep thinking about this.


If I do this and you WERE to order a shirt from me, I'd probably charge around $20 USD plus shipping (I'd look up shipping costs once I figure out the weight and dimensions of the parcels), and you'd have to have a Paypal account because that's the only means of payment I'd be able to accept.

If you're interested, email me at 50bookstees [at] gmail [dot] com. I'll get back to you all in the next week or so to let you know if I've decided to go ahead and if so, to show you what the final design will look like.

3. Have a great weekend! I won't say "Don't do anything I wouldn't do," because if you knew what I used to get up to on weekends, you'd (a) be scandalized, and (b) realize how intimidatingly high the bar has been raised. So instead I'll just say, "Do your best."

...........

Edited later to add: Thanks to everyone who's already emailed me about the t-shirts! To answer some of the questions I've received:
  • I'll be getting boy tees and girl tees made up, and I'd get that info, along with your size, when I officially take orders.
  • I'll probably only get white tees, for the sake of my precious sanity.
  • I'll ship them pretty much anywhere you're willing to pay shipping costs. I'll probably look into shipping costs for Canada, the US, the UK, Australia and New Zealand to start, since I think that's where most of you are from. I'll post the figures the post office quotes me here.
Edited yet again: Because I'm a sucker for anyone who calls me charming, I'll concede to tuckova's request for white lettering on black tees. But that's it. White tee or black tee: these are your choices. (You wily minx, tuckova, you!)

8 comments:

Meredith said...

Just a heads up. I volunteer for an anti-rape organization and we usually use American Apparel shirts because they are sweat-free and we really like their fit. This year, however, we chose not to use them because the founder is being sued for sexual harassment and assualt. Not something that Take Back the Night wants to support.

Karen said...

Consider offering them up at Cafe Press. Cheap for you, cheap for your buyers!

Melbell237 said...

I'll second what meredith said - plus several of my favorite webcomic artists were seriously screwed over when AA decided not to come through on several orders from their printer -- t-shirt delays galore. It's just something to consider.

... said...

what about kids sizes? don't be...kid-ist.

Anonymous said...

Any chance of having

"...or maybe it's just materialistic."
on the back of some of them? ;D

Maya said...

Duuuuude... I'd totally get the white on black (this is in a teeny-tiny voice: "but I'd really like a white on browwwwwwn") in a second! The good thing is: My husband has PayPal, and I could probably talk him into getting me one. Yeaaah! Love the quote, the font, the .ca-ness of it!

Miranda Prince said...

I wouldn't order one in white, because in my experience white T-shirts are spaghetti sauce magnets. I simply cannot keep them stain-free for more than a week, tops.

If you offered them with white printing on black, I'd be interested. Oh, and I hope you will offer size XXL.

tuckova said...

Aw. Because you called me a wily minx I will not be writing to nag you even though it has been "a week or so". Get your taxes done first, and then get on the shirts.

You know what? "one woman, countless distractions" would also make a hell of a good t-shirt. To the initiated, we would be going, "I sure like that Doppleganger!" and to the uninformed it would be as if we are saying "I'm a regularly distracted woman," which is probably Truth In Advertising.