Paul Frank packaging

Men's briefs packaging, not unlike our old book lover package.

This is another possibility for Skirt Tees...

Skirt Tees Packaging?

Saw this gift at a gallery in San Francisco.

We like the illustrative packaging and the open window on the front. It's a way to possibly show the applique skirts but we haven't thought through the technical aspects yet...

Seen in Sausalito

Saw this great cat AOP at a high end women's shop in Sausalito.

It caught me eye from across the street... great illustrations, very Relevant style.

Nice rhinestone embellishments, too.

Another shop sold tees in rolled cello bags...

Pet statements

I just thought of these. Fun pet statements. We are needing some fun women's tees in the line. Or could be used instead of Cat Lover etc..

Line Plan

This is where we are now. As always things will shift, be deleted. rearranged or added. As always the new is blue on the plan.

We will not be changing the farm boys tee to the race car, it just isn't a change that is going to make us millions and we would have to change the header on the display which we have tons of.

We are going to leave Big Bro and Sis they way they are for now, their sales are still really good and we have enough line turn over right now.

Terry is saying the sales on the new Girlie Tees are not great so we may need to pull them out of the line. The thing is if we show them in the everyday book we have to keep them all next year. Sleepover could move to that page.

We have sold the revised She Who dog and cat designs to a key account. Everyone feels good about reintroducing 4 of these with the updated statement and new packaging.

Also, when the new sleepers with AOP back and larger artwork are spread through out the book they loose the new impact they have when they are all shown together.

Cat and Dog

The first image is with the inside out technique. I spoke with Claudia about this and we both think this technique is just to risky. We both don't like the look of the pants at all. The artwork that would be printed on the sleeper would have to be simple, regular illustrations would look terrible on it. If the fabric is not just the right weight and the art is not printed just right these will look bad. They have to be a white fabric with a simple print to work inside out as well. We turned the existing leopard print pants inside with the pink background color and the are awful looking. I don't want to do the inside out artwork for us. I really like the AOP printed on the back and sleeves and I know what it will look like and I think our customers will like it. There is my 2¢.

When Claudia and I talked about the folded cuff on the sleeper and pant bottom, she didn't understand how that would work and stay in place. I assume it would have to be sewn down.

I tried doing the pawprints in a pink and blue on above mentioned set and it wasn't very exciting.

I didn't put any artwork on any of these, so we could just review the new techniques on their own merit.

I tried another take on the AOP. Just review them and let me know your thoughts.

Concept: Book Lover Design

How to say "Book Lover" without saying "Book Lover" again?

Here's an idea.

We've done a few illustrative concepts; they're all bad.

We like the statement, though, so back to the drawing board.

Concept: Baby Talk Onesies

We all really responded to this take on the onesies.

• Simple, somewhat sassy/flip statements being spoken by baby
• Comic book style balloons add color to each design
• One design aimed at grandma (will possibly add another: "Mommy Needs a Time Out -- Call Grandma"
• One general appeal design
• Boy-specific and girl-specific designs also included

We're not loving the way the cans currently look... they need some work. We thought it looked cool to use a colorful sticker on the lid of each design. But things are starting to get a little type-heavy.

The other problem is not enough variety in the baby face (we're currently using the same baby face for each label).

Rejected Onesies Concepts (Pas Bien!)

These ideas are kept in the dark closet of misguided concepts.

We show you these to let you see some of the thought process...

For one reason or another, we rejected or postponed these ideas. But there might the germ of an idea here, somewhere.

"America's Next Top Big Brother" is a satire of the spate of reality shows we have in the US... the general idea could adapt to little kids, mommies, etc. (it doesn't make much sense as a onesie).

"Diaper Gauge" got some chuckles, but it just didn't have a partner design.

"Least Likely" is a bad design, but the idea could be refined and expanded to include other awards or honors... "Most Likely to Excrete" (yuck), or "Class Cutie."

A lot of these just don't translate well to the can packaging.

The cans seem to work best when the label has illustration, as opposed to type only.

Concept: Bold, Jokey Statement Beach Coverups

These were inspired by the thought: "what would She Who Sleeps with Dogs look like if she were a beach cover up?"

• The artwork would need some work, especially Rum. Everyone seems to laugh, but then say, "needs more and better illustration."
• We like the boldness and the ramshackle nature of the typography...
• Rum is awfully black and heavy; Island uses dark blue linework to soften things

Concept: Maternity OT

Internally, we've noted concerns about the occasion: is this a shower gift? a close friends gift? a joke gift?

We love the statement and the minimalist simplicity of the art style, though.

It's funny funny!

Concept: Really Edgy Black Tanks

BIG DISCLAIMER:
We know, these are WAY out there for us!
We don't intend to put these in the line as shown here.

Here's the situation:
• Our black tanks don't sell well
• We've got a lot of black tanks in the warehouse
• Our typical customer is not a tank buyer

To try to move some black tanks, we thought one approach might be to try something REALLY different and edgy. This is an initial attempt to appeal to
• college aged girls buying for one another or themselves
• twentysomething girlfriends

Tanks fit inside the small cans; labels can be easily (and fairly cheaply) printed; and a display can be put together to tie it all together.

We won't be able to sell these to women over 30. Why not try something outrageous?

Look at Blue Q here. They're in practically every gift store in the US.

Other ideas for the tanks:
• topical political approaches
• longer, tamer jokey statements
• girlfriend/sisterhood type sentiments, more positive statements (yawn)

EXTRA SPECIAL BONUS:
Package each tank with a little button featuring a cool graphic of (a) Queen Bitch logo, (B) a random obnoxious statement, (C) photograph of a lady wrestler or some other tough-gal type

Concept: Big Graphic Beach Cover Ups

• We want witty statements
• bold, flat graphics
• graphics to fill up most of the garment
• Flamingo statement: not so great... trying to think of something other than "Think Pink"
• Crab: it would sell in Baltimore, but would many women want to wear a big crustacean? Alternate statements: "Here Comes The Crab," or "I Pinch."
• Sea Horse: kind of amusing, the pregnant male angle is different, the design is colorful; illustration is weak

EXTRA SPECIAL BONUS:
Package each cover-up with a little 2 color, 4" x 6" printed booklet "The Sensible Woman's Guide to Man-Watching," a funny illustrated booklet poking fun at the different types of men found at the beach/lake/islands

Concept: Dad & Lad Tee & Onesie

• Dad tee packaged in medium tee can
• Lad onesie packaged in smallest can
• Sold separately
• Create in store tent card showing Dads and Lads wearing matching tee & onesie
• Designs need work.. not sure "Stud Muffin" is what we want a new dad to wear after wife's been in labor all night
• The idea is to develop a gift that's perfect for hospital gift stores, to be purchased by Mother in law or Father in law, etc.
• We don't really see matching Dad/Lad sets like these in gift stores/catalogs
• A local friend purchased a similar set for her husband and son, paying international air freight from UK. Click here...

EXTRA SPECIAL BONUS:
Each Dad/Lad tee/onesie is packaged with a handy wallet sized diaper changing instruction card

Concept: New Skirt Tees

Flirtee Skirtees Girls Skirt Tees
• Poses feature lots of fluid movement
• Different style from existing Dress Ups -- not as "painterly", flatter color, black outline
• The faces need work -- we want to avoid the fate of the "big head" girls of the past
• Ballerina looks too young
• This artwork is based on the illustrators John and Wendy (visit their website here). We probably can't afford them; they license product
• Either Mare or Dave would approximate this style, or maybe Bec could do a take? We would LOVE for Bec to do a take!
• Oops, we forgot the skirt on "girls rock!" And the ballerina's skirt fell off before the photograph...

ESSAY QUESTION:
Do these designs even need skirts? Would they sell without the appliqué?

Inside Out Printing

Funny Statements

Wish we could say we thought of all of these!

We really like "All I wanted was a backrub." It's a great statement for a baby shower gift!

There's a few cat/dog statements too...

Toddler Tees Display

Here it all is the way we see it on store shelves...

New Products

The sleepers in this collection would have AOP sleeves and back. We would love the size and company info printed into the top of the garment instead of a traditional tag. I am sure you have seen garments like this. See the photo at the top of the post. Also the AOP on the back will be softly visable from the neck opening, an effect we love. Dave found a tee shirt with and an AOP on the back and this wonderful find sent us in what we think is a really exciting direction for us.

The body style would have a few adjustments, smaller shoulder to sleeve opening, straight across the bottom opening with side slits, a v-neck with a small rib width and a few other adjustments. We would use this spec across the board on all the sleepers not just these. We have had positive reaction to this new take on the sleepshirt.

Regarding the pants, they would be a longer length, not capri and no ball fringe with an improvement to the waist band. I am getting a quote on the pants in a light weight percale as well.

We may sell through on all our existing pants. We are going to have to wait and see what happens. We would only keep the pink leopard pants in the line and Dave and I are trying to decide if we would make the adjustments as mentioned above or just keep them the same. One pair with the capri length and ball fringe would be rather odd, we are thinking.

As you will notice, the artwork is big and has a fresh modern new look due to this new approach to the art. As you can also see, we liked the work that you sent us before you left. We just took what you did and and worked with it.


And the wonderful news!!!! I have pricing from our vendor and the sleepers with the AOP sleeves and back would be $2.35. We now pay $2.25 for just a colored sleeper. These sleepers with such a dramatic art improvement won't be much more than what we are doing now. Terry says we can sell this new sleeper for $12.75.

Regarding cat and dog sets when I tried to put the sleeper artwork on the tees they just didn't work. This is the set that we feel just needs a bit more tweaking here and there to get it right. So of course any ideas would be appreciated. We thought about using an over the top poodle shape for the dog products. However,Labs are the number one most popular dog in the US. This set I need to push more to get it where it really needs to be.

As I emailed you, we found a book with the exact artwork you used for the queen products, we are waiting for the book, this set will look so much better when we have the beautiful artwork in place.

All the colors you see here in the queen and pet products we are still thinking about, if you have any ideas let us know.