It’s been too damn long! Here’s a little peek at what I’ve been up to at work lately.
When we design for certain events, such as NCAA National Champions (basketball), we need to get artwork in the hands of our sales-force as quickly as possible so they can get them in front of contending customers who may want to place contingency orders based on what their team’s realistic chances of winning said event are. That’s why a few of these designs do not correspond to the actual winner of the event, such as the Kansas Jayhawks championship design. It turned out to be the UConn Huskie men that cut the nets down recently, but I enjoy designing for Kansas and they were one of the top teams in the nation throughout the year. If the buyer at UConn (be it campus bookstore, off-campus shop or online retailer) likes the design and the salesman is on the ball, the salesman would send us a request to ‘namedrop’ the design for the Huskies; we would change the logo(s) and verbiage to create a new design that UConn could order mere minutes after their team is victorious.
There have been occasions where salesman have gambled on an event, printing two versions of a single championship design, one for each team in the final(s), hoping to sell enough of the eventual winner (which is quite possible because they are one of the first ones to have shirts available, and demand drops precipitously in the days following a win as the fans rabid thirst for new merchandise wears off, meaning the traditional route of ordering, printing and shipping to the customer could take too long to reap the full benefits of the insane demand available shortly following a win) to offset the cost they have to absorb from having a large number of both printed. Where do all the shirts from the losing team go? Usually to charities in under-privileged nations who could care less about the decoration and are more interested in having a clean, quality shirt on their backs. In that respect it turns out to be a win-win.
My job here at Cotton Exchange is a lot of fun, and I’m very fortunate to be able to combine my love of art and design with my passion for sports, and make a decent living at the same time. I’m grateful everyday. What are your passions? Are you able to make a living doing what you love? Because if your dream is on the back-burner, start taking some baby steps everyday to make it come to fruition; we only get one crack at this life. Thanks for stopping by!
