A while back on of my buddies wasn’t actually having the best day of his life. He was doing some computer helpdesk stuff over the phone and the people that called that day seemed to be even a bit more irritating than usually. I can’t quite recall what he said on IRC but it was something along the lines of “if one more numbnut calls me and asks for assistance because he can’t install a web camera I’m going to have to kill myself.” Well… To cut the long story short I made a call to get his office phone number, called him, introduced myself with a phony name and asked him to help me install my brand new web camera.
“It sez Lokitek.”
“USB? What’s that. Yeah, I suppose it’s something like that.”
“My computer? I dunno. Well, it has a picture of an apple on it.”
A few minutes after the call I admitted doing it and he swore he’d get his revenge. I almost forgot the whole thing… until this morning. I got a package in the mail from a company that manufactures male inconticence… thingies… adult diapers, if you will.
“Male incontinence is far more common than you think. Attached to this letter you will find samples of our products. We have they live up to your expectations!”
It took me a while to realize that this must a prank and as soon as I figured that out I already had a suspect. Yup, it was the same buddy of mine I had prank called earlier on.
Do you already know where I’m going with this? Today’s Friday Game is “Pranksters.” Sure, he got his revenge. Now it’s my turn. I want suggestions for a perfect prank. This guy isn’t my next door neighbour or anything but lives some 300km away so keep that in mind while making your plans.
You’ve got until 9pm (GMT) to complete the task. The best prankster get enough brouzoufs for a free t-shirt from our selection (shipping included). Hopefully you’ll get really active with this one and yes, I do know I'm being a bit juvenile here. Men never really grow up. ;)
Kool Moe Dee himself isn’t kooler than the two new shirts we’ve got in our store. LaFraise shirts will soon get classified as a class one drug by the American DEA – at least I keep spending way more money on them than any other recreational material that makes me feel good. Just today I received a shirt in mail and uhms… 5 more are on their way. Enough about that though. Let’s talk about the shirts.
Theoze is introducing us to a wacky pair of gentlemen – Doctor Jekyll & Mister Hype. The doctor looks like he has escaped from the Monopoly board game’s 2008 edition and the mister is bling enough to become the next big east coast rap superstar. “Schizophrenia” should make your soul move and groove if you’re in love with big ass prints on a shirt. Phat and tite, Y'knahmean?
…and for the Ladies out there we’ve got the prettiest Mademoiselle-shirt so far. So pretty that I had to call my girl yesterday just as soon as I saw the shirt. I just wanted to make sure she wouldn’t miss it. Sosoa made a design out of barbwire, flowers and butterflies and even thought the last two elements are something I’ve cursed to hell I’m taking that back now (and there arent' really any butterflies but birds on the design). It’s not what you use, it’s how you use it. The original design of “Barbelés” was unfortunately impossible for us to print but the new one rocks the planet just as well.
By the way, check the header graphic for more great news. Today and just today you get free shipping by using a special voucher code. Oh yes – and the color of the day is red. Browns count as red too for some reason. I’m not sure if it’s because some people in our crew are colorblind but whatever the reason is it’s really working out for you; you get more shirts with a discounted price.
Crazy crazy week. Tune in at 4pm (GMT+2) for a Friday game. I really need you help this week. ;)
Love is in the air… If I’d have to name two of the most famous shirt prints I could think of I’d had to say they’re probably the billion variations of Che Guevara’s image and the “I <3 NY”-print. Sometimes it only takes a little twist to the original idea to create a brilliant new classic. TED BOUNDY did just that and nothing else with his “NY loves me” – love it or leave it. I’m going to be amazed if this one stays in our store for more than a week. By the way, if I haven't mentioned it yet our hoodies are awfully comfortable. Really, they are.
The EU blog has been a bit too much about “serious business” lately so I decided to do a little something to entertain you… ;)
I do have a reason for doing this (besides making an ass out of myself). Last saturday I attended a party with my dear girlfriend and some people were playing Singstar. It didn’t take me long to find out that while I’m actually pretty curious about the whole thing I’m also really really afraid of singing - especially when there are other people around. Being afraid of silly things is just that; silly. So, I decided to face my fears. Buying Singstar and publishing my first performance on YouTube was pretty much the most extreme way to do that so that’s exactly what I did.
Well, now I’m not afraid of singing anymore but only a lousy singer.
Sometimes it's quite nice to take it as easy as possible. Sit down, let your mind wander and… munch through a few clouds, eh? "Visuel sans nom" ("A visual without a name" - I suppose? Didn't check that with Babelfish but just made an educated guess.) features an easygoing fellow from the Serengeti doing just that. Can you guess the designer? Yeah, it's Nesk! The shirts are selling fast so move now if you want yours.
- Why is there a specific gallery for you? Because even if laFraise is mostly French, we need the international designers to have a place to submit their designs and comment in their own language.
- What is to be won? 1000 Euros if you pass through the selections, the votes and our final decision!! 500 collector t-shirts will be printed, with you name on the neck, and you'll be free to use the design again - it does not belong to us just because we decided to use it.
- How many winners? Two each month. But since the quality is increasing, we plan to change up sooner or later for one winner each week.
- Who does the first selection? Her name is Kathrin :)
- I heard about something called Vice magazine… Yeah, it's here too :) Each month, we select a specific design, from any gallery, and it gives you an additional chance to be printed.
1) Classics winner
Our Classics winners will be chosen according to more traditional “laFraise style” but we still want the EU winners to be quite something different than the winners from either DE or FR. The French part often gets critique for “too many cutesy cute animal designs” getting printed and in a way some of that is well deserved. That’s what the French seem to want though and ultimately it’s about the people’s choice. Still we want each of our sites to have it’s own style and for EU & DE that style is something we’re finding on our way. Avoid imitating winning designs from the past. That won’t get you or us anywhere. The Classics winners are intended to be a bit more polished than the Vice winners. If your design is chosen as the Classics winner you will receive 1000 euros and we will print 500 pieces of your design on t-shirts.
2) Vice winner
We’re cooperating with Vice Magazine UK and in addition to the 1000 euros a Classics winner gets a Vice winner also gets an interview on their mag’s next issue. While there aren’t any real guidelines for style (expect the simple “you’ve got to have it!”) these winners will be different from the Classics winners stylewise. It would be easy to say that we’re looking for “trashier” or “less commercial” designs here but that would point you to a certain direction and wouldn’t really be the truth either. To be honest we don’t really know what we’re looking for. Something slightly surreal? More of a hand drawn feel? Cutting edge tech-style? That’s up to you to decide. Checking the Vice Magazine’s website might prove to be helpful.
The technical specifications for the files as well as other information can be found here.
If there are any questions you want to ask just simply contact joie@lafraise.com, Jana will be pleased to answer!!
“Pretty Empty” has a nice hand made “just doodling here” touch in it and even though it never made it to the French voting in the first place it went all the way on our EU site. That’s one of the nice things about laFraise; we’re looking for different styles on FR, DE and EU. The stuff that you’re used to seeing as “winner material” isn’t the only way to go. Open your minds, let your thoughts drift into far away (and even imaginary) places, take a pen and start sketching.
Luan’s design was the perfect thing this month and hopefully next month our Vice winner will be something equally unique but in a very different way. Push the boundaries. They don’t really exist anyway.
“Cycle de la vie”… The circle of life. Our newest shirt displays the circle in a hopeful manner and since the shirt itself is green you can still get it for 15 euros until the german people arrive at the office (which happens in roughly two hours). The design itself is just the way all of our winning designs should be; innovative, skilled and perfectly suited for a shirt since it covers a nice portion of it but at the same time allows it to breath. This is Damien’s first submission to our competition and I’m looking forward to many more of them since it’s just so nice. Big up!
This week is all about COLORS here on laFraise. Monday is a green day which means that all our green shirts will be available on a discount. Tuesday is… well, who knows? Even I don’t. The color of the day will be announced in our header graphics so keep a close eye on those.
T-shirts for 15 euros and hoodies for 28 euros. That’s cheap. So cheap it should be illegal. Even the regular price we have for hoodies is pretty darn inexpensive and they’re really nice too. I’m wearing one right now and it just feels like a nice, warm and comforting blanket around me. Uhms, I wonder if I should get myself one more of them…. *heads to the store*
Are you one of our designer members? Have you recieved a weird automail from us telling you that a design that you sent in a long time ago has been rejected? Don't worry. We're just cleaning up the submission database.
The usual way to deal with submissions is either to reject or approve them as soon as we see new submissions. Sometimes a design is submitted many times instead of just one and up to this point we've been dealing with that by approving or rejecting just one of the multiple submissions and doing nothing to the duplicate submissions. Naturally, this isn't really a best solution – over time the database gets somewhat crowded with ”new” submissions that have nothing to do with real new submissions. So, it's about time for me to clean this mess up a bit.
By the way, there's an upside to this too. In case I'm finding some really cool designs (that have been in our competition already but haven't been printed) while I'm doing this I just might give them another shot. Try to submit your stuff only once from now on though. Cheers.
