Hello, salut and hallo to all laFraise Fans out there!

After a loooong break, there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel. The German blog will be re-opened to our community and filled with exciting posts and interesting topics. This leads me to introduce myself as the new little strawberry, at least that’s how my colleagues introduced me to the rest of the crew ;-)

My name Is Katinka, I am 27 years old, originally from Frankfurt/Main and moved to Berlin for study reasons. For more than two years I can proudly name myself a Berlin-girl and since more than three months I am a happy employee of the laFraise team. I usually watch “Tatort” on Sundays, even though most of the time I dislike the stories, I like drinking a glass of wine and doing sports, at least to salve my conscience.

I love Berlin, I love Pasta and I love laFraise.

Having said this: A happy, funny, colorful and exciting new year 2012 to all of you with lots of interesting blog-posts on the re-opened German laFraise blog!

Katinka from laFraise

Easy way by diekave

This fun t-shirt will show you the easiest way to go? diekave will explain…

Hi diekave, nice to see you around!

Hi, nice to see you too

What is the story of “easy way” and how did the idea come to you?

I got the idea when I found a picture of a maze on the internet, then I thought about how to make a design around mazes and finally I found this clever mouse and the cheese.

Do you have mouse traps in your house?

No, I don’t have any! I haven’t found any mice in my house yet, maybe because there isn’t any cheese there. If they come, I’ll run away!

Have you seen the movie “Ratatouille”? Did you like it and what do you think of such stories?

Yes, it was a great movie. A great story and really awesome 3D picture quality. I love all the Pixar movies.

Could you please draw us a snowberry please?

Be creative by Oxyd-Cygo

A dark humour t-shirt with a fishbowl on it, Oxyd-Cygo is explaining.

Hi Oxyd, nice to see you again.

It’s a pleasure. Let’s get a coffee or a beer, or both?!

What is the story behind “Be creative” and how came the idea to you?

The idea was to glorify creativity. It could have had another title. I wanted it to be funny and a little bit cynical. At first it was a human who tired himself to a stone in a pond with air balloons on his feet. Then I replaced the human with a fish out of the water. So I sketched it again and again and then the idea came out. Thanks to the strawberry community that made remarks on the first submission.

Have you ever owned a goldfish?

Yes sometimes I have one or two. I can see the three of us, just talking and having a conversation with some liquor. In the past I had 3 cats and a hen but they would not replace these two marvelous creatures.

Could you please finish the sentence with a drawing ? Crocus in the meadow ….

… Gets ready for riding

Tooth protection by Pandaluna

A funny and sweet t-shirt, pandaluna tells us more !

Hi Panda, nice to see you around again!

Hi nannyyyy !

What is the story of « Tooth protection » and how did the idea come to you?

It is a common story. The story came when I was walking and at the time when georgelemercemaire submitted lots of dental designs and I was wondering why this theme? Then I imagined a mean chupa chups that would attck a nice tooth and the nit went out of control to protect the little tooth … I’m talking about the gentle and muscled toothpaste J

Are you more for the Chupa Chups or dental protection?

Definitely for Chupa Chups, it’s so gooood! But bad teeth hurt so it’s kind of an eternal dilemma!

Did you love sweets as a kid and which were your favourite ones?

Why just as a kid?! My favourites were and remain the Smurfs ones, and I love the little acid drops (coffee flavoured hard candies with a red and white packaging American kids love). They’re not good for your teeth but good for you, to paraphrase a humorist.

Could you please complete the following with a drawing ? Crocus in the meadow …

We don’t have jobs. We have a mission.

laFraise.com is Europe’s largest online t-shirt design competition. Two designs are chosen every week from about 100 daily submissions by the laFraise community and sold through the site.

Founded in 2004 in France, laFraise is now a business unit of Spreadshirt, the largest online apparel print on demand company in Europe and third largest in North America. Spreadshirt actively markets in 14 countries and across 11 languages, selling over 1 million items of clothing through our consumer business and 35.000 active Shop Partners. To make our Brand laFraise better known and working … we need you as

Senior Product Manager (m/f) – Leipzig/Berlin

As our Senior Product Manager laFraise your position will be to grow the business by improving the marketing, product management and business process, leading a team of 3 to 5 people within Marketing and community management.  Your role will be to raise the reach to all of our customer groups in all of our markets for laFraise. The position has a strong focus on return on investment so there is no limit to the marketing budget as long as it delivers the right ROI. Using the budget well depends on growing the understanding of the markets we are in, and reaching the customers in a cost effective way.

Your Tasks in Detail

• Work with the Spreadshirt management to build a business plan for rapid growth of laFraise to a 10m-euro business.
• Managing and grow laFraise team within the needs of the business.
• Developing and communicating to the wider Spreadshirt business how laFraise can work together with Spreadshirt, gain and retain customers and provide a reasonable ROI.
• Be the laFraise Product Manager who understands marketing needs and opportunities and create a  product roadmap as well as continuously improve the conversion rate.
• Planning the online and offline media strategy.

Your Profile

• At least 5+ years of proven experience in Marketing and Product Management Background.  Ideally in ecommerce with an emphasis on SEM and Affiliate Marketing.
• Preferably experienced with Management of different teams, such as engineering, finance, production and service.
• Budget management across multiple channels and proven skills in optimising return on investment.
• Pronounced communication and organisational skills.
• Very good analytic and conceptual skills.
• Excellent written and spoken English and German (one of which is your native language).

We offer you

• A multicultural experience.
• One of the coolest projects in web 2.0.
• The opportunity to enlarge a network in German scene.
• Roof terraces, fresh fruit, drinks, table football, table tennis and, of course, a whole lot of shirts.

We are looking forward to receiving your resume and references in English. Please state the reference number V01-M427 and send your salary expectations and earliest starting date to jobs@spreadshirt.net. For further questions please contact Theresa Kretzschmar (0341-59400 5243).

Our graphic designer will go for a maternity leave of 12 months from mid February 2012. And of course we need a replacement to her during this time :-)

laFraise is looking for a Berlin/Postdam based graphic designer.

JOB’S PROFILE

- Working as a part of the laFraise team with brand manager, marketing specialist, production manager, photographer, web developer and the printers.

- Beeing part of jury of the laFraise Design Contest

- Thinking creatively to produce new ideas and concepts for laFraise

- Professional creative illustation skills ( professional knowledge in the use of adobe illustrator CS5 )

- Layout and Design of the laFraise Website ( professional knowlege in the use of web based grafics made with adobe illustrator CS5, adobe photoshop CS5. adobe flash professional CS5, adobe indesign CS5

- Creative Guide for the Photographers; responsible for selecting, editing, positioning and publishing  photos; purchase pictures to meet the needs of the project

- Professional Image Composing and editing ( Professional knowledge in the use of adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop )

- Professional knowledge of the platforms Windows and MAC OS

- Layout, Design and Pre-press of the laFraise Promotions ( Newsletters, Flyers, Magazine Publishing )

- A good plus would be :  professional knowledge about website structures – online publishing – Webdesign, understanding of software functionality (html, css)

LANGUAGE SKILLS

If German speaker, you should speak fluent English. If you are another nationality, you should speak fluent English and good German.

We are looking for an engaged, serious, creative, passionate, and resistant to stress graphic-designer.

NOTES

- Please send CV + portfolio to nathalie@lafraise.com

- If you are invited to a job interview, you will be asked to do a quick sketch test. (ca. 30mn)

AVAILABILITY

1^st February 2012 to 1^st February 2013

REMUNERATION

TBA at the time of interview

Piece of art by Superbourdi

A graphic design t-shirt that brings contemporary art at laFraise and a first print for Superbourdi !

Hi Superbourdi, nice to meet you!

Could you please introduce yourself to the members of the community who don’t know you yet? How did you get into graphic design?

Hello! My name is Lénaic, I’m 22 years old and I live in La Rochelle in France! I have been a freelancer for a year now and I studied visual communication. I do graphic design to earn money most of all, and in a very near future I only want to do illustration.

What is the story behind “Piece of art”? How did you get the idea? How long did it take to make it and how did you proceed?

I had this squiggle idea for quite some time. I just needed to put it into a situation so that it has a direction. It took me 22 minutes and 45 seconds to make it and over a year of research (1845 squiggles to find out the right one) … of course I’m kidding!!!

I found my style at 3 and since then I’ve been regressing :-)

Superbourdi, draw me your interpretation of Indian summer! Thanks :-)

Thanks Nathalie, thanks La Fraise!