Not sure if this is best run as a non-profit on a grant. I think people who want to buy this should preferably pay for it in price of the merch.
Also, the products are somewhat expensive, compared to manufacturing costs. This is because it’s actually for profit, just the profits are with Printful
The design of the website is quite bad, in my opinion. Have you considered hiring a professional?
Also the designs of majority products which try to do something more complicated than just print the logo on something is …mediocre at best
Overall I think from a brand perspective, your shop currently communicates something like ‘we are a youth movement where people identify with the brand and this is more important for them than other consideration, like taste or design’ … and is a step back in EA visual culture.
I disagree that the design of the products, or the website, are bad.
This is just my personal aesthetic opinion, of yours, but so is yours. I think your comment should have been phrased with more humility & awareness that you were just reporting your aesthetic taste. I also object to the statement about this being a “step back in EA visual culture”, which I think is just mean.
ETA: Also, I just checked the prices and they are almost all surprisingly cheap, so the second point seems wrong to me.
It’s an MVP—we will upgrade to a better website in due time. Hopefully the release of more products will mean there will be more options to suit a greater variety of tastes. If you have any ideas for designs or aesthetic styles that would appeal to you, I encourage you to submit them.
Unfortunately the products cannot get any cheaper than they are as we cannot operate the store without using a service like Printful, and products may in fact go up in price in the future if we change the funding model.
Would getting a grant-loan to produce a bunch of copies at once (which would be significantly lower cost than a create on demand service) with pickup at something like EAGs or EAGxs be potentially viable to reduce costs or allow this to operate at current prices without a permanent subsidy?
ETA: The minimum viable trial for this idea might be stickers—produce a few hundred at once at half(?) your current cost, set them on a table at a conference (with organizer permission), and post a sign asking people to Zelle/Venmo/whatever an amount somewhat higher than the bulk production cost. I’m not too concerned about a mass sticker heist (or even other merchandise heist), and studies of honor-system payment (eg on mass transit systems) suggest the amount of payment evasion would be acceptable.
Sorry for critical feedback, but
Not sure if this is best run as a non-profit on a grant. I think people who want to buy this should preferably pay for it in price of the merch.
Also, the products are somewhat expensive, compared to manufacturing costs. This is because it’s actually for profit, just the profits are with Printful
The design of the website is quite bad, in my opinion. Have you considered hiring a professional?
Also the designs of majority products which try to do something more complicated than just print the logo on something is …mediocre at best
Overall I think from a brand perspective, your shop currently communicates something like ‘we are a youth movement where people identify with the brand and this is more important for them than other consideration, like taste or design’ … and is a step back in EA visual culture.
I disagree that the design of the products, or the website, are bad.
This is just my personal aesthetic opinion, of yours, but so is yours. I think your comment should have been phrased with more humility & awareness that you were just reporting your aesthetic taste. I also object to the statement about this being a “step back in EA visual culture”, which I think is just mean.
ETA: Also, I just checked the prices and they are almost all surprisingly cheap, so the second point seems wrong to me.
I also think the website design seems a bit off to me
Why do you consider it bad? Nothing jumps out to me that makes me think “this is bad/ugly”. Your other points make more sense to me though.
It’s an MVP—we will upgrade to a better website in due time. Hopefully the release of more products will mean there will be more options to suit a greater variety of tastes. If you have any ideas for designs or aesthetic styles that would appeal to you, I encourage you to submit them.
Unfortunately the products cannot get any cheaper than they are as we cannot operate the store without using a service like Printful, and products may in fact go up in price in the future if we change the funding model.
Would getting a grant-loan to produce a bunch of copies at once (which would be significantly lower cost than a create on demand service) with pickup at something like EAGs or EAGxs be potentially viable to reduce costs or allow this to operate at current prices without a permanent subsidy?
ETA: The minimum viable trial for this idea might be stickers—produce a few hundred at once at half(?) your current cost, set them on a table at a conference (with organizer permission), and post a sign asking people to Zelle/Venmo/whatever an amount somewhat higher than the bulk production cost. I’m not too concerned about a mass sticker heist (or even other merchandise heist), and studies of honor-system payment (eg on mass transit systems) suggest the amount of payment evasion would be acceptable.
Will look into this