All the girls standing in the line for the bathroom

Above is the new Nerd video for their song "Everybody Nose" I heard a clip of this song a few weeks ago, and heard the full song this morning. This song is just energy, and beats and everything that makes yummy music.

The video by the by is based on Last Nights Party, a website I would link to but we may have some youngins who read this.

Play well
Clovis

AARGGHHH! real monsters!

I don't know how many people remember the old Nickelodean cartoon "Aaaarghh! Real Monsters". It was a staple in my apartment at the time (that and Rocko's modern life.)

Anywho Kidrobot has done it again with their new collaboration with Peskimo, BambooZoo. each toy reminds me of those character drawings from the cartoon all those years ago.

I am continually impressed with Paul Budnitz and crew.

Godfather chair

What you're looking at above comes from the Skate Study House, a company out of California who creates high end furniture using Skateboards as their starting element. I love the look of their pieces, (Even if I don't love the price) it is really nice to see how visually creative, these guys are with just a simple skateboard.

Nice to see you old friend

I know, I know. The point of a blog is to keep up with the day to day happenings of our little corner of the world. And your saying to yourself, Self, once a month is not enough, I need weekly injections from the world of TOI. I feel your pain, and I apologize as life has been hectic and I've neglected my post.

So, what has been going on?

Well we're prepping for our first college night type party. Sept 19th Kalamazoo MI. We're really trying to make it something special and something that people will talk about on Western Michigan's campus for months to come. This is the event to be at if you want to start your college semester off right.

We're working on some simple things to help streamline our process. You wouldn't believe how complicated small things become. And for TOI to be the best TOI it can be, we need to tweak and polish a few things.

Can't wait to introduce our new keychain. they'll come with the shirts, but it is definately one more exstension of our "do it yourself" brand. And kids have flipped out over some of the samples we've been handing out.

And speaking of kids, today was my last day as a JA volunteer, here in coldwater. I can't tell you how cool these kids were. They were excited to hear about TOI and you could see their brains ticking away as we talked about branding and marketing and business in general. It was a lot of fun and hope to be able to do it again next year.

As a special treat for our last day I brought each of them a shirt. I'm hoping to see some of them start their own company in a few years and get out there and be entrepreneurs.

Play well
Clovis

God Save The Panda

A few things... 1. if you love a well designed site, you owe it to yourself to vist the new Lost at E Minor it is a beautiful site and an incredible re-design of their previous incarnation. 2. how much do you love Jellybeans? Nothing really more than that, I just love jellybeans (but I don't really like them during easter. Easter is for Cadbury and nothing else.)
3. And finally up above is one of our new shirts for the fall/winter 08 season (yeah, I know that it is now just starting to feel like spring, but we never sleep and are always planning.). Click on it to embiggen'.

Play well
Clovis

Russell

I cannot tell you how much I love these Guerilla's toys from Kidrobot. I mean they are just insanely detailed (They look exactly like the cartoon) and the packaging is top notch. Plus right now they are on sale for only $5.00! I love the concept of the band and I love these toys (And I've been on a guerillas listening spree for the last two days, just playing their songs over and over.)

Play well
Clovis

The Process 2.5

I used to work at one of the major cereal manufacturers (Think tiger, not pirate) and we would spend HOURS scrutinizing over cereal box art or morning bar photos or if the tiger was correctly positioned with the three elves and the bird. It was mind blowing how detailed we got into something that when kids opened it, would probably be torn to shreds.

But I understood because -



PACKAGING MATTERS!!! - it is the first thing your customer touches, their first impression and reaction. A brands awareness can live and die on simple packaging, that's how important it is. But, here at TOI it takes on one more special meaning, Our packaging is part of our thankyou to you, the customer. When you open the bag from TOI we want you to forget the crappy day that you may be having, we want you to forget your nine to five, and we want you to remember what it felt like to open up the apple jacks and find the prize inside. The little add ins that we package with our clothing is a part of that. We want you to look forward to opening a TOI shirt, we want you to be suprised about what else we have thought of to stuff in that bag. That's why I spend hours scrutinizing over every package that we send from TOI.