Never Say Die Speakers

Let me start off by saying this is FAKE!

Originally I saw these awesome speech-bubble speakers on The Awesomer and I thought how cool they would look with the little skull in the bubble. So I photoshopped it...Bored I guess...

Hand-me-down

What one person would call a hand-me-down another would call a really awesome gift that is passed within the family. Dora's brother gave us his camera, lenses included :O I've wanted to get a good camera for a long time but it's so hard to pull the trigger when technology changes so fast. It's like every time you buy a digital device they have a better one coming out and you feel like you got screwed. But this camera is awesome and you will see it's use very soon. I will probably have to retake the model shots, pics of the shirts, pics for the blog, and even promo type images. Things I don't actually have time for but are on my list to do. So here's a pic of our living room/work area with a fisheye lense.

Excuses, Excuses.

I don't know if I'm going to be able to release the February design on time. In my attempt to prepare for the fashion show this Saturday, get the order out for our new Switzerland retailer, as well as printing up your orders...and....I noticed I don't have any screens available. So after this weekend is over I'm going to order more screens, and work on the new design and I'm guessing mid February the new design will go up. Also I'm trying to learn PHP on my own...which is a web scripting language that is exhausting to research.

But good news, with all the craziness going on here's something I want you to see:











Think what you will but I won't be giving you any clues :P

Btw, I want to put up more options for the pins, so you can buy a 5 pack, and a 10 pack... no time yet, but it will happen eventually.

The Black Label

So as promised here is what the sewing machine is for. I know it's very easy to outsource some things like getting someone else to print our shirts, or getting someone else to sew on our labels; especially considering that Dora and I usually get home at 6:00pm during the week due to her going to school and me going to work. But we love doing it. We love the whole process, and it just means so much more when we get feedback from you saying you love it too! So starting today we will be printing labels on all our tshirts and hoodies. You might be wondering why we're keeping the American Apparel tag on underneath our tag...We still want to build our brand around a quality product.

In other news, new design is totally conceptualized but I have no time to make it... We're preparing really hard for the fashion show on Saturday. If you can make it to the Metropolis come and check us out ;)

Stitches

The latest addition to the Akumu Ink family just came in on Friday. You might be wondering 'wtf are we going to do with a sewing machine?' But we have many uses for this device in making our product just a little more unique. One of which I'll show you tomorrow :)

Fashion Show

I have so much to share with you. But I haven't taken any pictures of anything over the weekend so I won't ruin the surprise until I do. This weekend was crazy as Dora and I are preparing for a last minute show. A friend of hers also has his own Ed Hardy style tshirt company and he will be selling at the Synesth Asian Fashion Show this coming Saturday. He invited us to also sell alongside him at the event, so now we've been producing like mad to have a minimum stock to bring to the show. With less than a week until the event and no actual confirmation from the event's producers if we're actually allowed to sell at the show, it's going to be a highly stressful week. Anyways, I will keep you up to date and I will show you all the really awesome new things that have been happening and will be happening these days.

Boutique Baboune

For any of you living near Monthey, Switzerland I have some good news for you. We've just received an order from the very interesting Boutique Baboune. If you're looking for very attractive street fashion items look no further. We'll have many items ranging from tshirts to hoodies. So in a few weeks go down there and try on our stuff as well as check out all the other great stuff this store has to offer. I will be adding the address to our list of retailers within the next few weeks.

Shipping International Accepted

Thanks to all of you that commented to let me know that you're willing to pay a little more to cover the costs to get your items much sooner. Dora and I talked to the post office clerks, everything seems good! We're going to be sending out some packages tonight using this service so we'll make sure that it's possible at the cost they're promising.

In the meantime I'm watching the Inauguration on CNN.com. The stream keeps chugging though...missing so much.

13 Hours Later

I've litterally been working on updating the website for the last 13 hours. I do everything myself in html. And no jokes but I updated 100 pages of code...barf. Well I'm going to take photos of our shirts as we make them so I can update the new look of the site. There's a lot more updates to come in terms of the website, I also really need to find a better way of doing this because it's way too time consuming...I've done nothing but copy paste code since 9am....it's 10pm now...

So here's the new options 1) more views of the items (very limited right now)











and 2) similar items to the one your buying.












Please let me know if you find any glitches, or if there's any info you can lend as to how I can update this site with some kind of template program or something...btw I use dreamweaver.
Hope you like it :)

Coming this Weekend

Finally here is our newest "little" addition to your growing Akumu Ink wardrobe. Available (cross your fingers) this weekend. Cost/price: 5 for $5.50!!! yay :) They are hand pressed 1" pinback buttons that we press ourselves for you. If you have a band and would like us to press your own custom buttons, I'm sure we can work sometihng out.

International Shipping

I have a question for our international buyers (Anyone outside of Canada and USA). Currently Shipping international cost 5.95$ per tshirt and can take up to 6 to 8 weeks to get to you. Would you want to instead pay 8$ for shipping per tshirt and get it within 6 to 10 business days?

I just read it off the Canadapost website (who's also raised their prices....boo... ) So I'll ask the people at the post office and see if this is really doable.

Coraline

A Closer Sip

Something I'm trying to include in the new website's look will be these closeups. I know how hard it can be to buy stuff online when you can't feel or see the quality of it. I think a good picture can give a whole different feel about a product. This were lit with a warm yellowish floor lamp.

Small World

Ok, so remember I mentioned that for Christmas Dora bought the Joker 1:6 scale model for me? Well the artist behind it is actually an Akumu Ink fan! Having seen us at the Calgary tattoo and art convention 3D artist Kolby has since bought numerous shirts for himself and his wife Ashley. Look at the insane detail in those 3D models. Gorgeous work. Check out more of his work here.

Something To Look Forward To

So 2009 is a new year full of ideas that Dora and I are hoping to realize. I know last week I posted a little teaser of an upcoming Akumu Ink item which I have still not given any more attention to (Sorry Tom). I promise by the end of this week said item will be up and ready for you to buy though.

This weekend I finally sat down and reworked the website. Since I put it up a year ago I haven't really changed anything. I've just been adding to what was originally there. But I've been inspired to add more photos and options to make finding items on our page easier.

But in the meantime here's another project we're going to be working on that we're hoping to launch sometime in February. Here's a photo of the color scheme we'll be playing with. Let me just say that it will be an awesomely cute handmade Japanese looking product that you'll want to get for your girlfriend or if you are a girl you'll want to get it for yourself for sure!

Wario Land

This new wii game has some awesome marketing behind it. My friend showed me this page and I thought it was just a great concept. Watch this video start off as a regular youtube video but then it becomes completely interactive within the environment as the text and links start to collapse. I love the concept, kudos to whoever made this.

Rolando

This is my latest addiction. It's so fun and reminds me of Super Mario for the first Nintendo, back when video games were fun...for me anyways. Don't worry this won't take over my tshirt making duties, I'm honestly not a gamer at all. But sometimes when I'm waiting for Dora at the train station it passes time much more quickly.

New Item Teaser

We are going to be offering a new handmade item on our site very soon. We're hoping to launch it in a week or two. I'll try to post something for you to actually get excited about early next week, but for now you'll have to be content with my words ;) Don't worry, this new item will totally be affordable and a great little addition to your current Akumu Ink closet.

Sip of Death

So this month's design is called 'Sip of Death'. It's a cute spin on a deadly elixir. Continuing in the same vein as our Never Say Die tshirt we played around with our concepts within the anime world. What's great about Akumu is that we're constantly trying new things. Anime is nothing new (I know...) but to not be limited is what this is all about.

Btw, we have more surprises coming this month. Keep your eyes open!

2008 is over.

Well we've completed our first year. Let's take this time to look back at what we've achieved in 2008!

We began in January not even knowing how to screen print. We learned it all from youtube videos and forum posts. Here's a pic from our early attempts:










In February we launched a brutally raw website with 6 tshirt designs and 2 tote bags. We got noticed right away and got our first tshirt blog reviews.










In March we began incorporating our back logo a defining characteristic to our current look.










May brought on the addition of the Army and Raspberry color scheme.










In June we went to our first tattoo convention which lead us on to 2 other tattoo conventions in the following months. By the way, we will be attending all the same shows we were at last year and even adding on some new ones.










August was the beginning of Akumu Ink in boutiques/tattoo shops and promoting one of our first bands.











I'd just like to thank everyone who's been supporting Akumu Ink. We are excited to see what 2009 will bring us. We have a whole new year of monthly designs and handmade products we will be more than happy to produce for you.