Friday, January 30, 2009

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...speech bubble, speach bubbleblack speech bubble, awesomer

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.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

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:
kawaii colors, cute japanese girl










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.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

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 ;)

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

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 :)
cut and sew, cut/sew, hand sewn

Monday, January 26, 2009

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.
Synesthasia

Thursday, January 22, 2009

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.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

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.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

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 :)

Friday, January 16, 2009

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.
pinback, akumuink, akummu, akumi, kawaii, hypebeast, karmaloop

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.canadapost, buy from canada, canadian shipping

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Coraline

At first I was like ugh, not another goth stop motion Tim Burton rip off. But watching this trailer really changed my mind. I love when Coraline's parents put the gift in front of her and she opens it to reveal what's inside. So dark, and the style of the animation is pretty fluid. The lighting and colors are really brilliant and gorgeous. I look forward to seeing it in theatres with the 3D glasses.