04/15/2025
The WIP Hat
Hey guys, just gonna get right into. Making this blog to share all the in-depth thoughts of designing products, running the business, sources of inspiration, random thoughts, etc.
In this post i’ll be going over everything that occurred during this product launch, from start to finish.
- Concept
- Production
- Campaign
- Launch
Concept
For this one, it started with a product type. I wanted to release a low profile cap. So through some research and youtube videos I was on the search for a hat blank that I wanted to try out. Stumbled upon Atonal through a Superfine Wholesale YouTube video if i remember correctly.
From here I started designing and pretty much had no clear direction of where i wanted to take it. After throwing around different ideas I came to this draft (pictured below)
Had second thoughts about it then scrapped it. Decided to take it a different direction.
I have a bank of random ideas that I write down so I went in and ended up choosing this “WIP” idea. Nothing too fancy but I just like the meaning behind it. So I stuck with it.
I’m constantly trying to find a nice middle ground between only releasing things that i think are the best thing ever and getting into the habit of sharing what I create as a creative growth exercise. Makes it even harder when it’s my main source of income.
Anywayss, moving forward. I chose appliqué because tbh just into it rn and like how it looks. Also thought it would be the best method with bigger blocky letters. So I finalized the artwork and here’s what I came up with.
This is the design that I chose in the end. Now comes production.
Production
Ordered the hat blanks which delivered within the week. Drove them over to the local print shop I use and dropped em off for the job. Things didn’t really go according to plan. The shop unfortunately had some issues with the Embroidery machine resulting in the inability to finish this Hat job. Feel for them, they’re great honest people that always treat me right, sucks to hear that there may have to stop any embroidery jobs for now until they can either get it back up and running or purchase another setup.
Luckily they were able to get the fronts done before the machine gave up. It’s always a little sad when plans don’t go accordingly but it could be worse.
I decided to release the hats as is. Didn’t really want to bring the hats to another shop and also it has been some time since the last release so the HOD finance department is running a little slim at this point lol. Also looking at the product launch schedule for spring / summer, i did not want to push release dates back and wanted to stay on track.
Campaign
So as for writing the campaign video, i’m glad this idea came to me pretty fast. I started with the “good things take time” motto. Bounced ideas around and remembered that one episode in SpongeBob where he has to write an essay or something and he spends all this time putting pencil on paper only to have the word “The” written out, although it was the most beautiful “The” i have ever seen.
So I wrote the campaign video with that idea in mind. An artist that goes to the mountains to draw the most amazing landscape he saw and spent so many hours only to end up with a stick figure drawing of a tree. Thought it was a pretty script. So I wrote it up, hit up trusty Sam which you’ve probably seen in other campaigns, and he immediately said he was down.
Bought some props (easel / easel pad / crayons) packed up the car, picked up Sam and drove up the mountain to a spot I knew that wasn’t too far.
I had already done a rough storyboard in my head so the shoot went pretty smooth, minus the small adjustments we had to make with lighting / angles. The whole shoot took maybe an hour and a half? 2 hours tops minus the drive. We shot within the last couple hours before sunset so lighting was great for the most part. Sam did great improving while I probably did the worst job directing but we’re working on that loll.
Shoot went well, now into the edit bay.
(guys this is like writing an essay, i haven’t written / typed this much in a while lol sorry for the horrible formatting)
Edit didn’t go exactly as planned as some of the shots I got didn’t really translate well into the story. I think I used about 50% of the shots I took. I scrapped a whole intro I shot, and had a bunch of other unused footage. But after some rearranging I was able to get it to a point where I was happy enough.
Ok i think this is all I can write for now lol. After I edited the vid I decided on a launch date and shot some product photos and then... launched.
ok bye lol