Kinkos is officially dead to me

Kinkos: 6 prints on glossy cardstock = $19.55
With the wonderful addition of colors printing way too dark and printing nothing bigger than 11x17

Imagers: 18 prints on glossy cardstock = $20.98
Colors on point and printing 12x18.

We have a winner folks!

Specialty Item

A total 360 from the previous post. I chose to use a "Fun Foam" board for my coasters since cork is difficult to cut through especially when trying to cut circles. Here were my first tries. The edges were a little rough because I was moving the cookie cutter over and back a little too much but later on I just created a tight indent into the foam with the cutter and cut it out with my exacto knife.






Onto the holder and coasters, I wanted something simple and clean. I was going to originally place "coffee jokes" on the back of the coasters but I couldn't find any that weren't lame or less then a paragraph long, so Paige suggested I put coffee facts on the back instead. While customers get their "Cocoa Bean Fix" they can get their "educational fix" as well. Here are the stencils I created of the facts and painted them onto the back.

I wanted the holder to be very simple and I wanted it to be placed on display for customers to grab on the go or to simply take back with them to their seats. Either way its theirs to keep. It was hard trying to use an adhesive to glue that corrugated cardboard curve to the circle bottom so I decided to sew on the bottom instead thus creating an eco-friendly package.

Initial sketch:


Result:

Getting to know Mr.Stencil...

Since I want to use cork for my coasters I thought of stenciling my text onto the coaster. So for the past 48 hours I've been learning to get acquainted with the stencil technique.

First tries:




Logo Stencil

I'm still working on the cafe part of my logo. I want to keep my logo this size because if I make it any smaller then it and cafe will disappear.

My idea for the first coaster






Out in left field but maybe a styrofoam coaster? (HEY IT WAS 3 AM!)


I will be using color in these. I want to keep it to a 3 color pallet. Have my logo be its usual colors and then the text be a different color. I'm still trying to figure out what I should write on my coasters as the main text.

Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to soak my hand in cold water.

Specialty Ideas

My ideas:

1. Tea Samples (in a box)
2. Bumper Sticker
3. Key Chain
4. Coaster
5. Ornament
6. Tiny Alarm Clock (time to get your fix!)
7. Coffee Stirrer
8. Napkins
9. Air Freshner (type to hang in your car mirror)

Then I narrowed them down to three and sent them to Paige this weekend:

1. Coffee Stirrers
2. Ornament
3. Coasters

Paige said she liked the coasters idea and that I could create a series of them and create a nice package to place them in. I'm researching various coasters right now and will post some inspirations later.

Now this is what I call clever!

Ad Update

Made the logo / contact info a little bigger and then printed it out at actual size. Legibility is much better.

My first homemade lightbox!

Over the weekend I decided to make a lightbox and I am happy to say I am very proud of it. I'm thinking of doing one using white foamboard so that I won't have to cut holes in it. I can just cut the sides and attach the light sources to them.

The setup


First shot trying to get the lighting right


I think I got it:

Mi ads

I have 2 target audiences that I wanted to hit, students and employees. I originally had a different idea with the student portion of the ad, but that got mixed reviews so I changed it to where it would be something that one could easily relate to (when they haven't had their Cocoa Bean "fix".)

1st Ad:


2nd Ad: