Indie Labs Blog

We're hiring in customer support

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 20:00:43 -0500

Big Cartel is looking to reinforce our customer support troops. You’ll be part of a team who loves actively communicating with artists, and is dedicated to helping them make a living doing what they love.

If this is a cause you can get behind, and you have the skills, patience, and awesomeness necessary for such a position, please report to our new about page for further briefing. As you were.

Watch out, the Indie crew bought some film equipment.

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 15:47:59 -0500

Watch out, the Indie crew bought some film equipment.

This situation with the blackbirds both inspires and frightens...

Wed, 05 Jan 2011 14:31:18 -0500

This situation with the blackbirds both inspires and frightens me. Looks like one of my favorite illustrators, John Cuneo feels the same way.

A Merry Christmas reminder from our pal Stanley...

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 16:28:33 -0500

A Merry Christmas reminder from our pal Stanley Chow.

stanleychowillustration:

Oh by the way everyone… Merry Christmas from Manchester, England

Indie Fest recap

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 18:17:00 -0500

We do what we do because we love it. Nowhere was that more apparent that at this years Indie Fest 2010 (© all rights reserved :). Every time we would step away from our computers and take a break to chat, conversations would inevitably return to ways to refine the online shopping process, better help/support solutions, and features we can’t wait to work on.

It was inspiring to watch everyone in one room take a talking point and build on it with more passion than the comment before. We learned a lot about the Indie Labs crew, not the least of which was our ability to consume amazing amounts of cheese pull-aparts and any Thai dish with “Evil Jungle Princess” in the name.

Cataclysm

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 09:19:00 -0500

My husband got a Best Buy gift card for his birthday but couldn’t decide what to use it on. “Should I get the new Twilight on Blu Ray or WOW Cataclysm?” he asked. “Dude, how is that even a question?”, was my reply. He stared at me blankly. “WOW…you should get WOW! I’m a girl and I have to tell you to get a video game over a chick movie?!”

And then I thought, “Wait, what just happened?”. I’ve always enjoyed video games but in passing phases, from Mortal Kombat Trilogy and Mario Cart, to Halo and Guitar Hero. I used to make fun of kids who played WOW and now I have a geared-out level 80 Blood Elf Mage. WTF! How did this happened to me?!

I’ll tell you how it happened. My husband wanted me to start playing WOW and I refused. But over some months he wore me down. “Come on, just log in and you can create a character”, he’d gently pester. I always found a reason I couldn’t: I was too busy, I had homework, I had to get up early, etc. “It won’t take any time at all and you can just log in whenever you want to play your toon”. “Nope, I’m good”, I would respond.

And then came the hook. “But you can pick her hair color and hair cut, and you can even give her earrings”. Wait, what? You can make your character a girl and give her earrings? I was too intrigued to notice his triumphant grin as he pulled out my desk chair for me to take a seat. After I designed my little toon, she entered the World of Warcraft and I cracked up for an hour straight as I made her run around and slap other players in the face, swim through rivers, and jump off buildings to her death.

And the rest is 80 levels of Wow history. Twilight vs. WOW? There’s a collector’s edition with a mini Deathwing pet included with my name on it.

bigcartel: Curious how we created that cool Titanium image to...

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 15:21:14 -0500

bigcartel:

Curious how we created that cool Titanium image to celebrate our new 300 product plan? Take a look behind-the-scenes as Dan wrangles a pile of products into something beautiful. Music by Headlights.

View full-size on Vimeo »

Welcome Kyle Meyer

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 16:14:46 -0500

We’ve had a new addition to the Indie team in the recent weeks: a fellow by the name of Kyle Meyer has joined us to work some design magic. From his experience designing for the web, to his involvement in his local AIGA chapter, Kyle keeps himself warm up in the frigid north of Minneapolis, by wrapping himself up in the cozy blanket that is design. So everyone, please welcome Kyle.

Indie Fest 2010

Mon, 29 Nov 2010 17:00:09 -0500

Indie Fest 2010 was officially a success. The full roster came out to Salt Lake for a week of haunted hotels, breakfasts in the canyon, and too much beer/pizza. This week we’ll recap the things we learned and some insights into how Indie Labs works. For now, an image of this year’s mascot—a handsome, smart, prophetic gentleman ready to deliberate and innovate (not necessarily in that order).

*see if you can find the hidden “indie” curled into that majestic stache.

Sticker shock

Fri, 12 Nov 2010 19:33:58 -0500

I know you wouldn’t expect anything less from a company named “stickerobot”, but these guys do amazing work. We just got a shipment of some Big Cartel and Pulley stickers and these dudes killed it! Great quality and a really charming bunch o’ guys to work with. Thanks dudes!

Vintage Jazz

Thu, 04 Nov 2010 16:30:02 -0400

I like Jazz, I also like that genre of music that explores offbeat time signatures, loose structures and “explore the moment” writing styles. Last night a couple of the Indie Labs squad headed over to watch the Utah Jazz dazzle and dizzy the Toronto Raptors. It was an amazing game filled with plays and passes taken from the vintage Pistol Pete days of the Jazz.

The game was good and bad, the Jazz won with flair and confidence, but we also found out that WE are their good luck charms, so that’s a bit of pressure we didn’t expect. Oh well, if we need to wear the same clothes and not shave our beards for the rest of the season so be it, everyone makes sacrifices.

The Great Debate

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 17:48:51 -0400

Halloween vs. Christmas. It’s an argument that may never be settled. It’s like comparing apples to oranges. You’ve got a holiday where the main event involves putting on a costume and begging for candy from your neighbors (the adult version: getting super drunk at your friend’s costume party) and another holiday where the main event involves sitting around a sparkling tree taking turns opening gifts (the adult version: getting super drunk on mimosas during breakfast, skipping the gifts and going back to bed).

It’s like comparing classic horror movies to classic Christmas carols. It’s Michael Meyers vs. Santa Claus. It’s turkey, stuffing and pie vs. bobbing for apples, cake walks and donuts on a rope. It’s the smell of burning Jack-o-Lanterns vs. the smell of fresh cut evergreens. It’s haunted houses with chainsaw wielding psychos vs. open houses with dessert tray wielding neighbors.

It’s costume shops stocked with enough fake blood-covered knives for everyone vs. holiday sales with shoppers covered in real blood because there weren’t enough iPhones for anyone. Spoiled kids griping over how they got too many Smarties this year and how they hate Smarties vs. spoiled kids griping over how they got too many socks this year and they didn’t ask Santa for socks! It’s like comparing the guilt from eating too much candy vs. the guilt over eating too many cookies and too much pie.

The battle between which holiday is better may continue on forever but whoever offers better sweets, Jason Vorhees or baby Jesus, will always get my vote…mmm…pie.

This is the story about the story of the 100,000th Big Cartel store (Part 2)

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 15:28:00 -0400

When we opened the 100,000th Big Cartel store, we knew we wanted to mark the occasion by doing something special. Dan had produced a wonderful print piece, composed of pictures and type, that beautifully told Lillian’s story. Naturally, we wanted an online component to share Dan’s piece and our excitement for Lillian’s store with all of our friends and customers. The question now was how to do that and remain true to the story Dan was telling–in terms of both content and aesthetics. From the opening page, his use of type was integral to the tone of the piece. We needed to capture this feeling on the web in a way that complimented both the story we wanted to tell and the medium we were telling it with. We had a few ideas along the way.

We first explored a more literal translation—essentially taking the pages from the story and creating a slideshow. This solution was a bit static and seemed to neglect some of the basic properties of the web and how folks interact with it. But it was true to the original piece and carried through the feeling we were after. We quickly decided we wanted to explore a more developed approach.

The second concept we considered drew inspiration from Lillian’s own work place. Scattered through out her studio are collections of metals, chains, artifacts, casts and materials she uses to create her jewelry. Each setting formed mini mood-boards, which inspired us to see how mixing elements from our story piece with some of the more organic qualities of her studio would play out on the web. We explored an atypical horizontal layout that complimented the mood-board effect we were after. This direction began to tell the story in a way that was more engaging and eventually put us on the path to the final iteration.

Taking cues from some popular designers in the community, the last and final concept explored an editorial format. Rather than just publishing another article to our blog, we set up a basic structure and created a look and feel that was specific to the content at hand—just like each article in a magazine is individually art directed to help better tell its story. Designers have been telling stories this way—with pictures and type—for, well ever. Sadly, until recently us designers who play on the web have had, at best, an abysmal selection of typefaces to work with and to achieve intricate editorial esque layouts were a feat of themselves. To go outside of the norm (Arial, Verdana, Georgia and in layout) meant using Flash or other similar, laborious workarounds. This is slowly changing. Our attention can shift back from implementation to what we do best, craft and story telling. Pictures. Type. Story. It’s an effective combo when all of the pieces are playing well together. But it’s not always easy.

Know your medium. Obvious statement is obvious. But, how many times have major print publications gotten it wrong when bringing their content online? I don’t claim to have a lot of answers and this topic has been discussed at great length by many a peoples more qualified than I, but here are a few principals that shaped our article and helped us move our offline content online.

The web is fluid. It’s always moving. Your content will be digested on many different devices with varying form factors. Pin point a few key devices to target and design the best possible experience there, while still accounting for secondary environments where your content will surely pop up. Our primary focus was in the desktop experience. We started with the best modern browsers and built down from there. We turned to Typekit to help us recreate the look and feel Dan established typographically. Type on the web is expected to be selectable and malleable. Only a few years ago, to achieve the high design we were after would have meant an obscenely heavy use of images or Flash. Typekit offered some great typefaces that gave us the feel we were after. All text, no images. The latest builds of Webkit based browsers (Safari, Chrome) offer some really exceptional advanced CSS properties that you should use to your advantage. -webkit-font-smoothing will do things to your type that you could have never imagined. Check out this great blog post for a more in-depth break down.

Accentuate your assets! Your offline content lives in a finite space. Lots of great creative assets go by the way side due to size or printing reqs. There were a lot of rad photographs Dan didn’t have a chance to include in our print piece. We brought all of those assets online. Offer your readers something more than what’s in the print version.

We want to touch your content. It’s true. There are unique interactions that happen online that the print world just doesn’t offer. In our piece we showcased some of Lillian’s products and linked readers directly to her store. We also had ways for people to share and download an electronic version of our printed article.

The days after we had published the article, readers were remaining on the page for approximately a minute and 20 seconds. They were reading the article! These basic principals inspired a creative, editorial layout that really did engage our readers. It told a better story.

Princess Leia has a Big Cartel store... kinda

Wed, 27 Oct 2010 19:20:02 -0400

To celebrate, we baked(bought) some cimmy rolls and came up with a pretty spot on Leia costume. Check out the story and the final cinnamon roll homage at: Blog.bigcartel.com

James dog joined us for a quick photo shoot for our debut in...

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 16:10:19 -0400

James dog joined us for a quick photo shoot for our debut in Martha Stewart magazine. Check out the other shots on the Big Cartel Blog.

Warning...

Wed, 20 Oct 2010 16:47:21 -0400

What’s a warning? It’s usually advice given by a well meaning individual that’s supposed to prevent you from making the same stupid mistakes they made or from experiencing some horrible accident that happened to their friend’s cousin’s dentist’s girlfriend. Usually I ignore these warnings. Every time I walk down the hall with a toothbrush in my mouth I remember the warning I was given about the kid who tripped while brushing his teeth and had to get the embedded toothbrush surgically removed from the back of his throat. I still drive with my arm out the window despite my mother’s cautioning that someone could drive by and chop my arm off. I still eat food that fell on the floor, roll through stop signs, and play my music too loud. And I still somehow manage to enjoy eating raw cookie dough despite being warned that it would give me worms…a small price to pay.

There are some warnings that I actually pay attention to. I figured that any potato chip with the warning “this product causes abdominal cramping and loose stools” wasn’t worth the hassle and, after seeing the posters in the optometrist’s office, “don’t touch your eyes after handling money or you’ll get staph” didn’t seem so extreme. Even “don’t get in a stranger’s car unless they know the password because it could be the Night Stalker” seemed reasonable enough at the time, and I still remember the password my mom made up.

However, it’s gotten to the point that I’m beginning to lose the ability to decide what is a reasonable warning and what isn’t. Whether it’s because I’ve chosen to ignore so many warnings, or I’m just being flooded with too many to give them enough attention to make sure I’m appropriately terrified of the world, I will continue to ignore most of the warnings people barf all over me. And besides, Ben and Jerry put cookie dough into ice cream so how could something so amazing, versatile, and de-freaking-licious ever give me worms?

Welcome Lee Jensen to the Indie team

Tue, 19 Oct 2010 14:36:27 -0400

We’re very excited to announce that last week Lee Jensen officially joined the Indie Labs team. Lee comes to us from Engine Yard, one of the top Ruby on Rails hosting services out there, and he’ll be working his coding magic on Big Cartel and Pulley, as well as trying to keep our growing number of servers happy.

The American Dollar

Tue, 19 Oct 2010 11:32:00 -0400

Lately, Chance and I have been listening to The American Dollar while we work. Nice ambient instrumentals. And they’re offering pay-what-you-want album downloads over here, so go check them out.

This is the story about the story of the 100,000th Big Cartel store (Part 1)

Mon, 18 Oct 2010 17:48:00 -0400

I got a text from Lillian Crowe right before she hopped on the subway saying she would lose service for a bit and she would shoot me a note when she resurfaced. I wrote down a few questions about her products and background and admired her logo, a monogram made of rope curling into the initials L C.

I’d looked at her logo and shop a bit as i worked on some ideas for our 100,000th customer virtual balloon drop. I was really excited to talk to her and see where her creativity and inspiration came from. She got out of the subway, sent me a text, and I called her to do a little voice to voice phone interview. She was, of course, really nice, charismatic and passionate about her craft. She was driving a friend’s car through Brooklyn and gave me little warnings along the way, of possible road rage outbursts as she drove through a battlefield of Brooklyn drivers.

We talked for a while about her background and I could hear how much she loved being in and around New York. I mentioned that her products reminded me a bit of relics an ancient civilization would leave behind, only to be found by aliens visiting a deserted planet. They have this magnetic mystery to them and i think that’s part of her charm. I told her we would love to sponsor her store and would be delivering a little gift, she thanked me generously and we set up a delivery time.

A few days later, after some phone tag and delivery orchestration, I had a baker and a photographer from Brooklyn heading to meet our girl at her studio. It was a gorgeous day in New York and everything came together perfectly. The cake was delivered with only a minor set back/logo reversal-

The photographer (Amy Angelo) and Lillian got along great and sent us a batch of shots documenting the day.

(check out our flickr at: flickr.com/photos/indielabs for some more photos from the cake delivery.)

Then it came down to designing the spreads with the right tone. The interview article was originally planned to feel more like a magazine. I imagined editorial spreads that could be clicked through from page to page to feel a bit more casual, like some Sunday morning reading. The shots we received from the photographer had a color scheme inherently woven through them, i used the pinks, blues and grays to create a feel of nostalgia. The type I used had that same intention.

I used Didot, a more traditional, French typeface, then set it with minimal linespacing and a vocabulary of more contemporary visual styles. We started to feel like the piece could definitely be infused with more interactivity and came up with some ideas using some inspiring, online type tools. I worked closely with Chance as he took what I designed and gave it some life…. (stay tuned for part 2)

I finished some pieces for a group show at Blonde Grizzly in...

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 19:51:53 -0400

I finished some pieces for a group show at Blonde Grizzly in downtown SLC themed “Classic Monsters”.

Wolfman title:“My best friend’s Dad turned into a Werewolf. After that his parents divorced.”

Mummy title: “I found a Mummy in my grandma’s basement. I knew that smell came from somewhere.”

If you’re in SLC this friday come check em out live.