Robots in Orbit

Retro Fabrics Promise You the Future

2007-05-13T21:55:00.000-07:00

Our retro line really recalls the very best of 1950’s graphics. The 50s weren’t all hip and cool – like most decades, even the 50’s fabric was dominated by florals. But when a designer did diverge, what a marvelous thing it was!

You can see the history of florals in some retro prints – but now the floral motifs are reinterpreted as amoebid blobs, highly stylized leaves and flowers that start to seem mechanical. In contrast, often mechanical and scientific figures – TVs, airplanes, antennae, tubes, atomic symbols - are drawn as biomorphic – given the contours and lines related to flora and fauna. Take the famous 50’s graphic design of the boomerang – it originated as a reinterpretation of the delta wing jet aircraft, but it flings across the fabric like a living thing.

Fabulous Fabrics of the 50s (and Other Terrific Textiles of the 20s, 30s, & 40s) by Gideon Bosker (Author), Michele Mancini (Author), John Gramstad (Author), Bruce Beaton (Photographer) (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0811835200/ref=ord_cart_shr/104-6780178-3390323?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance) contains several pages of authentic fabric that clearly originated our own collection. This book attributes the sources of inspiration, or in some cases the very designs themselves to modern artists Jean Arp, Joan Miro and Harry Bertoia. For samples of their work:

Jean Arp – Strasbourg born sculptor – retrospectives of his artwork were being held in the 50s. http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_works_8_0.html
Joan Miro, a Spanish surrealist painter and sculptor
http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_works_109_0.html
Harry Bertoia Italian-born American Abstract Sculptor and Designer, 1915-1978
http://bertoiaharry.com/sculptures.html

It is regrettable that Fabulous Fabrics of the 50s contains only a few pages of retro fabrics, and probably less than 1/3rd of the book contains 50s fabrics at all! Most of the book is dominated by florals from the 20s, 30s and 40s in order to trace the evolution of the 50's floral design.

The 1950s embodied an exciting post-war utopia built on a new scientific and mechanical frontier. The exhilarating new iconography embodied this dynamism that represented the promise of a new future. Wear one of our retro shirts and represent that very dream.

It’s Quiet Here in Space

2007-05-08T20:57:00.000-07:00

Yes, the Robots have been off-line as far as blogging goes for a while. It’s kind of like we’ve been holding our breath, waiting to find out if we’re going to make it into Comic-Con as a vendor or not. A lot of marketing strategy relied on meeting our target audience there.

And the outlook is bad. It seems that this is only the 2nd year that Comic-con has sold out it’s booth space. First time vendors are basically screwed, and return vendors have not sent in as many cancellations as the Comic-con staff first predicted. Robots in Orbit is one of 19 vendors on a waiting list- they won't tell me my actual # in line. This is because I think they want to pick and choose who they invite as the cancels come in so they control which new vendors join the floor.

The staff told us to call back in 3 weeks. We can also try contacting vendors who did get booths to find out if anyone wants to lease us part of their space, but if you’ve been to Comicon I’m sure you’re thinking that that is pretty unlikely.

Sigh. More on Comic-con later.

Colmmander bot out.

La Loteria

2007-01-19T21:39:00.000-08:00

Several years ago I held a Halloween/Day of the Dead party and strung up postcards of El Diablo and El Muerte, authentic folkart cards from the Mexican deck of La Loteria. I remember thinking that these would make great figures on a shirt for my husband.

I practically jumped up and down in my seat when I came across fabulous fabric featuring 24 of the La Loteria cards! I almost wanted to take credit for comming up with the idea years ago!

La loteria is an old game of chance played throughout Mexico originating back in the eighteenth century. It is in fact, Bingo – but played with symbols rather than numbers. As in Bingo, players receive cards with 16 symbols on it, while a caller pulls out cards from 54 different symbols. As the cards are being called out, the first person to get four pictures in a row, either vertically, horizontally or diagonally sings out ¡LOTERIA, LOTERIA!

La loteria is still played at festivals and carnivals, still using the original 54 symbols drawn in that folkish style that makes many Americans think that they are fortune telling cards. But don’t let “bingo” deflate the mystery these cards inspire – in some areas, like Oaxaca, poetic verses are shouted out, for example:the devil"I'm the devil and I've arrivedalthough you can't see me;I haven't come to borrow,not even to eat."and the dandy:"Don Ferruco is a dandy,who wears an overcoat.and as he turned the cornerhe fell with his face into the mud."

Make up your own odd, suggestively illuminating brain teaser of a phrase when someone stops you in your La Loteria shirt and inquires about the meaning of particular card.

Here’s ours about The Watermelon

Eat a watermelon seed and find
A tiny would-be paradise
Poking your insides

Robots at Christmas

2006-12-27T16:03:00.000-08:00

What did the Robots receive for Christmas?

Robot ornaments, of course. Thank you Aunt Nancy!

Hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable holiday, whatever you celebrate and however you celebrated!

Follow the Dots

2006-12-17T21:35:00.000-08:00

I was first introduced to Aboriginal art when I backpacked through Australia with my sister – oh, the college years! Even in Australia though, I never came across anything as cool as our 2 new Aboriginal shirts. Sure, you could get some Aboriginal X-ray art or Dot Dot art on a T-shirt, but they hadn’t incorporated the art into sophisticated fashion.

Aborginal art, like all native art, is symbolic and ritualistic, both in it’s execution and in the meaning behind the finished piece. Our shirts represent two of three styles of Aboriginal art. X-ray art, from the Northern Territory, displays “cross-sections” of animals – showing the animal’s skeleton and viscera. I painted my own X-ray Aboriginalesque art on the door in our den – featuring a kangaroo with her joey. X-ray is my favorite and our Skink and Frog shirt utilizes this style.

Dot painting creates symbols and patterns with dots, which according to one resource I read was heavily developed after the 1970s when Aboriginal artists wanted to protect their sacred art from outsiders and began to cover their symbolic paintings with dots which helped mask the original, sacred picture. I can’t comment on the credibility of that source, but it’s an interesting story. Our Sacred Snake print is done in the dot dot style.

The third style features stenciling objects, particularly handprints, and then creates patterns around these stencils.

It’s hard to find good reference material on Aboriginal art on the internet, which surprises me. Guess we’ll have to make a trip to our favorite Art & Architecture book store, Hennessey & Ingalls, in Santa Monica’s promenade.

Anyway, check out our Aboriginal shirts - designed by Aboriginal Artists, the fabric manufactured in Australia! That's authentic!

Quick orbital dispatch

2006-12-12T10:26:00.000-08:00

The robots are quite busy with our holiday season and not blogging much, but I wanted to remind everyone that shipping deadlines for receiving shirts before Christmas are approaching.

UPS suggests the following dates as a cut-off for guaranteed delivery before Christmas
UPS Ground, Monday, Dec. 15th
2nd Day Air, Wednesday, Dec. 20th
Next Day Air, Thursday, Dec. 21st

USPS recommends the following
Priority Dec. 20th
Express Dec. 23th

Now, I'd subtract a few days from the rather optimistic USPS dates myself, just to be safe.

Happy Holidays everyone!

New shirts to whet the appetite

2006-12-05T10:11:00.000-08:00

Especially because of issues like the previous post by Commanderbot, we don't know if we can get these 8 new shirts under the wire for Christmas. Best to make sure they're done correctly than rush something less than high-quality to market.

But when they do arrive, you can look forward to 3 new Asian Kanji designs, a beautiful Chinese Dragon on cream design, 2 Aboriginal dot dot pattern shirts for the Adventure collection, and 2 Retro geometric designs.

I'll try to get fabric sample pictures up soon.
--Designbot

Bumps in orbit

2006-12-04T10:35:00.000-08:00

You think you've finally hit a routine that works - a nice safe orbit, no more fiddling with this or that. You've gone through several production runs with the same cutter, same sewer....but a friend warned me that you can never take your eyes off any step in the production line, no matter how many times you've successfully circled the earth.

This weeks our cutter messed up, and once the fabric is cut, that's it. We've got 8 new shirts coming up and evidently we won't be offering any Smalls or 3Xs. : ( Well, truth be told the majority of orders are for L and XL, then M & 2X....but still it's upsetting.

Sigh.

Commanderbot out.

New shirts just in time for Christmas

2006-11-20T09:00:00.000-08:00

50s Retro Shirt in Black

Bad to the Bone Pirate Shirt in Black

Bad to the Bone Pirate Shirt in Parchment

Dreams of Phuket Map shirt
Big thanks to our model Mike Tice.

Google's Analytics bot, I'd like to talk to you too

2006-11-20T08:33:00.000-08:00

Pouring through Google Analytics data isn't just a fun pastime for robots, but a vital part of business. Not that I want to be the one doing it. I just want to make pretty pictures.

Designbot here.

But when I was checking out the "Network Location" of various visits, I noticed a very, very strange thing. A great deal of hits were coming from a single company listing. That company was "Travis Correll and Company." Luckily, the internet being what it is, I checked out the company.

Ouch, it's a person and company accused of investment fraud on a global scale. That can't be good. Question immediately computed in my circuits. "Are we being hacked? Are we being used to send spam somehow? Is someone setting up something trying to use us?" The mind spins at the thought.

So, being a good bot, I looked further. Seems that the location of the hits doesn't correspond to the other side of the country where this company is. They come from where we are. Also, the hits go back to the beginning of the site, before any one knew about it. I do some tests and make what might be a worse discovery.

Our local machine is being listed as an IP for this felony-charged company.

Great. So is it spyware? 4 programs and counting say we're still free of spyware as usual. Are we being blacklisted for spam sending? No. What other negative effect might this be having? I don't know.

Asking a few friendbots that do more regular networking work, we seem to think that Google somehow is accessing some invalid database entry, connecting our IP to this company. Most normal DNS and IP searches don't make this connection, but Google Analytics does.

Bad, bad Analytics bot. Not only do we not know this person, we don't want to, and new nothing about him until making this discovery. Now we have to see if there's some way to get this situation righted.

Luckily this has nothing to do with the actual website, but this can't be a good thing.

Now I've got two Googlebots to have a long talk with about getting their datasets straight.

Meet some relatives...

2006-11-16T15:01:00.000-08:00

Bennett Robot Works robots are "made from a mixture of found objects which are both old and new...Each one is a one-of-a-kind sculpture."

They take a month to build and are beautiful.

New shirts debriefing now

2006-11-16T09:27:00.000-08:00

They're cooling off after re-entry and getting a final clearance to be released.

Designbot here.

Hopefully Commanderbot will have more to say on this, but new shirts have arrived after some slight-button related delays, and I'll be getting together with another wonderful volunteer model to get some pictures taken, then we can put them on the website. Also 5 more designs went to the cutters to start the magical process of being made into shirts.

A big thanks to our models, Sohbi, Roger, Aaron (go buy his DVDs) and (hopefully Commanderbot's already asked) Mike.

We were asked early on the rather blunt question: "Why not get younger models?"

Well, we like the idea that normal humans, not models, wear our shirts. So we went looking for friends that looked good in our shirts, not models. That being said, if you look good in our shirt, email us a picture and we'd be happy to consider putting it on the site. Like Commanderbot says, "No one is not...whatever enough to wear our shirts." Not young, not cool, not high enough level.

Robots are eagalitarian that way.

I'm looking forward to getting this latest batch out and available to the good humans down on Earth.

PS-It's asked a lot so we've mentioned it on Tiki Central, but we're going to try and get some good Tiki prints. We just don't see any that thrill us out of what's available right now. Please, if you see something cool, transmit to us immediately. Long term, we're setting up a plan to do our own designs. More news as that progresses.

Google's Adbot, a brief word please?

2006-11-14T17:53:00.000-08:00

Google Adwords. The 800 pound gorilla of web advertising. Love it or hate it, most people use it.

Designbot here, with a bit of a rant about Adwords.

So, all our ads were running nicely for a while, showing off our shirts to potential customers, until WHAM! most of our campaigns came to a halt. Checking Adwords, Google tells us several ads have been disapproved for "Trademark use".

Trademark use? Hmm, OK. Let's look at an ad:

Atomic Shirts
for a brighter future.
Retro, Asian, astro, pirate - cool!
www.robotsinorbit.com

I'm going to give that ad a B, with points off for "cool!" which I overuse myself all day long.

But can you spot the Trademark usage? Anyone, anyone? Bueller?

Apparently, according to Google, pirate and astro are trademark violations.

Sorry, does not compute. Pirate??? Astro??? I suppose the shirts we make with a treasure map, galleons and little men with hooks for hands and parrots on them could be freebooters, or buccaneers instead, but I wasn't aware the word Pirate was a trademark.

And shirts with stars, planets, galaxies and nebulae. I guess I should have crammed all that into 35 characters instead of astro. Looks like boring old, "space" will be coming to a Robots in Orbit ad soon.

Designbot thinks perhaps Google's Adbot is a little thick in the head and heavy handed.

Perhaps an AI upgrade is needed. We don't sell shirts for the Houston Astros, or Pittsburgh Pirates, and even if we did, we're not using these words in any other way than the generic sense. That's the only trademarks I could think that were close.

And Designbot isn't even a baseball fan.

Now, it's not a huge deal. It's not like being sued over it, or arrested or something. There's far worse situations of legal accusations. But there's already plenty hard obstacles to overcome in getting your business up on the web. Bogus limitations on the language in ads due to stupid legally paranoid automatic analysis should not be part of those obstacles. It's just one of those little things that compiles with a lot of other little things into big companies controlling what the little guy can do or not. Copyright issues, trademarks, intellectual property, all these things start adding up.

And this is assuming this problem came from a bot. I'd like to think some person wasn't actually responsible for this error.

It's certainly enough to make us continue investigating other advertising venues than Adwords. But it's also tiring to deal with. We've got enough on our plates.

We'll keep you updated once we get an official response from Google.

update: A nice *actual* person from Google emailed to apologize and say they found no trademark infringement, and they would restore the ads to allowed status. No explanation as to why after the ads were running for weeks that this would happen, but we'll take what we can get.

The Pickin's Are Slim

2006-11-11T16:03:00.000-08:00

Before we’d even sold our first shirt I was already viewing the next line of fabrics for 2007. There is no set season for fabric manufacturers to debut their new prints – some companies do two large roll-outs each year, others release them one-by-one. However, Houston based QuiltMart at the end of October is the prime market for the types of fabrics we buy (yes dear customers, you’re wearing “quilting fabric”) so if new prints are going to be released in the 4th quarter of the year, they’re going to do it in time for QuiltMart. At a post-QuiltMart, LA based textile show I was able to view most of the new lines and the PICKIN’S ARE SLIM! There is only one company I placed an order with, but everything else was –blah-. *Sigh* That’s why, when a great fabric does come out, you have to jump on it.

But rather than worry about our future inventory, perhaps I should just concentrate on praying that our current inventory sells! Wait, do robots pray?

-Commanderbot

Nothing says "Love" like sharing

2006-11-10T14:50:00.000-08:00

Designbot is moderately old.

My grandmotherbot trained people across the country in this brand new piece of technology that would (get this!) run your credit card through a magnetic reader, and call over the phone to verify and make a charge to it. Something all new and bleeding edge!

My grandfatherbot was one of the many talented engineers who made sure that Apollo 13 got back to Earth, and Viking gave us a glimpse of Mars.

I used to draw Star Trek scenes on teletype paper brought home by them and play programmer with punch cards.

Being a little bot and all, it was hard not to be enamored of cutting edge technology.

One of my favorite parts of new technology has been the ability to have far-flung groups of people be able to connect and form communities. From connecting to BBSs at 300 baud, to the wide variety of "social networking" software we have today.

It's no surprise then that I spend a fair amount of time on aggregate sites checking out cool new things, or that you'll now see links to Technorati and del.icio.us on our blog. I remember when a good links page was like gold on the web, and I love adding to ours when I find something wonderful out there. And I love the idea of making us easier to connect with using these new tools.

Not just because I hope we will sell shirts, but because we might make someone's day a little lighter if they see a goofy robot costume on our site, or read about the travails of buying something as simple as buttons.

I've said for a long time the web is filled with amazing things, but what will make it really valuable is tools that make those things easy to find. I think we're finally getting to that stage of web evolution.

So, long those lines, feel free to drop us a line with any cool things you've found and want to share.

The Imperfections of Human Flight

2006-11-07T10:22:00.000-08:00

Robots don't worry about security - after all they'd set off every alarm possible walking through the gate.

But humans are obsessed. I had to go on a business trip yesterday to Iowa (my day job - yes, the bots have day jobs outside of Robots in Orbit). I haven't taken an overnight trip in 2 years, and just tossed some clothes into my bag with the same old travel toiletries I've been hauling for the last 10yrs.

And of course, I got pulled over going through security because of all my illegal toiletries not in a ziplock bag. My error - I gave the guard no grief, but just said OK, OK, OK as he told me everything he was going to throw away. So why did I have to sit through a 5 min lecture about how important his job is and if I knew what he knew then I would know something about how important his job is or something or other. The funny thing was that when he got to the bottom of my bag and found that I did carry an empty ziplock bag with me, and I pointed out that he could put my stuff in that, per the rules, and not toss my stuff out he hmmed and hawwed and seemed put out by that! Lucky for him that not everything fit, so he made me “select” which items I wanted (I couldn’t touch them, so he had to hold them up for me to read what each bottle was – purposely holding everything upside down I think) and he still had the glee of tossing several sample size shampoos out.

My question: how does a ziplock back make “unsafe” items safe? Couldn’t a terrorist just put his stuff in a ziplock bag and skate through?

Upon reaching my destination and unpacking I discovered that the security guard had missed a 2nd toiletry bag I evidently kept in an inner pocket and a 6oz bottle of chloreseptic throat spray.

Yah, I feel so much safer when flying now.

From the Mailbot...

2006-11-05T17:11:00.000-08:00

Let's start a new feature: From the Mailbot

From Red Robot:
First, why offer shirts to pathetic humans at all? Second, where are Mediums and Smalls?

Thanks for writing, Red Robot. I think our About the Robots covers the first question. As for the second, Mediums and Smalls for selected sizes are at the factory being made right now and should be back in a week or so. We started with the larger sizes to cover what we think most of the demand will be in, then followed with some smaller sizes once the first rounds were done.

There's a few shirts where we just didn't have the fabric to make more than we've got, so you wont see any other sizes in those.

From Bender:
I love the pirate treasure map shirt. But I'd really be in Robot Heaven if you had a skull and crossbones design. Then I could get both and flaunt them over Fry and Leela!

Have no fear, a skull and crossbone design, over black, and over red is on its way. We couldn't ignore the classics.

From Jhansaansasa:
Dear reader, I have come upon a large inheranance of Arcturan Star Gems, and am looking for a partner to help me exchange these for Earth cash...

I think that's all the time we have for From the Mailbot, so keep those emails coming, and we'll do this again real soon.

Mailbot...send complete

Distant Halloween Cousins

2006-11-03T09:38:00.000-08:00

From Wired's Techie Halloween Costumes:

Most really didn't have much to do with tech, but for some reason these appealed.

Nicely done.

and the Robots are in Orbit!

2006-11-01T22:38:00.000-08:00

It's a soft launch - you just pop the website onto the world wide web and give yourself a few days to contemplate it before actually advertising it. We're telling some friends and family to get initial feedback. Soft launches fool you - you don't feel like you've live yet, so the reality hasn't sunk in yet. And when I say reality, I mean FEAR! Rampaging doubt, panic and oh-my-god-what-the-hell-have-we-done?

Ssshh, don't tell anyone, but I don't actually have the shirts yet. I should have them by Monday - which is when we'll probably begin sinking even more money into this through search engine advertising.

Well, orbit is making me a bit dizzy right now so I'm going to sign off - will chat more tomorrow.

Commanderbot out.

T-Minus 1...

2006-10-31T21:13:00.000-08:00

Final testing and polishing being done. Then maybe I can get some rest.

Designbot here.

It's exciting and terrifying to get this thing finally going and soon in front of the public. I'm sure there's things I've missed that will quickly be revealed; I only hope I haven't botched something really important.

Now that a lot of technical issues have been addressed and set up, I can take another look at design and artistic ones (which is a lot more fun).

Oh, and there's the day job which will soon interfere.

I'm very happy that as much of my design on paper and Photoshop was able to be preserved in the real site. Hopefully it will assist in featuring the clothes, since that's what really matters.

The shirts really do rock, no matter what my contribution. :)

Happy Halloween, All Saint's Day, and Day of the Dead, or whatever else you decide to celebrate in this season!

And now for something completely different...

2006-10-28T22:01:00.000-07:00

www.plushbot.com

What's not to love there?

And for some light reading: That's not my robot...

(Ok, maybe reading for 1 year old....)

T-Minus 5...

2006-10-26T22:32:00.000-07:00

Pictures being FTP'd.
Shirts arriving.
Text being polished.

Designbot here.

The website is finally really moving forward, which the last hurdles being, um, hurdled.

PayPal still needs setting up, which is dependent on a few bank things aligning into place, but credit card tests have been successfully done. Shipping decisions have been made, and thanks to the appallingly Byzantine FedEx rate structure, we've dropped them as a shipper altogether.

(Sorry boys, if your live returned FedEx rates are different than your website rates, which are different that the rates you quoted me, sometimes as much as $10 off a pound, I don't have the time and inclination to program that all to work in a way that doesn't rip off the customer by over charging. Hello UPS!)

The last piece needing some decisions before execution is the 800 number.

Then we can start to test the whole thing and kick the tires a bit.

Steps within steps within steps

2006-10-22T21:11:00.000-07:00

Designbot here.

The web equivalent of How many steps does it take to make a shirt? is what I've been going through to get the site up and running.

As a slight disclaimer, I've been quite happy with our website host, and it's nice to be able to get support at 11pm on a Saturday night assisting with technical issues.

But this is typical of my day: On the website help, getting live UPS pricing is listed as requiring no sign-up and just works. After seeing it *not* work, looking up on the forums for the host reveals that you've got to contact customer service to get it running. Fine, that's ok.

Customer service was kind enough to offer an email saying that, indeed, you do have to have a UPS account (fine, we had one anyway), and request a code from UPS to be sent to the host for the shipping to work.

OK, I go to UPS, log in to get that piece of code. UPS says you have to do a second set of registering, and request an access key, which is emailed to you after they approve the request. Fine, I do that too.

Once the request is approved, the next day, I can go back into the website, and enter that code in, to get a the new code for the shipping info. Once I get *that* code, I can email it to my hosting company, and they can finally get that information into their back end.

*Then* I can get live pricing information from UPS. And that's been one of the short processes to get things running.

I'm looking forward to stepping back from the computer for a bit and doing, well, anything else.

The Land of Fruit and Buttons

2006-10-16T14:51:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in a earlier post, all of those buttons on your clothing were 95% likely to have been manufactured in China. So, I decided to check into buying my buttons directly from China – adding in air shipping it is 1/3 the cost. My expensive .13 cent each wood buttons (yes, buttons on my shirt are outrageously expensive!) have now become .03 cents (and that includes shipping). So guess who I’m ordering from now? I feel so international! : )

Commanderbot out.

Grinding the gears of ecommerce

2006-10-12T16:06:00.000-07:00

Designbot here.

The website is officially moving forward. Subscriptions have been purchased, applications have been filled out, and many a FAQ has been read and reread.

Still, seemingly thousands of issues remain.

Can we afford an 800 number?
Do we try to arrange some sort of live support on the site?
Which shippers should we narrow down to?
Do we open up to international sales and shipping?
Is is worth supporting PayPal, AmEx and Discover?
What's our return policy?

While I'd like to keep just to the aesthetic issues, much of this interrelates to the layout and content of the website, so I can't not pay attention. Well, that and I deal with most of the technical issues anyway.

If I hadn't been working 100+ hour weeks on the day job that's helping fund this little adventure, I'm sure much of this would have been done earlier. But even robots can't make more than 24 hours in a day.

And I haven't even got to the part where I see if my precious little css styled layout for the site will actually work with the shopping cart software....

What’s Your Size?

2006-10-09T12:35:00.000-07:00

Apparently when it comes to men’s casual camp shirts (camp shirt is the style type we’ll be selling – a Hawaiian shirt is also a camp shirt) shirt size is completely unique to the manufacturer. After pulling a few shirts from our production line we begin to get this panicky feeling that they were all too big – we double checked our measurements and our pattern maker had stayed true to the sample shirts I had brought her. After doing another round of research we came to the distressing conclusion that any one size can vary by up to 7 inches, depending on the maker. 7 inches is a lot. We’ve decided that we don’t want to be on the large end of the spectrum, but right in the middle where it’s safe, so we’re upgrading each of our sizes by 1 size….which means I’m now missing our smallest size. So it’s back to the grader for a new size, the marker for a new marker, the fabric factories for some extra yardage….etc., etc. Sigh. Hopefully all mistakes we’ll only make once. So I can’t wait for our next, new mistake.

CommanderBot out.

How Many Trips Does it Take to Make a Shirt?

2006-09-22T17:27:00.000-07:00

Apply a multiplier of 3 to the number of trips you think you’ll have to make to get anything done. I’m sure many industries are like this, it’s just my first time in one which requires this much face-to-face time – and has so many screw-ups that require revisits. Every time I think I’m being smart I’m foiled. Example: I set up a meeting with a sewer who tells me he can do a sample for me so I can check his quality. Fully 3 months into my venture, for the first time I’m all set – I’ve got my pattern, my fusing, my fabric, my labels and my buttons. I arrive – he looks at me and says you have to go to a cutter to get it cut. For just a sample? A single shirt? Aren’t cutters really just for production? OK – I go get it cut for $25 when production cost is about 60 cents! I return and bring with me a completely sewn sample shirt so they can copy their sample from that. Except that my pattern calls for vents at the side (a side slit up 3 inches up from the bottom) – and the sample shirt I’ve brought doesn’t have that. Piece of cake – NOPE. He won’t do it. I’ve got to go to a professional sample maker to get a sample shirt made so that he in turn can make me a sample. Is that crazy or what? This is really why apparel isn’t profitable – the time suck.

Commanderbot Out.

Apparel Industry is in Hiding

2006-09-21T15:06:00.000-07:00

When setting up an appointment to visit anybody in the apparel industry after asking for their address you need to always remember to ask for the secret instructions on actually locating them at that address. Is there a back entrance and a secret knock? Is it right turn, right turn, left turn to get through the maze? Do I scale a wall to the roof and descend through a hole from there?

You think I exaggerate? Ok, just a bit – but here’s the truth. When you’re lost in slightly skuzzier areas of LA and you pass buildings that have no signage, bars over the windows and doors, some graffiti and trash on the outside and you assume that it’s an empty building and who would be crazy enough to lease it anyway – well that’s where an apparel manufacturer is set-up!

But back to my first point - you can’t enter through the front door –it’s rusted over and hasn’t been used since the day it was built. You’ve got to hunt through backdoors in alleys, calling between the bars “Is this So-and-So Apparel?” Answer: No, no, no – and finally, YES! I’ve yet to see the company name posted on the outside. In one case I had to wander through truck docks, past Wholefood’s downtown warehouse depot (interesting), meander through 2 buildings, and finally after I decided to ignore a 2nd floor map that didn’t have the address listed as residing there – there it was. So ignore building floorplans. In another instance, I had to find a secret ramp on the side of the building that lead my car up to the roof – apparently they didn’t have stairs?

Why is the apparel industry in hiding? No, none of these have been sweatshops. That appearance is on the outside only. I’ve always found them to be reasonably clean and organized on the inside with men and women of varying ages, none of them chained to their machines. So are they hiding from random drive-bys from competing gang-banging sewers sporting matching embroidered jean-jackets? Shop-a-holics trying to go right to the source to get their fix? Alien abductions because we all know you can’t get a decent tailored suit in space – you’ve seen those bulky astronaut outfits! ???

Well, the apparel industry has finally filled in one hole for me – the, who the hell would work in this area and why are there so many empty buildings here? Perhaps next time I’ll move on to my other unanswered questioned – are all of these storefronts for stores on streets like LaBrea, with signage and goods in the window but that are never ever opened- just money laundering and drug sales fronts?

Commanderbot out.

Search for the Holy Button - Success!

2006-09-06T09:26:00.000-07:00

Commanderbot here.

After weeks of searching; unanswered phone calls; false leads...finally we could sense that we were nearing our elusive goal - buttons. I found one company that only sold plastic buttons that they dye to match the fabric. This worked for some of our prints - mostly those that just required black or navy buttons. And it's awesomely cheap too. But many of our prints demanded something special - while at the same time nothing too ornate because you don't want the button to compete with the print. I really wanted some nice wood buttons - a natural material in natural colors that indicate that this shirt is not store bought.

Finally I found the company that was everything I envisioned - sample books full of buttons - mother-of-pearl, bone, coconut, bamboo, wood, animal horn, metal, plastic, pearl.....within 5 minutes I had located exactly what I wanted. Of course, these buttons are very expensive - 14 cents each compared to 1 cent plastic buttons. But I think they are necessary.

The button company imports their buttons from China (per an earlier post we've already explained that most of the world's buttons are made there) - along with importing furniture sized geodes and other mineral formations. That's right, while shopping for buttons I could have picked myself up a stalagmite the size of an armoire, a glittering amethyst geode the size of a TV, or a quartz crystal cluster the size of one of my children. Somehow this combination of goods seemed natural to me - a cosmic merchandising balance between a very tiny product and a very heavy one.

Commanderbot out.

MAGIC hurt my toe

2006-09-05T20:47:00.000-07:00

Commanderbot here.

My scouting expedition to the fashion industry's convention, MAGIC, added much information to my database. In seeking out wares from my competition it was difficult to determine if I should be foraging in "Men's", "Young Men's", "Casual Men's" or "Streetware"......but "Casual Men's" turned out to be the goldmine. There are some great products out there but locating them in the sea of retail stores, online stores, etc. just mimics how lost I felt at MAGIC.

Unfortunately, the day ended with an automatic door running over my toe and the disappearance of my lovely, very expensive, did I mention lovely?, mobile phone on the plane home. : ( Some cleaning crew person is enjoying the best and only reliable mobile phone I've ever owned. *sigh*

Robots hit the strip

2006-08-27T19:36:00.000-07:00

Commanderbot here.

Designbot made an oath ten years ago never to land in Las Vegas again, sickened by the late night gamblers still sipping their free alcohol at 7am, the maddening mazes hotels are purposely designed to be, etc., etc. So I'll be doing this fly-by alone. It's for MAGIC - the apparel industry's biggest convention. MAGIC was originally the Men's Apparel Guild in California but ~~Designbot read that it is a company in India that is now doing the organizing behind the convention. So an Indian company orchestrating a convention in Las Vegas? That's sure thinking global.~~
(I did read that somewhere, but I now think it's totally wrong--DB)

Maybe at MAGIC I'll be able to finally find those buttons that elude me. If nothing else, I'm hoping for an inaugeration into the apparel industry - that it will give me more confidence when I'm on the phone with the factory stuttering when they ask me what my preferred interfacing is as though everyone has a preferred interfacing. Because once I've been to MAGIC, well I'll be one of them, right? OK, maybe not. Maybe it takes more than one convention. But I'm going to be getting up at 4am and spending a very FULL day trying to soak in as much as I can.

Did somebody say buttons?

2006-08-24T20:06:00.000-07:00

Designbot may have located the world's largest button-creating city, but why is it so frickin' impossible to find an actual wholesaler of buttons here in the US? Do a web engine search and for buttons you'll get tons of sites selling campaign buttons, not shirt buttons.

Tomorrow I'll be visiting a wholesaler that I finally got a reference for, but they've already warned me that anything outside of the very very basic button will take 3 weeks to custom make. 3 weeks? The problem with buttons is that you can't choose your buttons until you choose your fabric- and unless you want to match a button to just a picture of your fabric (which for colored fabrics doesn't work), it takes 1 - 2 wks to receive in-stock fabric. Of course actually cutting & sewing the shirts is another 3-4 wks. Oh, and logo shirt labels are 2-3 wks. So you need somewhere around 2 - 3 months to produce your apparel, not counting time for pattern making - marking - grading and sample making. According to a friend in the apparel industry, he can get stuff pumped out in like a week, but he's working with non-buttoned, T-shirt type garments which seems to me a whole different game.

Commanderbot out

Right on the button

2006-08-22T08:54:00.000-07:00

Designbot here.

Did you know that 60% of the world's buttons come, not from a single country, but a single town in a country (that country being China, of course).

I certainly didn't, until listening to an NPR story detailing Qiaotou, which has 200 factories just producing buttons for the world.

Makes you wonder when you're sourcing said buttons how there are so many places to buy from as middle-men, and such a variety of prices, when they're coming from the same place?

The global economy is a strange place indeed.

Prints of Wails

2006-08-17T10:09:00.000-07:00

Designbot here.

The other chicken and egg scenario Commanderbot didn't mention, is one of actually choosing the prints for the shirts.

Fabric manufacturers make prints for the general public around twice a year. They select their designs, do a manufacturing run, and bring the fabric to market. Unless you're a big operation ordering thousands of yards so you can request a new printing, or the print is insanely popular, that's it. That's all the fabric they will ever make, and they sell it until it's gone and move on.

Puts boutique places like us in a bind. First we have to make some estimates on what's popular before we even make a shirt and guess the total amount we'll ever sell before we sell one. Then, what we order will most likely become the maximum we can sell, unless the stock lasts at the fabric manufacturers long enough for us to buy and make more.

It's unfortunate, but when you see a shirt you like on the website, you'll have to get it while it's hot. Everything will be limited-edition, not because we're creating an artificial shortage, but because that's probably all we'll ever have the chance to make for you. We'll certainly try to get more of what turns out to be popular, but there wont be any guarantees.

In the long-term, we intend on creating our own custom-print that no one else will have. But we'll talk about that and the issues involved some other time.

What came first - the fabric or the shirt?

2006-08-16T20:31:00.000-07:00

CommanderBot Here

I imagine you hit these little paradoxes when starting a new company no matter what industry you are in. Here's the apparel industry's chicken and egg story:

How much does it cost to manufacture a man's shirt? In order to get a quote I need to bring the factory a sample. In order to get a sample I need to have a factory make one - which means I need to choose my factory before knowing the rates.

Here's another. You have a pattern drafted for your shirt. The next step is to have a sample made to make sure the pattern is what you want. After confirming the pattern you have it marked and graded - which is the process of sizing the pattern for different sizes (M, L, XL...) and making a template for how to cut out the pieces on the fabric. After marking and grading you will know how much yardage you need so you can now order the fabric. There are minimum requirements for ordering fabric -often 100yd for your first order. OK, here's the loop: how do you get a sample made before you know how much yardage you'll need and aren't ready to place an order?

OK, so there are ways around both of the above and once you get past your first production round issues like this disappear, but they cause hiccups along the way for a new manufacturer.

CommanderBot out.

The 345th most important thing about Robots in Orbit

2006-08-07T13:27:00.000-07:00

Designbot here.

Amongst the thousands of decisions we've had to make, are making, and have to make in the future, probably the most important is the fabric selection for the shirts. Maybe Commanderbot can talk about that soon. The least important decision is how many animated GIFs to put on the website (the number being zero, equal to the amount of Flash). Somewhere in the middle is the logo design.

A logo has to look good as black on white, white on black, greyscale, and full color. You've got to be able to make versions that look good on a webpage, a business card, a trade show banner, and new to me, on a garment tag. Until a month ago, I never considered making something that would be legible, and carry a specific design on a sewn shirt tag.

Now, I'm looking at the proof of a sleeve and neck tag, which is just the text version of the logo minus some of the nifty graphics.

And for those who are interested here's the logo, in full-color glory:

I originally prototyped this on numerous pieces of scratch paper showing versions to Commanderbot and getting feedback. Sketching tons of goofy ideas quickly and without a lot of self-critiquing is really the best and only way to start a project like this. And is nearly impossible for me because self-critique is what I do best. But I struck on some ideas I didn't totally slashdot.

Next, I moved to Photoshop before quickly computing the obvious result that I'd really need a vector version of this. I decided as a test, to create the vector version in inkscape a open-source vector graphics program available on Windows and Linux. So far, with just a few days of pawing around in it, it seems pretty solid and easy to pick up. It's worth a look at. I might run into some issues making 4 color separations from it, but we'll cross that circuit when we come to it.

Once I doodled up a logo, it provided the design elements for the text, as well as the basic graphics of the website. The goofy, skewed curves and lines of the robots and the space craft are reflected in what we think about the company and the lettering of the logo (which is a hand-made custom font), and serve as a template for all the rest of the company-related design.

I could go into more pretentious art depth about the logo, let's face it, the logo is really just to stick in your head so you can remember the site when you get back to your browser from seeing it somewhere. The rest is really irrelevant.

And while I don't really have logo design advice per se, I think the most important thing to remember about logo design, or most art projects, is to be sure and listen to some good music while you're doing it.

In this case the cool vibrophone stylings of Les Hommes, who provided auditory inspiration, and general relaxation.

Do robots wear shirts?

2006-08-03T20:36:00.000-07:00

Robots have a right to be stylish too.

Commanderbot here.

The best business ideas are ones that you have a passionate interest in and that serves a niche market. Robots in Orbit really started assembly back in 1993 while shopping in a fabric store. The husband, who only wore black and white, and really hated accompanied me on these fabric forays, shocked me when he approached with a colorful, checkered children's print - featuring robots that appeared to spin and float between the checks. "Will you make me a shirt out of this?" and thus it began.

About 40 something shirts later I didn't want to admit it, but clearly hunting down cool prints and sewing his shirts had clearly become my hobby - wearing these awesome and funky patterns had become his. They expressed his individuality just like T-shirts, but unlike T-shirts the button down camp shirt was appropriate for any occasion - casual, work, nice restaurants.....

But it wasn't until June 2006 that the Robots decided to launch into orbit - that we finally felt passionate enough about our proposed product and sure there was a target audience who would appreciate monkey and pirate shirts (ooh, or monkey pirates?).

Incoming message now so Commanderbot signing off.

Establishing Orbit

2006-08-03T11:15:00.000-07:00

It's bewildering and paralysis inducing to consider all the modern-day options in communicating from up here in our little satellite down to everyone.

Hello world!

Actually the Commanderbot should really be writing the inaugural post for the Robots in Orbit blog, but since I have the assignment of wrangling all tech and design-related matters at the moment, well here we are.

www.robotsinorbit.com will within a few months be selling a selection of Men's shirts. Not the typical striped dress shirts, or even the standard offerings of Hibiscus-print Hawaiian, or multi-stripe bowling shirts, but something different. A little bolder, a littler funkier, with more pirates, tikis, cool lounge and Asian styles than we've seen offered. Which is why we're doing it. It's what we like to see, and wear, and hopefully you will too.

Or else this'll be quite the fiasco :)

This little blog will be to talk about things we like, pull the curtain aside a bit and talk about some of the inner workings the robots.

You know, marketing with a slight veil over it.

But, back to my original point, wow, you can send yourself into an infinite loop with options: Should I hook this up to a Moblog now? Will I really be posting from e-mail that much to need the super-secret email address? What pithy things to put in my profile?

And let's not even get into CSS template styling options. That's what I've been spending the morning just touching the tip of the iceberg. And I suspect we'll go through many, many iterations before I'm satisfied, if ever. The actual website, which is in progress, is even worse.

But here we go. Establishing orbit Fall 2006: Robots in Orbit--Stylish shirts from THE FUTURE.

(oh, this is Designbot, apparently posting from the main account)