Schwags, Addictions and T-Shirts Acquired For Other Reasons

A colleague in the search marketing space with the name Tamar Weinberg had a "coming out" and admit her addition to "SCHWAG", the stuff you get for free at conferences or other promotional items sent to you by companies.

She dedicated a whole blog to her addition where she posted pictures and comments to all her trophies. Guess the name of the blog! ... right SchwagAddict.com! Uh, that was hard.. hehe.

I have some trophies myself. I also extend the definition of Schwag a little bit and include promotional material where I actually paid money for the privilege to carry somebody else's name or logo around for the whole world to see. :)

This pic shows the front of a BuyMusic.com T-Shirt ("get loaded", which has obviously 2 meanings here hehe), a Levelclick shirt, a Techsmith Snag-It Sweatshirt, which reads "Capture, Edit, Share" and can have a double meaning :) ), the front of a CT-Magazine short ("rtfm", which has actually only one meaning), a SES San Jose 2006 shirt, a Mister-Wong.com shirt (top right), a The Party 1997 short where I paid actually money for and a BDN shirt, which I had to earn (I won the fast-ANSI compo at BDN Party 3 in Berlin, Germany). You can also see some other stuff there, such as the "I'am feeling lucky" License Plate frame from Google (which they offered free of charge on their site at some time).



A closer look



Back of the Levelclick t-shirt saying "Stop Guessing Start Earning!" and front of the BuyMusic.com shirt. Also on the picture pens from Techsmith, WebmasterWorld PubCon and TheBlindNetwork.com.



Okay, here you can see what the "rtfm" on the CT-Magazine t-shirt means hehe. I won't spell it out here. CT is a German computer magazine btw., which is great. I still have a subscription and get it delivered here to the U.S.



Again the BDN shirt and a VNV Nation shirt (paid) and a The Party 1998 shirt (also paid). I had to throw away my The Party 1993 and The Party 1994 t-shirts unfortunately. They were damaged beyond repair from wearing them.



Mister-Wong.com shirt (got it via mail for my suggestions and feedback during their U.S. beta), The Party 1997 shirt again ("Batteries not included"), SES shirt and BDN shirt with not so shiny colors anymore.



TP98 shirt, Snag-It sweatshirt back side "take a screenshot, it'll last longer" .. oh ah.. okay hehe. Up in the corner my Star Fleet Academy shirt, which I bought at the Star Trek Experience shop at the Hilton in Las Vegas.



Oh, did I mention that I am a Cirque Du Soleil fan? ;) Here is the proof that I am meaning it! ... but wtf? What does the Google "black shirt" there? Spamming the CDS? God damn it! hehe.



Okay, the shirt on this picture were also all paid for. My deviantArt.com shirt, my Defcon worker shirt (I got two), an "Ex-Sysop" shirt in Amiga Oldskool ASCII characters and the two custom print T-shirts that I had made at Defcon. See my post about it.



So, that's it :)
Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Custom ASCII Art Prints

While I was at DefCon in Las Vegas did I check out a vendor who did custom t-shirts. This stuff is often very cheaply done and the t-shirts don't last very long. Three times washing it and the print would fade out. What caught my interest was the fact that they actually did very professional and high quality print and that for a reasonable price.

I always wanted to have some nice ASCII or ANSI printed on a shirt so I showed them a few ASCIIs and asked them, if they could do it. I am not an expert in this kind of stuff, but it turned out that block ASCII was actually very hard for them to do, because they convert the image to vector graphics first and use that pattern when they do the actual print. They said that the creation of that vector pattern will take forever, because it has to break down all the individual lines. And there are a lot of lines in Block ASCII hehe.

I agreed for the higher price tag, if I can get in return the vector file, which will allow me to do additional copies fairly easy without spending a lot of money. They agreed and said that it will take a while and that it will be impossible to do it right there at the conference and be done the same day. No problem, the conference was still on for another two days so I agreed to give them time until the last day of the show.

The Results
... were pretty amazing. I had them make me two t-shirts, one with a SAC ASCII logo by Hetero and another one with my own Dytec ASCII logo. Here are two photos showing me wearing the t-shirts. The Dytec logo color is a gray, like the original font color in MS DOS. The SAC logo is in bright and shiny white.

Below each photo is a link to the original ASCII art piece on my website for comparison.


See original ASCII


See original ASCII
Pretty cool eh? I was thinking about creating some more t-shirts and may be sell them off my site, but I don't know if there is any interest in that kind of stuff. If you are interested, leave a comment here at my blog to let me know. If enough people are interested, I will consider it. If you can't wait and would like to get the same t-shirts, which I am wearing in those pictures, read the next paragraph.

A Little Gift
I was thinking about it and said to myself "what the heck!". Here are the vectorized versions of the two ASCIIs, which were used for the prints and were the most time consuming and expensive part of the whole process. I zipped them up and the file is about 2 MB in size. The file format is ".ai" whatever that might be, but the shop I used for the prints is able to use them and print additional t-shirts very easily and cheap, because they can load it right into their printing machine without any pre-processing.

ASCII-VectorImages-Print.zip

You can thank me for it by linking to RoySAC.com, making a donation (see any of my arts detail pages) or buying some of my mouse pads or something like that. I nice thank you and a drink (if we ever get a chance to meet in person) will also do I guess hehe.

Where Can You Get Something Like This?
The shop that did the t-shirts also does other types of custom prints. I was asked a few times where you could get ANSI art as a poster or large picture to hang it on to your wall. Here is the answer to that question: custom print. It is not cheap, but it also does not cost an arm and a leg. You also have to worry about a frame. You might want to ask them if they would take care of the framing for you. Keep in mind that a framed picture is harder to ship and would increase the cost for that.

I can recommend the print shop that did the t-shirts for me, it is called LBGFX Solutions. You can visit their website at LGBFX.com. They are located in National City in California. You can also contact the owner directly via email. His name is Liz Dela Cruz and his email is lizdcruz at gmail dot com. Tell them that I recommended him. He will not remember my name, just tell him "the guy with the ASCII prints at DefCon 15" and he will remember :).

Another print shop I know who does this kind of print and also understands what you are talking about if you ask for an "ANSI" to get printed are the guys from ShadowVex for whom I created the custom DefCon ANSI. They are located in Oregon and their website is more or less under construction and promotes their DJ'ing and not their custom printing. They organized the sound and music for one of the official DefCon parties btw. and they do sell t-shirts and a lot of other custom printed merchandizing for DefCon at the conference for over 10 years now. I talked with them about the need of a website and maybe some ecommerce features while I was in Vegas. It is on their to-do list. In the meantime is the best way to contact them via email. The name of the guy is Kevin Whitesmith and his email is Kevin at shadowvex dot com. Say "Hi" from me, if you decide to email him.

Cheaper Alternatives
For simpler prints do you not have to get fancy. I used deviantART for some stuff, like my ASCII and ANSI mouse pads and postcards. I blogged about them last November in greater detail.

Click on the image to enlarge.

Buy ANSI Print	Buy ASCII Print

Another alternative for this kind of stuff would also be CafePress. They also do t-shirts, but be careful and keep in mind that the quality of those t-shirts is probably not getting even close to the quality print done by a professional custom print shop.

Good luck and happy printing :). Cheers!
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Space Art - Prints and Calendars

Alex Gibson aka Sphereuk is another of my favorite artists at deviantART which I would like to introduce to my blog readers and subscribers.

I did something like this back in April already for the artist with the name Dilekt. I just discovered planet and space art at dA at the time. Space Art now makes up a considerable percentage of art in my dA Favorites and virtually 100% of my dA Wish list.

I think that this is a good Idea, because it extend the reach of these mostly young artists that are still students for the most part. Spheruk, who is from Great Britain, for example just finished his first semester at the university. He studies design (surprise) and wants to become a game designer.

Because of the time he has to dedicate for 3D art and rendering did he say that he has to cut down on the time for creating space art. I hope he will not stop doing it, because his Space and Planet artwork is amazing.

I sent Alex an Email last weekend and requested that he makes a Calendar available at the dA Print Shop with the IMO 12 best of his space art pieces.
He promised to create one and I am looking forward to be able to buy it.

Here are the 12 pieces of space art which I ask Spheruk to use for the calendar which will hopefully become available soon.







In the meantime check out the existing prints by Spheruk at the dA Shop. He gets a cut of the revenue his prints generate. So if you buy a print, you will help Alex out and increase his allowance. You might now that students are poor and are grateful for every extra dollar they can get.

I already bought two other calendars from two other artists which I would like to show you.

Sci-fi Scenery CALANDER by Swaroop.B.G.Prabhavathi aka Swaroop.		Reflections Calendar by Andrea G-Zenith aka Anjicle.

I also bought some more of my own designs. The dA ASCII and ANSI Mouse pads. They are great gifts and make some of my friends happy. It's a great gift, because it is personal and practical.


Enjoy!

Cheers
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

ANSI and ASCII Text Art as Print!

Mhhh... It seems that I post at my ASCII and ANSI Text Art blog always in pairs now. I should better plan those things I guess, but the heck, who cares.

Okay, here is post number two for today.

I took the new deviantART Prints Service for a spin, which was launched parallel with the
new deviantART shop. I made two of my deviations available for purchase for your and my own pleasure.

Fans of ANSI and ASCII Text will probably love it. I already ordered one of each for myself.

For all the Fans of dA and ANSI Text Art is the left piece available (click the image for the LARGE Version, 1390x1165) and for all Fans of the ASCII Text Art the right one.

Buy ANSI Print	Buy ASCII Print

Following formats and item types are available for each of the two with the price right next to it (I ordered for myself the Mousepads):

Canvas Canvas Prints 28x36 cm $78.95 Regular Prints Lustre Prints 25x30 cm $15.49 Matte Prints 25x30 cm $12.79 Glossy Prints 25x30 cm $12.79 Magnets Small Magnet $4.95 Large Magnet $6.95

Postcards Matte Postcard $2.49 Glossy Postcard $2.49 Other Mouse Pad Mouse Pad $9.95 Coaster Set of 4 Coasters $20.25

Enjoy!
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Digital Art which is not from this World

I am an artist at deviantART myself and was browsing around on dA, checking out Art posted by other artists (one of the normal things to do as a "deviant").

I came across an Artist yesterday that caught my attention more than it normally does.

He goes by the Artist Name Dilekt (Dilekt Artist Homepage at dA).

Below are the pieces that are available as Print. I hope you will enjoy them as much as I do.

	Empyrean by Dilekt Large View | Buy Print		Foretold Prophesy by Dilekt Large View | Buy Print
	Glacial Haven by Dilekt Large View | Buy Print		Inner Soul by Dilekt Large View | Buy Print
	The Inevitable by Dilekt Large View | Buy Print		Throne Of God by Dilekt Large View | Buy Print
Full Galery of Dilekt Art @ deviantART.com

I loved his art right away and added 6 of his pieces that are available as print to my wishlist (others can buy me as gift) and 8 others to my favorites (that others can see which Art from from other Artists I like).

If you want one to put on your wall (not computer :)), no Problem. Prints are available and cost only between $2 and $24 dollars (without frame) depending on size and print type (lustre, matte or glossy) plus about $5 for shipping (2nd day air and special packaging). You should get it within 3-4 days, if you order today.