When it comes to picking or designing a custom logo for your marketing items such as custom t-shirts, hats and other products, there are three basic options you can choose from. One is to design a logo yourself or assign it as an in-house project. Another is to contract the work out to a freelance designer or logo creator.
A third option is to pay the printing company to do the design work for you. There are two advantages to this option; the first is you keep the entire job in the same hands from the creation of your business logo to the final printing of the marketing products. You also get the benefit of the extensive design experience at the printing company–you won’t wind up with a logo you must revise because the colors, size or design is incompatible with your printing project requirements.
If you choose to keep the logo design work in-house, you can monitor the progress and development of your business logo personally, and this method cuts costs when it comes time to hire the printing company to reproduce your logo on custom hats, custom t-shirts, coffee mugs, key chains and other products.
The one thing many logo creators can’t do in the early stages of the logo design process is predict how the image will look when it is actually printed on a t-shirt. It’s one thing to take the logo and superimpose it over a digital picture of a t-shirt; it’s another thing altogether to actually print the logo on a tshirt and see how it catches your eye.
The good news–there is a way to test your logo with t-shirt printing that doesn’t involve a trip to the printing press. Are you trying to get an idea of what the logo should look like on the t-shirt before paying for a full print run? Purchase some inkjet or laser printer t-shirt transfer paper and print out your logo. Iron these transfers onto a tshirt and you will get a look at your business logo as it will appear in that size on a t-shirt or baseball cap. If the fonts are too small, you can tell right away. If the logo design is clunky or doesn’t quite work, it will be much easier to tell when you see it actually printed on the t-shirt.
Last night I called my friend Asa Dodsworth, one of the main organizers of the UC Berkeley Tree-sit, that’s responsible for protecting the grove of Oak trees from being destroyed — unnecessarily and greedily — to build a sports stadium for the school. A stadium that could easily be built somewhere else; somewhere that isn’t over an active fault line. Somewhere where the grove can be protected and the football players can still have a new stadium.
Things are really starting to heat up over there. The sitters have been up there for 565 days and counting! This is the longest urban tree-sit in history, without a doubt.
Just yesterday, UC Police began cutting down the sitter’s safety lines and traverse lines, as well as their gear that ensures their safety up in the trees. Police (”deputized” tree extractors) used extremely excessive force to the sitter “Millipede” yesterday, as they repeatedly rammed into her with a metal lift. Asa said “that she was punched in the face as well.”
Less than an hour ago I received this action alert email:
“Tree-Sitters request supporters come to grove! UC Police are stepping up their assault on Oak Grove Tree-Sit. More cops and a massive 8 story crane have just arrived at the grove.
Meanwhile the decision in the court case is due anytime in the next few hours.
Come to the grove, today is the day!”
So please, if you’re in the Berkeley area and / or have friends in that area, go support the sitters who need all the help that they can receive — now more than ever. Right now, as I write this, police are loading up cranes and terrorizing non-violent sitters who are only trying to protect these ancient trees that have been here long before any of us.
I look at the mulberry seedlings that I recently planted. I look at the beautiful purple cornflower that I planted a few hours ago. I look at the dogwood and the maple tree. I look at the bamboo towering over the fence. I look at the sea of wildflower seedlings that cover the soil like a warm winter blanket of life. I see the row of peas along the north fence and the strawberries along the south fence.
I see all these things — these growing and flourishing plants — and I remember to just a few months back when this piece of land was nothing even close to resembling a fine garden which it is today. Once choked with weeds, laden with dead longs, and smothered with feet of hay, this garden is now vibrant with green lush foliage, a path with 12 round walking stones, and even a few halved coconut shells filled with seeds for the birds.
I see this garden as a symbol depicting my partnership with nature. I helped nature by watering her seedlings on dry days and protecting her seeds from weeds and insects.
Does not the bird help nature by passing her seeds through her waste matter over a field? Does not the cow help nature by fertilizing the grass with her manure? Does not the worm help nature by keeping her soil porous and full of oxygen?
What can man say for his contribution to helping nature? We spend time clearing fields to grow crops for US. We clear-cut ancient forests to sell for wood to make US rich. We cut the lawn to look nice and neat so the neighbors may envy US. We grow the apple tree to pick apples for US. We water the flower to keep it in bloom for US.
Why must it always be about “US” when embarking on a relationship with nature? Can we not do things to help protect, conserve, and preserve nature solely because of the good of it? Why must dollar and cent signs appear in our minds when thinking about nature? Why must we constantly strive to conquer and control nature instead of letting nature be? Why can’t we live in harmony with plants and the animals, just as the bird does?
Do we not understand that from nature, we exist?
Can we not make this simple connection — this fact of life?
No matter how much we abuse nature — cutting her down, selling her off, and raping and pillaging her land, she never gives up on us; she never gives up on life. Cut a forest down, and in a few hundred years it’ll be back thicker than ever. Mow your lawn and let it be for a week, and it’s back. Cut the apple tree, leaving the base of the trunk, come back in a year and see the cage of vertical branches surrounding and protecting the felled trunk.
But not all of nature is so resilient to our human wrath! Kill a species of trees from the noxious practice of unsustainable logging of old-growth forests, and those trees are gone forever! Chop down and uproot all the pine trees in your yard, and don’t expect to see them returning.
So the question is: Is there a balance? Where does man draw the line between working with nature and taking advantage of nature? I believe that I ask this question in vein and any answer will futile at best. To even ask such a question means that we’ve already crossed that line a long, long time ago.
We are no longer stewards of nature, but rather stealers of nature. We steal with great impunity and zeal for financial gains. Blindly raping our very mothers which enabled is to live on this fecund planet.
I fear that one day nature will finally say “enough is enough!” and turn her back on us as we have done unto her. Our planet can live without humans, but it can’t live without ants. So who do you think nature would rather protect if given the choice.
And we, silly humans, think that we are running the show? Ha! Not even close.
"Young and Hungry: The New Entrepreneur" will take you on a journey of two young entrepreneurs who share their thoughts, experiences, and lessoned learned while in the process to finding success. Everything from discussing entrepreneurship with your parents to building a business team -- it's covered in this book. Read now »
Last night I called my friend Asa Dodsworth, one of the main organizers of the 
I look at the mulberry seedlings that I recently planted. I look at the beautiful purple cornflower that I planted a few hours ago. I look at the dogwood and the maple tree. I look at the bamboo towering over the fence. I look at the sea of wildflower seedlings that cover the soil like a warm winter blanket of life. I see the row of peas along the north fence and the strawberries along the south fence.
