Now would be a great time I think to start working on LPA shirts. Get someone from the forums or someone in staff to make a logo and then design a shirt for LPA and sell it for really cheap on like cafepress or something I'm telling you, people would buy them and wear them to shows and that means....LP sees them and you=get more interviews+get more popular.
We've thought of this before, and I remember one time we had this really kick-ass 'Live In Texas'-ish LPA logo done up for a t-shirt, but we didn't have the support at the time to forsee a return in profits. Man, that logo was sweet. If there's a good amount of support for the idea shown in this thread, I can see it becoming a reality. But make sure that if you say you're willing to buy a shirt, that you really mean it and that it wouldn't just be a "cool idea, but I'll pass/can't". Because boxes of t-shirts don't just sell themselves. If yes, you're interested, please comment with how much money you'd be willing to dish out for a shirt. And don't worry about the graphic design of the shirt, because we've got some amazing artists on staff that will definitely make what you're paying worth the amount.
Like I said over AIM, the problem lies in the fact of legalities and making sure there's nothing against even using the Linkin Park name on a t-shirt. We want to do it but we gotta make sure its legal too. Also there's the problem in appropriately pricing them, because if we use cafepress they're going to take cuts out of it. But all in all it's a good idea and could replace this Paypal situation we've been having as I think they're a couple of bastards who don't deserve money.
This is kind of a funny story. I already own LPA merch. No seriously, my mom bought me a little Linkin Park dogtag from a street vendor awhile back as a random gift, and I wore it for about a week, then when I looked at it more closely, it was an LPA wallpaper printed on it. I'll scan it sometime soon. About the shirts, I'd be willing to pay for quality shirts. If you can get a print that looks good, doesnt look to amateuriish and isn't blatantly ironed on, I'd pay ~20$+shipping
That's what I had been thinking. To bad you didn't ask Phoenix for permission when you interviewed him.
I say you hold a contest and have the peoples design a shirt, and the LPA team picks the top three. Those three become designs, and the winners win something like a free shirt or a pack of Ramen noodles or something.
I believe we'd be in the clear if we used "LPAssociation" or "LPA", and not "Linkin Park Association". And Stik; I think we'd like to have creative control over our own merchandise. But like I've said, we've got some great artists on staff.
I believe that LJ created a LPA logo a while ago. Its the old LINKIN PARK font, but then like this [LPA]
If you were to use "LPA" or "LP Association", I think you'd be fine. I support the idea. It's actually rather clever, and I would definitely buy a shirt. If you kept the shirts at less than 15 dollars, then that'd be awesome. I'm sure you could find some way to do this. You don't necessarily have to use professional sites. You could just make your own and have people send the money to you somehow. And obviously, you'd use the profit to help support the LPA. If you do end up doing so, just start out with normal shirts. From there, you could start making other products such as wristbands and hats and such. If you have enough people, you could probably gather a lot of money, which with that, you could do some really cool things with the site. Although, it would be a lot cooler if it said, "Linkin Park Association". And hopefully, if you can try to get permission to do so, I'm sure you'd be fine. Other than that, "LPA or "LP Association" is cool. But yeah. I support this idea 100%. EDIT: And I'm actually thinking that Stik's idea isn't so bad. To be honest with you, by having this "creative control" you somewhat keep design possibilities rather finite. There are many talented artists on this board and opening up the opportunity for everyone to come up with a design would be really cool. But whatever works for you. I have no problem with what you would decide to do.
Sorry guys but there's so much involved with allowing someone else to make a design for you that we'd rather keep it within the staff. Hopefully you understand. We may do this soon, its been in demand for a while and we've been wanting to do it. All we're concerned about is overhead.
Derek, considering how you have your connections, might want to make sure with the LP Management to see if it's alright first, so there aren't any copyright issues, if you know what I mean. Shirt should be $15-20, I'd say. I'd love to buy one, but I kinda don't have any money at all right now.
It would be pretty awesome if we had a contest like Stik said, but if Mark says it's too hard to manage... it's a "No". I still think the LJ design should be on a shirt, though.
Derek said it was too hard to manage. I said we wanted to maintain creative control over what our website's name is put on, whether it be shirts, hats, etc. You don't see Pepsi or McDonalds holding logo designing contests, because they want to have complete control over how their image is being marketed. We're aware we're not some big corporation, but we want to create our own image instead of using someone else's work to do so. Surely that's understandable.