Shirt Happens - Chapter 1: Disappointing Grad by En_jaja
Oct 27, 2017We are constantly amazed at the types of projects, people, organizations, and causes that we work with on a daily basis over here at Brand Marinade. Each day is filled with a new, fun, and exciting challenge to Make Shirt Happen for someone.
This episode of Shirt Happens was developed and produced for a young woman named Enya (Instagram, YouTube, Twitter), who is affectionately known as En_jaja/Enjajaja/En_jajaja on her various social media channels. And when we say "affectionately known" we mean, known by hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people worldwide.
The first project we worked on with Enya came just after she graduated High School earlier in the Summer of this year (2017). She wanted to use a tshirt, designed by her and her brother, as a way to close a major chapter in her life, aka Chapter 1.
I can remember those days, and for me (Jeremy) that was in June of 1995. The feeling of past, present, and future all collided into the same moment and with it came fear, excitement, and accomplishment. Being involved in Enya's project really brought me back to this moment as I stopped to ponder how I felt at that time and reflected on what we were doing for her.
"I'm scared of disappointing my family but I need to make myself happy and focus on my future or I'll forever lie about how I feel" - Enya (6 1 17)
The idea that we could help her capture this moment in time as she prepares herself for the future made me think about the services and solutions we provide at Brand Marinade. Our goal and mission was built for exactly this purpose... help people express their ideas and share them with the world via a tried-and-true vehicle of self-expression - the t-shirt, tee, shirt, tshirt.
Our team was excited to help make this idea a reality and we embarked upon another mission in Making Shirt Happen.
This is a quick little look into what she did and how it all happened...
Part 1: She graduates High School and her emotions run high. She writes a journal entry and has a photo taken of her holding her diploma.
Part 2: Somewhere along the way, she has the idea of making a shirt to share her moment, emotions, and experience with her friends, followers, supporters, and fans.
Part 3: Enya does a small run and they manage production and fulfillment themselves. It was time consuming, and complex enough to think there was a better way.
Part 4: They reach out to Brand Marinade and we plan an expanded release of the tee. She focuses on talking to her audience, we focus on...
- Order management
- Scalable, inventory free production
- Packaging
- Fulfillment (domestic and international)
- Customer service
Part 5: Time to talk about the release and engage with her audience... below is a series of Instagram posts she put up...
Part 6: She set an amazing stage for this shirt. Our minds were blown at how creative she was at talking about this shirt, the significance of it, and doing it in a way that made it feel like something more than just a tshirt. We were very proud to be the engine behind the scene that allowed her to make it available, knowing she could do so without the stress and headache that come with managing the process of getting them onto people's backs.
Part 7: She opened up sales on her super simple ecommerce site and without going into too many details - she absolutely killed it and she did so with a swiftness I've only seen on a couple occasions. It was a beautiful thing to see. And after her successful sales window on a Saturday evening, our team got to work first thing Monday morning.
Below is a video we put together showing some behind the scenes action at our shop, known as The Clubhouse, as we made Shirt Happen.
Here's to Enya's next chapter! Which will be live in November.
