Cryptotoadz merch ✊

Idea incubation
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Starting a thread to consolidate talk of irl merch.

Here is my post from #community-grants to get the ball rolling:

*would love to commission a fashion designer to create an apparel template (eg hoodie) for toadz merch that allows holders to plug and play their toad into the physical item (ie you could choose any toad to be on the hoodie).

free claim for toad holders and available on grempland gift shop for the general public. all proceeds go to treasury :pray:t3:*

thoughts on…

  • viability (is merch a good use of treasury funds? i personally think it’s a great combo of utility and marketing)
  • desirability (what apparel do ppl want? are ppl interested in apparel)
  • feasibility (how much would it cost? how might toad customization affect price?)

~ vibe on ~

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I would personally wear the toadz merch if:

  1. It were thoughtfully designed (materials sourcing/assembly, etc)
  2. The price was reasonable ($100 max for a hoodie)
  3. It looked good (obviously subjective, but there’s room here to have some crazy designs)
  4. It was comfortable (probably my personal most important factor)

Next steps could be looking for specific designers on Twitter or elsewhere who are interested in Toadz merch and finding out rates or the funding they need to start!

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I would happily pay to purchase Toadz merch if it’s good.

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I would definitely see working with Crypto native artists in the space being beneficial.

KillerAcid
PopWonder
Alpha Centry Kid - come to mind, mysterious, vibey.

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Welcome dkatz! I just moved your idea to the idea incubation category. When you post in the grants category we’d like it to be a proposal up for discussion/finalization. Let us know if that makes sense or how we can change the process to make better both for you incubating your idea and for our community to easily see what proposals are ready for full consideration.

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Agreed! I also know Complex Dog is a todler, and I love their aesthetic.

Moti - as a first step, are you comfortable leveraging your relationships in the crypto community to get a feel for how much it would cost to commission an artist for fashion design?

Thinking bigger, maybe we can pull together a “Friends of CrypToadz” merch collection with multiple designers contributing to a single release? Since the personalized toadz merch would require a lift of the tech side + fashion side, commissioning a variety of set designs would be another way to appeal to a wider audience.

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So my view on this is we can have one marketplace for merchandise.

Different artists design the merchandise based around the toadz in their unique styles and upload it to our marketplace and they get the bulk of profits with the treasury also receiving a cut as well as the platform selling the merchandise (printful for example)

Love the idea of KillerAcid, PopWonder designing a piece of merchandise for the toadz community. Would buy immediately.

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Thinking bigger… Maybe the way to go here isn’t to commission any specific piece of merch but to add features for creators on a toadz giftshop.

Two potential paths:

  • Build a merch template that allows anyone to make an item (e.g. mug) with any of the ~7000 toadz (likely drop-shipping). Build on an existing marketplace like Grempland Giftshop.
  • Build a way for creatives (e.g. Pop Wonder) to send the community designs. Then commission a fashion designer to deliver a suitable end-products as voted by the community and revenue share with the artist and the Toadz treasury.

croak?

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So this is actually very easily done with drop shipping websites like Printful.

I think it would be great if we had a centralized marketplace that provided instructions on how any artist could submit their design and custom merch that the toadz team would then curate and list on our official marketplace. The artist would get the bulk of proceeds after the printful cost and a percentage would go back to the treasury.

As far as a template where we could all drop our unique toad into merch, it’s not as simple as not every toad will translate well on an embroidered cap or polo for example. I’ve found the ones that perform best are either the bones, blood bones, or the monochromatic toadz. I’ve toyed around with it and that’s what I’ve been able to see. My personal favorite for merch related toad is the one here.

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06b58621722b308033d95f5e3559d901_preview800×800 376 KB

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imo, every toad doesn’t need to look great on every piece of merch. the point of the customizable path would be a step towards enabling the average toad to create something with the toadz cc0 artwork. no barrier to entry. the person who is creating the merch can then decide what will look good on whatever they buy. we can always provide style guidelines and pre-selected designs

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Hey toadz,

A friend and I, both lifelong fashion lovers and toad holders, have a vision for creating highly individualized upcycled 1/1 garments with our specific toad(s) embroidered/screen printed on them. We’re a pair of creatives and believe in creating circular economies for textiles. Hopefully in this post I can shed light on our vision as well as address some of the challenges we currently face.

The current state of development:
We’re currently in the middle of acquiring the necessary tools, and should have access to an embroidery machine within the next week. Threading will take some time, as it will likely have to be ordered online. Once we have those two things, we can begin creating actual garments.

Screen printed garments are more challenging, as they require more screens/colors/tools. We are likely not going to begin acquiring tooling for screen prints until we know just how much demand we can expect and how sustainable this practice will be.

Challenge 1 - Inventory and supply

Currently we are foraging in goodwill bins, depop, grailed, etc. for high quality blanks. This is incredibly time-intensive and therefore unscalable, but is the only way in which we can limit the amount of waste we are producing and rescue what would otherwise be waste from their fate in the landfills.

One of the benefits of sourcing inventory in this way is that we are not limited to the types of garments we can use. Denim overalls, coats, and corduroy pants are all fair game. We believe this allows for greater individuality and expression for our collectors.

A proposed solution here could be for individuals to send in their favorite garments to be embroidered onto. This creates higher turnaround times but would allow us to churn out more volume.

Challenge 2 - Design & creative control

Ideally, our designs will be ever-evolving and entirely up to our discretion. We’ll of course ask for approval before creating the garment, but it is something we’d like control over. We’d prefer to be seen as artists creating 1/1s rather than as a factory line operator.

Challenge 3 - Ordering, Pricing, & Compensation

I imagine these garments, whatever they turn out to be, will require some degree of coordination between collector and creator. We’ll need to know sizing, garment preference, and design preference to name a few.

This will likely lead to pricing being higher than what some are willing or able to pay. I would say $250-$500 would not be outside the realm of possibility.

As two currently semi-employed individuals, we’re hoping that this can be something that sustains us in return for our energy/time. We’d like to be able to donate a % of each sale to the treasury, but finding a balance between cost for the collector and compensation for our time and energy will be tricky.

Would love to hear some of your thoughts on this!

Oh and we’re calling ourselves NonFungibleTextiles :kissing_cat:

!vibe

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Seems like there are a lot of different avenues taking shape in this thread which is cool to see. As far as a grant goes, someone just needs to take an idea and run with it. I know nothing about clothing or merchandise so I can’t really comment on the logistics of setting anything up behind the scenes.

What I can provide though is feedback from a customer perspective. It would be awesome to see either one or a combination of the following:

  • A broad selection of basic toadz with various designs. @RobertStamos has already done a great job setting up something like this https://cryptoadzshop.com/
  • A narrower selection of more exclusive merch designed by notable artists within the space (i.e. Pop Wonder, Killer Acid, ACK like @MotivateMe suggested, and maybe they are exclusive for toad holders only?
    • Maybe designs/artists rotate monthly or seasonally
  • Opportunities for comunity members to either:
    1. Request a piece of already-designed merch but can plug in their own custom toad for a premium fee.
    2. Submit their own broader merch designs to be added to the site with an opportunity to receive a small commission with each sale.
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Out of everything here, I really like the idea of a site where community members can add their own designs/artworks and get a commission for merch sales with their art.

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I like where this is headed. I love the idea of working with notable artists. I am thinking that in order for this to sustain over the long run we should aim at building a clothing brand that offers something unique outside of our Toadz, but uses our Toadz as the logo. What I mean to say is we should be thinking bigger. Most NFT merch right now is a generic shirt or hoodie with some NFT printed on it. The color palette is generally white, black and grey. It’s all interchangeable and only a select few people owning the NFT will ever buy the merch. We should aim at creating lifestyle branded clothing - unique thoughtful ergonomic designs with the aim of producing a specific !vibe

I know this all will take more time to develop and more money and effort, but I think it is necessary for a CC0 NFT. If we developed this into a recognizable brand we need the design, quality and function of the product to stand head and shoulders above anybody looking to rip it off and produce their own Toadz merch.

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Ultimately, though, our goal is to gather enough attention that others DO create their own better versions of it, spreading awareness. None of our initiatives should aim short term profit but rather brand awareness and adoption.

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My buddy has a fashion brand that is well known in good entertainment celebrity circles. would like to spend some time and come out with a good collab line for us here.

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@watermelone already kinda has a version of this on his store. There’s a collab with @complexdognft and maybe a few others I think. I totally agree that this is a cool idea.

Just an idea out of left-field here, but what do you guys think of handing over the official cryptoadz website to the community? We could vote on certain things that get added to the site, such as merch stores and derivative projects that we really like. I think this would help with visibility and give projects a sense of “officiality” that people really seem to crave.

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This sounds great. I think in the space now anybody can design the type of merchandise I’ve seen available from most projects other than the Creatures merch.

Have some ideas around as well but for a bit later down the road. Would love to see what your buddy does though.

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Have any examples you could share?

From a more tailored, niche, personalized perspective I believe there’s value to be had here and interested in learning more.