Deeper Blue Clothing/Merchandise

[Stephan Whelan]

We're starting to investigate doing a line of merchandise for Deeper Blue members.

What i'm doing whilst investigating this is to find out what sort of things people would be interested in buying. This comes down to two things:

1. Product Line
2. Designs

Apart from the usual boring T-Shirt, what other things would people be interested in, such as:

• Mugs
• Caps
• Bucket Hat
• Canvas Shoulder Bag
• Mousepads
• Boxer Shorts
• Coaster

On the subject of designs - we can do the Deeper Blue Logo but would people be interested in different designs based on Deeper Blue - or just a single line of the same design?

Let me know your thoughts!

[Cragrat]

Bumper Stickers would be nice, temporary tattoo's as well (the good one's that need rubbing alchohol to take off so they don't disolve in the swimming pool).

Hmmm, some kind of neoprene sticker for sticking onto a wetsuit, that would certainly beat painting a logo on by hand or screening it. What else..... nope, no further insperation.

I like the boxer shorts idea. :-)

[Octo]

Yeah,

'ats righ', wha' I cannot wait fo' is havin' "Deeper Blue" pasted to me bum on a set o' boxer shorts. Migh' be good for datin' tho'!

[crazyfrenchmen]

I might be interested in a RAD as in "Rapid Ascend Diver" t-shirt.

[SASpearo]

Gear bags?
We're always complaining that we don't have the right bags for our gear - problem solved!

[Stephan Whelan]

I've posted a poll to get further info from people!

[icarus pacific]

I'm not the biggest fan of promotion through me as a billboard, but having a mousepad would be fine as would the coffee cups. That would place the DB logo and web address square on the table by the computer- the avenue to the DB site and all the goings-on. Makes sense to me, and with the plethora of ad/marketing places around, these are things that wouldn't need the reinvention of the wheel to get off the ground.

I'd be happy to see a design for the banners...

sven

[Stephan Whelan]

I'm not the biggest fan of promotion through me as a billboard

- I can just imagine a whole world of Freedivers walking along like robots wearing DB t-shirts!

Honestly, the reason i'm looking into this is two fold:[list=1][*]Whilst the PhD Tees have been popular, I have had a lot of feedback from people saying "great! but what about a DB Tee".[*]Also, it costs a ton of money to run this site and as you may have noticed we've been introducing ways of generating income recently (Donations, Phatdive, The Shop). This is basically because we want to make the site the best out there and to do that we need to start paying writers and flying to exotic locations to cover Record Attempts. Unfortunately this all costs big bucks and the only way to bring money in is to sell stuff![/list=1]
So there you have it - as honest as it gets! (not that i'm not honest normally )

As far as designs go - initially it will just be a simple design with the Deeper Blue Logo (and small web address under it), plus probably a simple design on the reverse of the product saying "Deeper Blue" or such like. Later we may look to introduce more funky designs.

[icarus pacific]

...well, I could try to get a $100 per entrant at the Ab Grab, but I was thinking $20 was a stretch

sven

[Stephan Whelan]

<sarcasm>$100 - interesting...it's comes as a shock when people just don't want to open their wallets and throw money at you</sarcasm>

[Stephan Whelan]

OK, we've got a selection of products on the cards already as well as sample pricing so head on over to:

http://www.cafepress.com/dbgear

And have a look. I want feedback on all items - mainly selection, design and cost.

Bear in mind that whilst you should be able to buy direct from the store as it stands at the moment, when we actually go live the store will be branded in the Deeper Blue design rather than the current version.

Let's hear the feedback (good and bad folks!)

[icarus pacific]

and whodda thunk?

I'm in for the short and long T-shirts, especially if they're heavyweight. I like the mouse pad and the LARGE coffee cup too. I particularly like the design and color scheme- it's clean and refined, just like me.

Lose the bucket hat. There's a reason it's called a bucket...

I particularly like the free shipping, especially to one of DB's more present pimps.

sven

[Stephan Whelan]

hehehe! good stuff.

The way we've approached this is to have a small DB logo and URL on the pocket of the front of goods, then a big "DEEPERBLUE" on the back of the goods.

In true Henry Ford style, you can have any colour you want as long as it's white! To be honest i'd like to have more colours but the business partner is currently limited to white only.

What about everyone else? No comments? (apart from the few i've received over email)

[Stephan Whelan]

Right, we've launched our Deeper Blue Gear site that carries our line of Deeper Blue Clothing/Merchandising.

Check it out at http://gear.deeperblue.net