Hi there! Welcome to the cool term job where you get to design cool things, wear cool things, badger people to pay you, and forget 2 shot glasses in the office because everyone was kicked out because of covid and now you live in guilt of having never delivered them!

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Hooray!

Designs

Designs goes first, because without them, there's no swag! Attached to this wiki page is the logo files (by loren sherman), a mug design (by s ayala) , and a shot glass design (by mary dahl).

In general, you can probably stick the logo onto anything and it'll look pretty good. Be careful using Shakespeare's head: it can look pretty bad/boring on its own (if you look in the show shirt box, there's some ancient ensemble t shirts with Shakespeare on the breast pocket. they're hideous)

If you aren't the designer, be sure to be on them with deadlines. Swag takes a while!

Timeline

Speaking of.

Here are the swag things that need to be done:

1. Determine the interest for swag. Poll for a week probably works to pick out which swag you'll be offering (see below)
   
   1. Remember: the more people who buy, the cheaper it is for everyone, so you don't want to place an order for 2 hoodies. Additionally, a lot of places have minimum orders. Does the Ensemble have a plan/storage for if they don't all get sold?
2. Design swag/pick old designs to use on swag. 
   1. Existing designs are attached to this wiki page!
3. Determine price per item. This can be tricky because the price will fluctuate with how many order. In general, overestimate the cost and tell people it will be that price or cheaper.
   1. Here's some math I did.
      
      The hoodie price was calculated like this:
      
   2. Be sure to tell people that if buying swag is a financial burden, to contact one of the officers
   3. You should open the swag order to recent alums, but be sure that, if the ensemble is giving a subsidy, to only apply that to current members
   4. Protip: message the last pubman/designer to see if they have a CustomInk coupon. They tend to send those out.
4. Send out an order form. Desperately wait for people to fill it out. Give them a week or so.
5. Order swag! Different things take different amounts of time; anywhere from 2-4 weeks in my experience. Plan ahead!
   1. The treasurer can possibly help take some of the fronting burden off of you. not sure how the credit card works tbh. email er.
6. Pass out swag. This is tricky, because you have to deal with payments and coordination.
   1. Never ever give swag away before you have the payment.
   2. Set up times that you'll be in the office for people to pick things up
   3. If swag coincides with shows, bringing them to put-in/strike can work (if the TD is okay with that!!) 
7. Live in the splendor of having new swag!

Types of Swag

I held a poll to see what kinds of Swag the Ensemble was interested in. Here were the results:

(the blank one is a calendar with show images)

(the blank one is Coprolite Shirt)

T Shirts in general weren't popular because people already get t shirts from shows.

Additional suggestions included varsity jackets (waaaay too expensive), zip up hoodies, drawstring bags, foam swords, and Real Daggers

Hoodies

This was the hoodie design we used: https://www.customink.com/designs/ensemble/sjg0-00bq-rvgw/retrieve?account_id=29415764

We offered both this 2 tone one and solid ones (solid ones were a bit cheaper). The nice thing about CustomInk is that more color in the order aren't extra, so you can offer all the colors on CustomInk if you're willing to deal with the logistics. My strategy with swag sales for larger groups is to offer a smaller pool of "suggested" colors, and give the option to provide a custom one. That way, the amount of potential colors you'll need to sort is likely less because people will tend to choose a "suggested" one. Of course, if the order doesn't end up being that big, it probably won't be a problem...

Shot Glasses

Purchased here: https://www.discountmugs.com/category/custom-personalized-shot-glasses/

Mugs

Purchased here: https://www.vistaprint.com/photo-gifts/personalized-mugs

Stickers

Planned to be purchased here: https://stickerapp.com/ I bought some there for another group and they turned out well.