We love being involved with jobs that promote fellowship and outdoor activity in the summer, and the Des Moines Ultimate Frisbee Summer League is just that! For more information or to get involved with the Ultimate Summer League visit http://www.iowaultimate.com/dm/sleague.asp
We recently printed some T-shirts for the 1st Annual Race For Hope in Des Moines. A great cause, now with great shirts. For more information or to get involved with Race For Hope visit http://www.raceforhopedsm.org/
It’s the time of year again where bicyclists are hitting the streets in droves and drivers of automobiles get to drive a little more conscientiously. It has been amazing for us to see the bicycle culture in Des Moines flourish over the last few years. This growth is due in large part to the work and advocacy of the Des Moines Bicycle Collective. One of the projects that they have brought to the table for the last couple years is the Pedal Art Poster Show. The show consists of about thirty talented local and regional artists exhibiting bike-themed posters. We are excited to say that three of our designers, Shawn Lykken, Ashleigh Brady, and Jon Pearson will have screen-printed poster work in the show this year. Above is a collection of pictures of our teammate Jon Pearson screen-printing the promotional poster he designed for the event. We have been glad to partner with the Bike Collective again this year to help promote and sponsor this event.
Here’s something we haven’t seen yet. Dwight Lykins and Jesse Lankford are the founders of Let’s Toast, a new food truck based in Cedar Falls. Our curiosity was piqued, and yours should be too. Here are some of Dwight’s thoughts, as directed by our questions. If you see their truck around, make sure to be hungry.
87c: Why Toast?
Let’s Toast: The techniques we use in our kitchen are Spanish influenced, and the basis of Spanish gastronomy is tapas. Small portion sizes, with a wide range of fresh ingredients. My partner and I both love this idea, fresh ingredients, great combinations on top of the simplest of things, toast.
87c: I looked at your Twitter feed and it only features pictures of you(I assume?) building something that looks like a camper. Where’s the toast?
Let’s Toast: We actually do have pictures of a few of our toasts. Currently the Mighty Ahi, and the Crunch are both featured on twitter, as well as our first round of wheatgrass harvest. The picture you mentioned is indeed myself working on restoring our 1985 coca cola food trailer. This is the first thing people can look for. Essentially we aim to be the first ”regularly” operating independent food truck in Iowa.
87c: Tell me about the bread you put the goods on. Is the bread the celebrity or are the toppings?
Let’s Toast: We will exclusively be using ‘Big Sky Bakery’ bread’s for all of the toast. The toppings are what make our toast great. If we only served bread out of a toaster, spread a little butter and jam, people wouldn’t see the allure. Creative, unique, and healthy toast-centric breakfast and late night choices are what we are all about.
87c: How many does it take to get full? How many will I actually buy when I am stumbling home after a long Friday night liver workout?
Let’s Toast: In keeping with traditional tapa service, we offer either a full portion
(1 full piece of bread) or a half portion (A diagonally cut piece of
bread). While some options (e.g. The Ruben or The Blues) are designed to be
more of a sandwich, and some might find them to be “to much” in a full
size. All of our specialty toasts will fill you up with just 1 order. Our
Kala Kart (Dollar Menu) is an option for someone who just needs a quick
bite, or if you have the munchies, and 1 specialty just wasn’t quite enough.
87c: How did you get into the foodtruck industry?
Let’s Toast: I’m a massive music fan and like any teenager way into music, I wanted to live in a van, tour the country and play in a band. However I quickly realized I had zero musical talent, instead I discovered a passion for food and service. I’m studying the culinary arts in Vancouver British Columbia. A huge movement on the west coast of both the United States and Canada is food trucks, We spent the fall and winter researching in California, Oregon, Vancouver and Seattle. We saw huge followings and devoted fans, and knew a food truck was a viable option for us. We started Let’s Toast when we were both 20 years old, as much as we want to open a brick and mortar cafe right away (we have plans too) we want to be able to hire staff and in this economy I don’t know if we could do that with out starting as a food truck.
87c: Legislation and Regulation. The Des Moines Ruling Class is all about keeping people like you off our streets. We don’t agree with that. What are you doing to help free the streets of Des Moines?
Let’s Toast: From the moment Let’s Toast was conceived we were proactive in both our research, and networking. We need to continue to build strong relationships with both municipal leaders, and industry professionals. We are working hard at providing leadership in the food truck movement here in Des Moines. While theres still a lot of work that needs to be done, we are confident that the city of Des Moines will be open to bringing jobs and an industry poised for economic growth to the metro.
87c: What is the worst item on your menu?
(Unanswered. A father loves all his children equally.)
87c: What hours are you open?
Let’s Toast: We are still in development, we plan on running a few events in late summer. But our target open is in the fall of 2013. A typical day would be breakfast service 7a-10a and late night service from 9p-3a. We will be utilizing twitter (@toast2it) to interface with our fans, providing location and times to toast
87c: Do you feel bad about preying on poor college students with your fancy menu?
Let’s Toast: We are are poor college students. We hosted focus groups with out target audience- other college students. We got hella comments about the menu good and bad. We listened and re-worked the menu in response to those comments. Currently nothing on our menu is over $8. With a vast majority of options under $4. We know pricing is important, and we aim to bring a quality and healthy product to our guests, with out breaking the bank.
Good luck up there, guys. And come park out front of our shop sometime.
We don’t know why certain people come in and out of our lives but we know it when they do. Certain people challenge our beliefs and then challenge us to do better. Certain people do their best to protect us from harm but won’t hesitate to call us out when we need it. There are certain people that remind us to laugh and that – if life is made up of work than work should be made up of fun.
These are all the certain people that I work with – and why i’m gonna miss ‘em.
Uciel – I was pleased to hear that you accepted our intern position, among a very talented field of candidates. So far the work that i’ve seen of yours is inspired and unique. Thanks for sharing your talents with us.
Jeremy – You’re a true renaissance man. Someone that has many talents and will have many opportunities before him. I know one when I see one. I look forward to seeing what you create.
Allie – You made a wonderful first impression throughout your application and interview process and then never disappointed. Your energy is always high and it’s been fun watching you grow as a designer. You have a rare talent and smile. Let ‘em both ride.
Nicole – 8/7 desperately needed you we just didn’t know it. I can’t think of anyone that could better fit the role than you.
Caleb – You’re a true gentleman and scholar. Thoughtful and interesting. Those qualities will carry you a long way.
Solarz – The consummate professional; patient, passionate and skilled. You don’t say much, but when you do it’s always valuable and always valued.
Adam – You bring so many things to the table especially your discipline and your work ethic. Your focus on keeping the main thing, the main thing and then watching you sell that to the client is a joy to watch. I find myself always learning things from you. It’s one of the things I’ll miss the most.
Shawn – The chances of us crossing paths was virtually nil, but the reward has been monumental. I was spoiled with you as an intern and now i’m confident leaving this place in your most capable hands.
Zach – The necessary grounded voice in a house full of dreamers. We all respect and appreciate your intellect and your wit.
Ben – You have a humongous heart. You understand people and value relationships. The world needs more of you.
Jon – You’ve gotten us out of some tough times. I could always count on you, and that comfort is actually all a boss needs. I’ve always said you’re the hardest working SOB that’s ever worked here. I always feared, not only, what the screenprinting department but 8/7 Central would have looked like without you as a part of it. You genuinely care about your job and always doing good work and yet, somehow not care what anybody else thinks. We are all better people after working beside you.
Justin – You and I have been through a lot together. I’m really proud of your growth and maturity. You’re stepping into the role that we’ve always known you could take. When you sit down and apply your vast knowledge and multiple talents – you work better than anyone i’ve ever known. And I’m proud to call you my friend.
As I prepare for a journey that will take me away from Eight Seven Central and Des Moines for most of this year, I do so with excitement and sadness. This has been an extraordinary place to work and I thank my wonderful co-workers and the clients for making it so. I’ll see you all again in the Fall.
Best,
Garrett Cornelison
Vice Rear Admiral – 8/7 Central
After the successful launch of Badowers Online, the store is now adding a new department. Badowers Sportsmen focuses on the rich outdoor heritage and the quaint towns that make up our great state and encourages people to explore their nearby surroundings. All of the clothing and goods sourced are American made, geared towards the active outdoorsmen.
8/7 Central was asked to create the content for this new campaign, including photography, video, and design. A few of us spent a beautiful weekend in October exploring and fishing the Driftless area in Northeast Iowa.
We’re very proud of the way the whole project came together and happily share Badowers’ vision!
Badowers Sportsmen from Garrett Cornelison on Vimeo.
Photography: Garrett Cornelison & Justin Meyer
Video & editing: Garrett Cornelison & Brad Argo (Blur)
Web Design:Justin Meyer & John Solarz
Graphic Design: Adam Ferry
This public service announcement goes out to LifeServe Blood Center, our neighbors across the street who do a stellar job of saving the fluid that saves lives. You guys do a lot to help the community. However, we have some complaints about the window signage we stare at every day from our front window.
He’s a good looking man but we have been making eye contact for about six months now and he hasn’t blinked yet. Something about his gaze makes us feel guilty for going home at night. It’s like he’s not upset at us for calling it a day, but wishes we would try a little harder and wants us to live up to our full potential. Like a father you don’t want to disappoint.
We try not to pay attention to the girls in hopes they’ll go away.
So here’s the deal. It’s Christmastime, and we are in a giving mood. Get a hold of us and we’ll donate as much design time as is needed to make these windows the pride of the East Village. We would donate some blood as an extra incentive to make this happen, but most of us pass out around needles.
Our friends. Your friends. Old friends. New friends.
A few times a year, all of these people converge on our shop. And the best of those times happens to be this Friday, November 16th, at the East Village Prominade. A lot of our fellow East Village shops stay open late as thousands of people kick off their holiday shopping season. We just stay open late and give food away.
Host Restaurant is bringing down grub, Exile is bringing over some brews. We might even get really crazy and have some eggnog, who knows.
Bring friends, let’s hang out.
Friday, November 16th from 6:00- 9:00PM
A lot of us at the shop read on a regular basis. This is a book that really stood out.
Here’s what it boils down to: Focus on your product, customers flock to you and pay what you charge. Cut corners, customers will notice and your business will decay over time.
A lot of books pertaining to business seem to focus on business practices to increase profit and efficiency. This one doesn’t. Lutz goes through a lot of incredibly detailed examples of times where he fought to increase quality, listened to his gut, and built great products. You’ll never look at spring-loaded ashtrays the same.
Bobby Chairman gets a little pompous as he talks about his accomplishments, but readers will walk away ready to sweat details.
Create stuff that people want, not things that people will settle for.
Read the schmit out of this book.
- The 8/7Central Book Committee.
We really don’t want to just turn this into a place where we complain about other companies. We know what happens when you point a finger: there are three pointing back at you.
But we thought we needed to bring this up, for ethical reasons. As a company, we have tried to maintain an active presence on social media. This way our moms and extended family can stay in touch with us. It is also great for business, and we try to give a fairly accurate presentation of what happens in the shop on a daily basis. We also do our best to track the type of posts that get seen and passed around. Not that we are highly technical about it, but we definitely pay attention.
About a month and a half ago we began noticing that our posts were not getting nearly the viral traction they had been. For instance, a post from early July of a homeless man stealing a tank top from us received 38 “likes” and was seen by about 2,700 people, whereas a picture from last week of Ben and his baby with their faces swapped received almost the same amount of “likes” but was only seen by 800 people.
Now we don’t begrudge Facebook a single thing for this. If they have tweaked whatever algorithm is in charge of deciding who sees which posts, that is fine. They have built an incredible platform and made themselves an integral part of most people’s daily routines. They run on cash just like any other business and have a right (and now that they are public, a responsibility) to leverage their assets.
But here’s where things start to get a little weird. Around the same time that we began noticing the page views dropping, we got a call from Facebook’s marketing team asking us if we wanted to purchase their services as marketing consultants for the low, low price of $1,500-$10,000 per month. I declined politely, but inquired while I had her on the phone as to whether there had been an adjustment in the amount of people our posts get shown to. She said she didn’t know, but that she would ask around and let me know via e-mail. A day later, I got an email stating that we weren’t getting the traction that we had been because our content was not as regular or engaging as it had been two months ago.
Ok, that’s fine. We aren’t as interesting as we used to be in July. So we did what most companies do to combat being boring and threw money at the problem.
We purchased a “promoted post,” just to see what would happen, 
and used our next-most-recent blog post as content. We targeted friends of fans and, in exchange for $10, we promoted it to approximately 3000 people, and then sat back and watched as the number of views of our special post climbed. After about two days of minimal feedback, suddenly the number of likes jumped from 7 to 23. However, we immediately noticed a pattern in almost all of these people. None of them had English sounding names. In fact, once we dug a little deeper, we found that almost all of them were from Indonesia.
In an attempt to try to replicate what had happened, we took a screenshot, posted it, and paid for that as another promoted post. Exact same thing; lots of Indonesian traffic.
I guess we don’t really know what the takeaway is. We don’t feel like we got scammed out of a lot of money. We don’t think outright fraud is happening. Just something we noticed.
Has anyone else had any similar experiences with Facebook advertising?
Recently, we encountered a situation where a member of our ranks ended up neck deep in the automated phone system of one of our favorite shipping providers. Some shirts didn’t show up when they were supposed to, clients needed them tomorrow, and it was pretty obvious who was at fault. In an attempt to fix the situation, he ended up on the phone for the better part of a busy Friday looking for answers.
As is the case with automated phone systems, answers were pretty hard to find.
After several frustrated attempts with no indication that he was getting anywhere, he finally. He yelled something into the phone which we typically punish in our shop with general indifference.
The phone system apologized and transferred him directly to a human being, who promptly handled the situation and made it possible for us to hit our deadline.
This story is 100% true.
Bot don’t take our word for it, try it yourself next time.
The most difficult projects we do often involve design work for creative and logically minded people. When G. E. Wattier approached us last year about an identity and website redesign, we relished the challenge. It’s been one of the most rewarding projects we’ve been able to work on.
The idea of pulling back to gain momentum resulting in an impact was and still is a very strong concept. G.E. Wattier wanted this concept embedded directly into the Slingshot identity. In the end, this is what we came out with.
We had the privilege of working with a really great group of people at Slingshot that pushed us as much as we pushed them. The new identity and its peripherals were unveiled last Friday night (9-21-12) to an enthusiastic blend of individuals with whom Slingshot Architecture will continue to build meaningful relationships.