ningnong News

One of the questions that we get asked at ningnong from time to time, is do we plan on releasing an orgnanic line of t-shirts? The short answer yes. Actually we initially we had quite a few of t-shirts available in organic cotton but they didn’t sell particularly well at an additional $5 per shirt.

Going forward, we will take some time to research the facts properly, develop a viable business strategy, and then establish relationships and partnerships with the right organizations to achieve our goals.

Through researching this topic I have stumbled across some surprising things. First of all, there was the Bamboo fad, where EVERYONE was getting into producing Bamboo apparel. Now people are running away from Bamboo. Why? I am not entirely sure, but my understanding is that bamboo is falling out of favour because farmers are clearing large areas of forested land to grow bamboo. Of course we like forests for a host of reasons, but the biggest one is that forests help keep the planet clean and soak up excess CO2.

What about organic cotton? Well even that has to be harvested with petro-chemical powered machinery, then it has to be transported somewhere to be turned into yarn, and then it has to be dyed, and then woven into a weave suitable for apparel manufacture.

Along the same lines, I was researching so called green printing processes, and the green alternatives to the common plastisol printing, all had their downfalls. I wont go into any detail here, but the bottom line is that all of these processes use some type of chemical to get the job done. So to my knowledge there are no popularly employed printing methods used in the industry today that are entirely green. Hopefully this will change as viable technologies are developed.

My point is that any manufacturing process has an impact on the environment, no matter if it is supposedly green or not. Another component of this is the social impact of these processes on the communities involved in manufacturing these materials. So everything we do affects us.

Instead of labelling things Organic, we eventually need to use an indicator of ‘how green’ a product is. Even better, is to have a score of how socially responsibly a product has been produced (including chemicals, recycling, transportation energy costs, social impact on communities, polution etc). I am sure this approach would have its pitfalls as well, but I do think it would be a more robust guide for the aware consumer.

My conclusion is that we all need to improve our manufacturing processes to be more socially responsible, but we need to research the facts before jumping in there and following the crowd blindly.

If you’ve read our site news you might recall that we will be producing a Canadian Fashion Umbrella line for ningnong. These good looking fashion umbrellas will be available for release in September. As usual the line will sport icons from around Canada, telling stories about local areas. The folding umbrellas are auto opening and closing, and are able to stand up to a real beating even in a howling wind storm.

I will post some images of these as we get closer to the September release date…I don’t want to give too much info away at this point in time.

If you have signed up for the newsletter, we will keep you posted. We will also be having a draw and will give away a few of these Canadian Fashion pieces to mark the release of this new umbrella line. So make sure you have signed on for our newsletter.

Check out this great submission by Robin. Its “Siwash Rock, arbutus trees, some cherry blossoms for good measure and bc place”.

I really like this picture, it kind of just pops out in front of you. The silouettes of Siwash Rock, the people walking along the sea wall, and the sunset are all very nostalgic. It kind of reminds me our Tofino Dream design in some ways.

If you are reading this and you’d like to have a go at describing your favourite place in Canada, then I really encourage you to do so. Just remember you don’t have to be a graphic designer to enter your submission. A text description or a pencil sketch will be adequate. However, if you can put together something like Robin has done, then that is really good too.

As you might have read in our ‘About Us’ section in the main store - we already have a number of BC inspired designs, and we are working on more t-shirt designs for Ontario, Alberta, Quebec, and British Columbia.

Canada has some amazing creative brains, and we want to tap into those talents. Wouldn’t you like to see one of your ideas become the coolest t-shirt in the land? If you do then please read on!

You do not need to be a graphic artist, in fact you do not need any artistic talent to enter our competition. All you need, is to be able to clearly describe a few iconic themes to tell a story about your favourite area in Canada. The minimum requirement for your entry is that it must contain a brief description of icons, names, meanings, and history, that tell a very short story about ‘home’. If you can draw a sketch, or use a graphics editing programme then all the better to describe your submission.

We want everyone involved: get your Moms, Dads, brothers, sisters, partners, cousins, friends, Uncles, Aunties, Grandparents, children, and work associates all involved. Remember, ALL applicants will be awarded a complementary gift voucher of at least $5.00. Click here to enter

A few of the suggestions will get posted on the front page of our website and our blog so that others can see the great ideas that have been submitted.

We want to make it worth your while to submit these ideas, so here is the deal:

1. Any person submitting any creative content of any standard, will automatically get a $5.00 gift voucher. You can use this voucher yourself or give it to a friend. *
2. Any submission that we feel is worthy of posting on our website for further viewing by other people, will be awarded a $10 voucher (a total combined voucher worth $15). *
3. Any submission that makes it to the top 3 concepts will be awarded a gift voucher for a ningnong t-shirt of their choice (total prize for this option is worth up to a maximum of $50.00). *
4. If we find a submission that we can take and further develop into a finished design then the top prize will win $150 cash, a free t-shirt of their choice, and also a free t-shirt of the resulting design. *
5. Remember we are not looking for Picaso standard paintings here, but conceptual ideas that we can turn into a killer t-shirt design.

* You will need to submit your email address so that we can send you a gift voucher (don’t worry we will not spam you, and you can unsubscribe at any time). Contestants can make multiple submissions if they wish, but only one voucher will be awarded per contestant. All vouchers will be awarded shortly after the competition is closed.

** Any graphical design submissions must be the original work of the applicants, or have the express permission from the original author. The top 3 submissions and winning concept will be considered the sole property of ningnong. To enter the competition please go to Competition entry page.

We need to be able to develop one of the submissions into a graphic design for the top submission to be awarded the prize money (i.e. $150 + 2 t-shirts)

So get out there and enjoy the summer sun, and let it inspire your creative juices. Send us your great ideas, and lets get the ball rolling! The last submissions will be accepted by 11th July 2008. Announcements and prizes will be declared at that time.

I know this may seem like an off the topic subject to be covering for the ningnong blog, but it does bear some relevance to your shopping experience. I just wanted to quickly mention it here:

When considering the best web browsers available there are two geat options: Safari and Firefox. What makes them the great? They are reasoanbly fast at downloading and rendering web pages, and also in a consistent manner. The slowest browser is Internet Explorer (all versions), and also is guilty of being the worst at displaying web content correctly. This is old news.

My point is, if you are still using Internet Explorer, it is probably detracting from your overall web experience - especially when shopping on websites with lots of stuff being displayed. My recommendation is to download and experiment with a couple of the alternatives mentioned here.

Also a brief mention goes to the Opera browser, which is probably the fastest browser available on windows, but I am having issues getting it to display ‘products available’ inventory when shopping. So that means all of you Opera users out there will be seeing ‘out of stock’ for products that actually are available…at least until I can fix this bug.

Well we finally did it, we launched our new ningnong store using a piece of cart software called cs-cart. If you are interested in shopping carts and web development then make sure you google it and check it out. It really is an amazing piece of software, and I am glad after a lot of research we decided to use it to run our online store.

We are always looking to improve the store and the list of things we want to do are the following: make the website faster to download, add an FAQ page, and an image gallery. There are still a few rough spots on the website here and there, and if you have any suggestions then please contact us with your thoughts.