Last few days has been pretty insane. I have been trying to get the packaging and shirts done with a help of a friend, Dwayne. He runs DreamFactory, a print shop located just outside of Toronto. Believe it or not, each shirt is printed by hand in house by Dwayne.
I actually met Dwayne years back when I was building my VTEC Austin Mini. I was looking through Kijiji (Canadian version of Craigslist) for a B18C1 out of an Integra GSR. Of course Dwayne owned one, and after some negotiation I ended up with a rusty car with the motor still in it. I pulled what I needed off the car, parted it, then crushed the shell. The motor is going strong in my car today.
Anyway, 3 years after I got the motor off of him I was looking around for a print shop to do the packaging and shirts for Luftverk. I ran into Dwayne and found out he started up Dreamfactory. Pretty much exactly what I needed.
And that is how I ended up here - 2:30am trying to get shirts made and packaging printed. The packaging is actually ordered in, since it is a larger order. I had ordered the packaging weeks before the release, but unfortunately they had messed it up. The ink on the packaging was slightly cloudy. Fortunately they gave us a full refund and were willing to work it out with us.
Heres the machine that cuts the vinyl for the T-shirts. After each print is cut, the small pieces are separated, and pressed on by a large heating pad, fusing the logo into the fibers of the shirt. Larger batches can be screen printed but since our volume of shirts are so low, it is actually easier and more cost effective to do it this way.
And the first shirt is born. This process is essentially repeated until they are all done. Dreamfactory is actually still really small. A lot of things are done in house, and you'll often find Dwayne at his shop after hours finishing up orders for companies all around Toronto. He only has one other employee helping him out during the day. Which means he can get away with things like parking his Datsun 510 inside the shop.
So for the update - looks like the revised packaging sleeves will be printed by this Friday (July 10th). Shirts will be done by then too for everyone who ordered one. Which means boxing everything up over the weekend and shipping out on Monday. I hate giving exact dates, because things can always get delayed, but it seems pretty solid right now. Hopefully this can give you a good idea of what goes into making all this happen! Now back to work for me...
It has been nearly 4 months since Ive been in Japan, and 5 months since I left Toronto. Writing that out makes it feel short but in reality it feels like forever ago. The last launch of the Plastic Peak was an overwhelming experience. I felt so grateful to work with CLYW, a company I grew up with. When the World Yoyo Contest hit I didn't know what to expect, but I had started noticing a feeling of burn out after grinding out so many yoyo related projects and in a weird introverted way I was a bit reluctant to go.
CLYW is a Canadian brand that started in 2006. I was 14 at the time when I watched this new brand unfold on the Yoyonation forums. They released their first yoyo named the "Peak" with 50 pieces retailing for $85. Today, that yoyo has used asking prices north of $2500 making it one of the most insanely rare and expensive yoyos to date. This "OG Painted Peak" featured a custom painted surface by a Canadian airbrush artist named Levi. Overtime as the Peak was impacted or dinged, the paint would chip off meaning there are only a handful of units in the world that survived in mint unused condition. Later versions would be released in more durable anodized finishes, but these first 50 "OG Painted Peaks"cemented CLYW into yoyoing history.
This one will interesting - since mine and Augie's relationship go a far distance back. Its also kind of a weird story of how like minded free sprits will seemingly eventually cross roads no matter how unlikely that is.
Growing up in what I like to call the golden area of competitive yoyoing I was blessed to be inspired by yoyoers with so much unique style. These players helped me stay hooked in yoyoing and I often wonder if I would have even stuck with it without them. Players like Yuuki Spenser, John Ando, Eric Koloski, Paul Han, Shinji Saito and of course Augie Fash were some of my favourites. Before there was a yoyo "meta" all these yoyoers had their own 1A style which is why I think fondly of this era.
Jeffrey Pang
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