Since the day we started selling books, readers have requested a sweatshirt with our logo. We have always demurred because we are a publishing company – not a clothing store.
But during our recent coffin-building party, our friends browbeat us until we agreed to produce a hooded, full-zip sweatshirt that was made in the United States with the Lost Art Press logo. (Note to self: Self, don’t drink beer around Raney Nelson because you become intellectually weak.) After a couple attempts at designing a logo worthy of a sweatshirt, I went to professional designer Joshua Minnich.
Joshua specializes in hand-lettered logos and has done some spectacular work for Texas Heritage Woodworks that I have been following on Instagram. Joshua developed two designs for us and, after a single tweak, we settled on the design above.
It will be featured on the front of the black sweatshirt with the zipper running through the middle of the logo (yes, I know, we never make things easy on ourselves).
John Hoffman is trying to get us a good price on the sweatshirts, but these should be ready to sell in the store in a few weeks. We will have pricing and details soon.
— Christopher Schwarz
May I be the first?
Love Joshua’s work. I’ve been planning on having him design a stamp for me. Looks like I better get moving on it.
The design looks great. I’ll be getting one.
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That would make a nice store sign too.
…just sayin’.
How about a poster?
A giant one!
You know, I always thought that “Lost Art” could apply to MORE than just hand-tool woodworking. Will this design prevent Lost Art Press from adding new “product lines”?
What about blacksmithing? Maybe too small a niche.
How about quilting? My wife and her millions of friends never tire of their passion. They could use some “Lost Art Press” historical rigor, especially coupled with modern day tooling instruction. They seem to appreciate historical accuracy and quality (like your books), though they don’t always know how to achieve it. And if you think woodworkers hemorrhage money, it ain’t nothin’ compared to the BILLIONS and BILLIONS these ladies can spend!
Jim,
Considering we are just two dudes, I can’t imagine us straying too far from what we do now. We have books lined up for the next five years now. So adding blacksmithing or other arts would probably send us to the nut house.
So add another dude or dudette.
Tempt him on publishing on homebrew. He’d get off on publishing about barrel making for cask conditioning.
The phrase “drinking all the profits” comes to mind.
So Raney was at your coffin building party…that’s pretty funny.
Love to have one but a T-shirt is more practical for California. Maybe with brass rivets.
What about a blue sweatshirt? Black is so pedestrian, whereas blue brings out the brown in my eyes. Please think about it.
Great design though.
That is a really nice design, I’m looking forward to buying this one.
Chris,
perhaps a simple solution to the size/color/style conflagration here is to offer the logo as an “iron-on” item?
Oh that *seems* like a good idea until you see your logo ironed onto lingerie and worn to Woodworking in America.
Provided that’s done by the LADY woodworkers, seems like a great idea to me!
With my luck it would be a Yeti in a thong.
Pretty sure I know the answer but i’ll ask anyway: Will you ship to Canada?
I would love to have one in blue or chocolate brown. Just can’t wear a black sweatshirt.
On getting different colors or sizes of the sweatshirt, I’m afraid it is not going to happen this year. We don’t want to be an apparel company and have to stock all manner of sizes, variations and colors. These things aren’t a money-maker for us – they are just something fun we do.
Specifically on color: This year we are going to do black. If we don’t lose our shirt on sweatshirts, we’ll do a different color next fall.
Hope this helps. Sorry to come off like a grump, but we try to do everything we can to focus on books first.
Chris
Focus on the books. The apparel is just gravy.
Mmmmmm… Lost Art Press gravy.
How about a big poster featuring gravy?
No worries.
That’s the coolest design yet! Maybe it could show up on a t-shirt in the spring. Hint, hint.