Night and Day

As you may have noticed if you’re a fan on our facebook page, we spent some time over the weekend at a gig headlined by the Luminaires band.  The plan was to get the word out about ourselves and try and sell some tees, it also ended up being a lesson in the difference between knowing when to sell and when to promote.

Here are two things we learnt from the night.

Know the audience

Although we got to talking with a a few members of the crowd, most where distracted by a notion that they were here to see a band and drink.  Buying something that doesn’t come in a shot glass doesn’t usually come into the equation at that time of night (time to rethink our packaging maybe?).  People just want to have fun, anything else is a distraction.  Try selling a t-shirt to these guys:

Ok, it wasn’t exactly like that but you get the idea.  Talking to people about the brand is much more effective in a situation like this.  People are much more approachable and will listen.  Have a few business cards handy and you can get yourself a  bunch of interested people checking you out.

Know the environment

If you are going to set up at an event, try and get an idea of the of the place before you go.  This could mean visiting the day before, asking someone who has been to the event…or casing the joint in the dead of night.  Whatever works for you.

The point is to know what to expect.  The one thing that bcome obvious when we arrived was the noise, we didn’t realise we’d be so close to the noise!  It makes it difficult to sell to someone when hand gestures are the best way to communicate.  We really need a t-shirt selling sign language for situations like these…

Despite this, we did get positive reactions from everyone we spoke to in between sound checks and performances and some good bands fo free which isn’t too bad.

The way I see it, daylight is best for selling, the night is better left to promoting…and maybe a spot of crowd surfing.

Mayamada in the Wild

We recently got word that one of our t-shirts made an appearance out and about.  Our friend Shaun from the Luminaires was sporting a design from the Styles range at a gig a few weeks ago.  Guess which one Shuan is…

And guys, I think it’s also worth noting the pulling power of a mayamada tee, just saying…

We’ll be joing the guys in person at an upcoming gig this saturday so stop by for some music (£5 entry with the flyer in the link) and if you want to get your hands on a mayamada tee, we’ll have you covered with a selection of tees from our shop at a discounted rate of £15!

See you there.

A Day Out In London

With all that’s been going on I almost for got to let you all know about our photoshoot!

We went around London with our photographer who took some great photos with her digital camera.  She even brought along a real film camera and a Polaroid!

We hadn’t figured out how to control the weather so it was left up to chance…it didn’t started well.  I was drenched waiting for everyone to arrive.  But after that, plain sailing.  On with the photoshoot!

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFleZr8OFOg

We started right in front of the London Eye, navigating all the tourists for our first few shots.

This was a fast paced shoot so we had no time to stop before moving on to Trafalgar Square…

We attracted a bit of attention around the Square.  We even had passers by stop and take pictures with some of the models.

And finally we end up at Hyde park for the last shots of the day.


Oh and before I forget, there is a cafe/restaurant place in the park that  does a beautiful banana muffin.  It was delicious and capped off a great day.

I was exhausted at the end of the day and I wasn’t even taking any pictures or modelling so I can’t imagine what the other guys felt like.  Big thanks to all those involved.

Check out our facebook page for more pictures to come.

Ryan Leslie Talenthouse Competition

Remember our friends Luminaires from a few post ago?  Yesterday, one of the members (Skilaz) entered a worldwide competition to win a chance to work with producer and entrepreneur Ryan Leslie.

So the deal is…actually, let’s just jump straight to the point.  Check out the video and vote for Skilaz to show your support.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzUBEPv1TT0

The video which also features another friend of ours A.Sharn Dialekt.  These two made up the sing ‘Too Criss’ in a few hours just for this competition.  An amazing effort if you ask me.  Considering it takes Dr Dre over a decade just to make an album, I think these guys will be really big soon.  Jump on the bandwagon now and in 5 years you’ll be able to say ‘I knew them before they blew up’.

Look out for more on these guys at mayamda in the coming months.

Vote Now!  It’s free and all you have to do is text ‘ Z7RHPT‘ to +49 177 178 1208.

A London Tour

2010 is looking like it will be a busy year for us.  We’ve had a good reaction from people after launching the site earlier in the year and we’re working on some new designs to release in the weeks leading up to summer.  In the more immediate future though we have a photoshoot to organise!

We’ll be taking a selection of our tees and taking pictures across London.  It’s the first time we’ve done something like this and we are really looking forward to it!  Keep an eye out for a ton of pictures and video from the event on the 27th of February.  If you are in the area on the day and would like to feature in of our videos, follow us on Twitter, we’ll be tweeting the whole day as we move about.

5 Anime Tees That Will Make Heads Turn

Here at Mayamada we love anime, we really do! Okay, okay, it’s just me, but still, it’s hard not to admire the style; it’s so unique, instantly recognizable and more often than not, very cool looking. It’s hard not to get noticed when out on the town with a brightly coloured big eyed girl splashed across your front, so if you are looking to make an impact come spring time, here are 5 Tees I personally picked and are sure to turn heads.

1. The Sachist from makeusmiletees.com is a Samurai Champloo tee and features Mugen, one of the main characters of the show. Although set hundred of years ago in Japan, Champloo is well known for its urban contemporary undertones in presentation most notably found in it’s soundtrack which you can find here (note the four star rating ..thank me later). As far as the Tee goes part blood splattered flowers and the prominent portrait of Mugen given the world the fingers makes this one eye catching find.

Samurai are cool, so is this tee.

2. Keeping with the samurai theme we have Akira Kurosawa from Samurai 7 a wonderful adaptation of the classic Japanese movie of the same name. This tee features large hiranaga (Japanese writing) and Kanbei the leading character from the show. if for nothing else it’s a nice tee due to it’s character detail and in this case i can’t say the monochrome look hurts but some may not be drawn to the lack of colour. Still, a fine tee at a fair price and you can pick it up at stylinonline.com.

Kambei

3. Next up is a tee from the super cool terratag.com. To be honest it was pretty hard to pick out of their great selection of quality tees but in the end the one that stood out as a sure fire head spinner was Black Lashes. If these pearly blues are from a particular show you will have to forgive me as I cannot recognise them. Despite this minor flaw, you have to admit the vibrant pink again the jet black creates quite an impact, couple thuis with the sheer size of those eyes and if people aren’t looking your way then they must be wearing darker shades than the young model sporting the tee itself!

Eye candy

4. Okay, is debatable if this tee will turn heads, at least on first impression. But on a second take and taking into account that his is a tee for the ladies, with the right jacket plus other accessories, you will be able to direct attention to the cute gothic anime girl smack bang in the middle of this tee and it’s pretty well drawn. Non in all fairness this came from cafepress and is my wildcard but I don’t believe it detracts from it’s clean look and pure simplicity in style. Again I believe this is an original character and not from any particular series but to be honest if it looks good, who cares?

Cute and simple

5. This last tee immediately grabbed me by the collar, hoisted me off my feet and slammed me into the wall. Seriously, look at it, even the model knows there’s not much to else to do but put his hands behind his back; the tee carries itself. Now this tee *is* from an anime although which one is hard to say – i would be inclined to say Big O but in anycase it’s clearly the work of the late Mitsuteru Yokoyama of Giant Robo fame. Simply put, it just looks cool!


Boom!

So there you have it and if you have any links to you favourite anime tees let us know on our facebook group page or here in the comments.

Introducing Luminaires

I was thinking today, what good is a blog if you can’t use it to promote your friends?  That ‘s why I’m taking the opportunity to give a shout out to some friends called Luminaires.  They are a new band but have been doing gigs across London for some time and were recently featured on the BBC’s London Calling.

This is a big step for them and will hopefully lead to bigger things; more gigs, a recording deal…groupies.  All the things that let you know you’ve made it.

They are also working on making music videos.  You can check out the making of video for ‘Solid Gold’ below.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJaNgL2qyKA

tshirts to help haiti

After seeing this type of post on a number of other sites, I didn’t want to reapeat the same thing.  However, if one additional person sees this and contributes then I guess it’s worth it.

By now you know what the deal is.  There are many ways for you to get involved and help those in need.  This is one way you can help and look good at the same time.  Here are some t-shirts I liked that can help out the victims of the Haoiti earthquake.

A nice design from Threadless featuring the phrase “Men anpil chay pa lou”, Many Hands Make the Load Lighter.  All proceeds are going to the American Red Cross Haiti Relief and Development Fund.

I like the simple, to the point design over at Doubletake clothing.  Proceeds go to serveral organisations including UNICEF, Doctors Without Borders, and CSI Ministries.

Sales of this tee stop at the end of the month so move fast if you want to get hold of it.

This is one of my favourites from a limited edition Timberland collection, but they don’t ship to the UK!

All profits from this collection go to the Yéle Haiti earthquake fund.

However you decide to help whether through a t-shirt, text, donation or hopping on a plane, remember the check out he organisation you’re giving your money/time to and ensure most if not all proceeds are going to those who need it most.

Happy New Year!

2009 was one of the most memerable years of the decade.  From the election of a black president to the death of the most famous white singer.  Maybe not as widely recognised but still important (to us at least) was the launch of our t-shirt company.  Thoughout 2010 we’ll be working hard to bring out more products and working to make this a success, so look out for more from mayamada.

If you haven’t already, join our Facebook group.  As well as the latest news, we’ll be putting up sneak peeks at upcoming designs throughout the new year.

Happy New Year from mayamada!