website Archives - mayamada

Introducing The New mayamada.com!

mayamada May 6, 2013 No Comments

Even though many of you have complemented the old mayamada website, we felt it was still time for a change to push things forward.

We’ve been hard at work on the new website so it’s now easier for you to get products, find out about every mayamada character and see events past and present.

Here are some of the changes…

Brand New Layout

We’ve brought together all the main mayamada highlights in one place so you can get a better picture of what’s new with mayamada at any time.

New Online Shop

Our shop has been given a major overhaul for 2013. More items are now available available to purchase. Not only t-shirts but caps, accessories and the new Samurai Chef manga book.

You can also create your own account to view order status and history. And as always, we accept all major credit cards or you can pay with your Paypal account.

Go shopping now >

Blog

The blog has been brought into the main site so you can always come back to mayamada.com to see what the latest news is.

You can also check out out our Facebook Page to get involved with the brand.

Read the latest blog post >

Characters

It has be a long time coming but character profiles are now up on the site as well as manga for each. This includes an online preview of the Samurai Chef manga.

Right now you can take a look at the 11th Hour, Hot lunch and Samurai Chef shows. Before the year is up, expect to see this section of the website grow with more shows and more characters.

Take a closer look at the mayamada cast of characters >

Events

You can also keep up to date with all mayamada event past and present in one place.

The events section is the place to find out the next event coming up, or to see a selection of videos and photos from events gone by so you never miss out.

And for the full photo galleries, you can always head to our Facebook page.

See what events are coming up >

But don’t just take our word for it. Have a look for yourself ^_^

mayamada.com – Original Anime Inspired Clothing

New mayamada Website Coming Soon

mayamada May 3, 2013 No Comments

A brand new mayamada website is coming Monday May 6th.

Look out for it this Bank Holiday along with a Bank Holiday promotion.

What’s more, the new Samurai Chef manga book and t-shirt will both be available for purchase. Stay tuned…

Think Long and Maintain Your High Standards

Last week I came to realise the importance of keeping high standards within your brand.

We were putting together a secret gift to give away soon (can’t say what yet, that part’s a surprise) and I got to see the “completed” work a couple weeks ago.

Why the quote marks? Well those weren’t actually my words as it was quite far off what I had in mind for the final product and arranged to have the job restarted.

We could have accepted it as it was – it wasn’t a complete disaster after all. But it wasn’t good enough to represent our brand so we had to wait the extra week to have them done again and done properly.

Patience is a virtue (I guess)

It was a shame as we wanted them in time for a promotional party we were invited to, so it was frustrating for me to wait and miss that date.

However, it’s so important to set high standards your brand and not allow yourself to dip below them. In truth, they should be raised over time – especially if you’re just starting out. We now have the finished product and they look exactly as we wanted.

Don’t rush to put things out before they are ready if the end result will be detrimental to your brand.

Though I don’t own any product with an ‘i’ in front, I do admire Apple’s no compromise adherence to the quality of their brand. More often than not they release a product when it is ready to wow people (not always the case ) and not a moment before.

Do it right, not quick

When it comes down to it this is your brand and you have to always ask yourself: “am I comfortable giving this to someone, even for free?” In this case the answer was a clear “no” and that means that however frustrating waiting is, in the long run your brand will benefit if you continue to maintain high standards.

Keep in mind high doesn’t mean perfect – very few things are, but you have to be comfortable having that item – whether it’s t-shirts, stickers, badges, hoodies or your website – represent your brand. If it’s a bad product, that’s your brand so make sure that whatever you’re giving to customers and fans is good enough to represent that.

Have you had any similar experiences? Let us know what you think in the comments or on our Facebook page.

By the way, that special gift? We’ll be handing them out at our picnic next month 🙂

Image source: electricpig.co.uk

Brand New Website: Doing It Live!

mayamada March 17, 2011 No Comments

Those of you that tune into these pages often will know that we’ve recently finished our rebranding and have a new range of tees out under the new mayamada brand. You’ll also know that we have been hard at work on our new website. Well…(deep breath)…it’s done!

It’s been a massive effort and a big thanks goes to everyone who pitched in along the way (you know who you are), we couldn’t have done it without you.

You can take a look right now, check out the shows on offer an maybe even pick up a tee.

We hope you like it, let us know what you think of it in the comments our at our Facebook page. We can’t wait hear from you.

The Problem of the Last Mile

Nigel February 27, 2011 No Comments

Ideas are easy, but finishing is (disproportionately) harder.

Our website is almost done and we’ve also just finished rebranding efforts including brand new designs (available now). The whole experience has been a lesson in seeing things through to the end.

Everyone has good ideas (just as the Winklevoss twins). As I’ve learned over the past year, that’s not difficult. You may have some good ideas, some bad ones and one or two will probably be excellent. But generally it’s something anyone can do.

So you have a bunch of good ideas, you pick one and run with it. Putting in the work to implement your idea ranks a little higher on the difficulty scale, but getting 90-95% of that killer idea is still quite achievable.

The truly difficult task in any pursuit, is finishing it. Getting to 100%

That last 5-10% is where winners are separated form everyone else. For some reason that last mile – when you can see the finishing line but aren’t quite there yet – tests you much more than whatever work took place beforehand.

I don’t quite understand it myself, but maybe Malcolm Gladwell will write a book explaining it one day.

That is when you been at it for months or maybe even years and just want to see the finishing line. When things are taken longer than expected and when the problems seem to want to crop up. If you’re going to be successful, you can’t stop and call it ‘done’ at 90% – you have to persist all the way.

It helps if you have a good team of people around you to fill in the gaps that you leave (like graphic design ability and patience!), but however you get there just remember that you’re not done until you get to 100%.

What For?

The pieces are coming together as we prepare for the release of our new range of t-shirts and hoodies. We have to get the t-shirts tagged, packaged and shipped to our first customers, sort out the website and organise a photoshoot all inside three weeks. This month is going to be crazy!

If you’ve been following us from the beginning you’ll probably have seen our previous efforts to sell t-shirts…which didn’t go so well. I’m one for learning from failure and since then we have completely rebranded our efforts and are almost ready to re-launch.

Towards the end of last year, I was asked why we we’re going at this again after our initial efforts didn’t go as planned. The question took be by surprise, not because I didn’t have an answer, but because it was obvious to me. So obvious I never actually stopped to think about the answer before.

Because this is what we want to do.

Because we want to create a really cool brand that people can related to, create something that takes our interest in Japanese culture and puts our own spin on it. Because we want to make something great.

I recently watched the Social Network and for all the negative perceptions of Mark Zuckerburg and the general concerns over Facebook (security, privacy etc), for me the biggest takeaway from that film (or “movie” if you’re reading this stateside) is that at the end of this day he went and did something great because that’s what he wanted to do. He didn’t ask for permission, didn’t check with anyone along the way (except Justin Timberlake). He just did it and that spoke volumes to me.

Now, before someone make a crazy assumption, I’m not saying mayamada is going to be Facebook. What I’m saying is that creating anything from nothing is hard, but that doesn’t meaning you let setbacks stop you if that’s what you really want.

So here’s to making things happen and to a great 2011 for everyone reading this!

Some Thoughts On Developing A Brand

We recently decided to completely re start or t-shirt brand. Everything is being done from scratch as we look to make a really great brand and product for people. I always thing it’s good to know when something isn’t working and make the decision to stop, make changes and most importantly, learn from the experience. As we go through the process of building a brand, some thoughts came to mind so I thought would write them down for anyone in a similar position.

When you start out a brand I think there are some crucial things to consider:

Brand

Image source: logodesignworks

If you are looking to put out a brand that can be recognised it must be given serious thought.

You t-shirts must have some kind of link between them, something to hold them together something that people can sink there teeth into so to speak. There are so many brand out, what makes your different? They don’t need to look the same, they don’t need to even all be t-shirts, but there should be something to attract people beneath the designs themselves. That just my opinion anyway. I like the brands developed by people Johnny Cupcakes, Tokidoki and Superdry because of their strong concept that shines in everything from the website to the product to the people behind product.

Team

Image source: icebirdy

Are you doing it yourself or in a group? If by yourself have you got the right skills? You might be good at design but if you can’t get the business right then you might find it difficult to get traction.

I’m a fan of working with other people who are good at what they do, so we have a small team of people here. If you have a team make sure you’ve got the might mix of people to cover all the angles.

Vision – What is the long term plan for your brand, Where are you going with this?
Product – The designs you create to the physical the t-shirts you put them on. Print, material, packaging etc
Business – The foundation of it all. Sometimes the boring parts, but essential to making something successful

Even if you’re in a group, be prepared to wear different hats when starting out. We recently had to do taxes for the first time and the only thing it taught us is that we needed someone to do this for us next time! Really, it was not fun (respect to people who have to do this for a living!)

Plan

It’s an oldie but a goodie: “He who fails to plan is planning to fail” – Winston Churchill

Once you have all the pieces together how exactly are you going to make it happen? What’s the next step. I’ve never been a big fan of pages and pages of documentation (you’ll see why in a bit), but you need something on paper so you (and everyone in the group) know what you are going can coordinate actions. If you don’t have the discipline to even write down a plan of attack, you’ll probably never make it to the castle gates (not sure where that analogy came from…).

Adapt

Allow me to contradict myself. As soon as you start that plan you scribbled down, it’s going out the window. Let me explain. Things change and rarely ever go exactly as planned and you need to be flexible. This is why I’m not for hugely detailed plans, because that’s fairytale and it won’t happen like that.

Enjoy it

Image source: mjagiellicz

Last, but probably most important. Don’t do something you’re not going to enjoy. We only at the very start of are journey and it been tough, I can’t imagine what experienced and successful brands are going through but I hope to find out as I’ve enjoyed it so far.

Do you agree? Disagree or have anything to add? Drop a comment or vist our Facebook page.

New Site and New Tees This Week

It’s been a hard few weeks, but we’ve been hard at work getting out an all new website featuring the pictures from our photoshoot. We think it looks great and you’ll get to see it over the weekend. Along with that, we’ve got two new tees from a new theme. Here’s a preview:

We’ve had a good reaction so far and hopefully you will like them too, we’d love to know what you think. They’ll be available as soon as the new site is up on Friday…finger crossed!

What else is coming up for mayamada? Well we’ll be at StreetFest on the 30th of May checking out all London has to offer in street culture. We’re looking forward to meeting some interesting people and seeing the mix of talents and styles at the event. Look forward to lots of pictures and video from us there.

Check out these pictures and video from past events: