…But Not Your Work
December 5th, 2008
I still have to write something on the application. I’ve heard about a TARP car with logos of failed businesses stuck on like a NASCAR. I’ve heard about adding a pirates element to that idea. Whatever we do, we need to settle on something fairly soon.
At the moment, I prefer NASCAR stickers to pirates, but I’m open to ideas.
Please discuss.
I’ve already collected logos for all the failed investment banks. I think we’ll get more props for that than anything else. Matt (a/k/a MEM, but you can call him Eugene, if you’re nasty) was an early proponent of the pirate theme. I’m sure we can work in some piracy themes, as well as the very popular whizzing-Calvin along the way.
Matt also had a great idea for the number on our car: $700 Billion. Although maybe now we should switch that to $8 Trillion?
Maybe incorporate something about the automaker bailout/non-bailout?
Three thoughts:
1) I like the $700 billion number.
2) I think the car might make more sense if we played it straight with the NASCAR look. Adding pirates or something else calls for Occam’s razor. Of course, we could just be a pirate car and do away with the TARP angle.
3) I don’t know how to put this delicately but…a Calvin-whizzing theme is a non-starter (so to speak). Spirit is a family-friendly mag, and urination just doesn’t fit the bill. Let’s go in another direction.
@Brad
3. Fair point on Calvin. Sorry, Matt. Them’s the brakes. Maybe we can make up some t-shirts or something for you.
2. I agree on the Occam’s razor point (although Occam’s razor would make a great theme for a LeMons car, especially a junker that you really had to hodge-poge with a different motor, etc.; irony being my generation’s main method of communicating opinion). Do you know anybody who can print/cut vinyl stickers? I can produce the graphics, but we need someone who can produce the actual printed goods for application to the car.
I asked our art director for advice on the logos. He said:
1) There are places like Sticker Junkie.com, but you usually have to get 1,000 or so. It’s tough to get one or two. Me: I wondered if we could get Sticker Junkie to sponsor us, but who knows how legal that is.
2) Another thing you could do is print it in color, spray mount it to the car and then shellac it. Won’t look great, but it is LeMons . . . Me: This sounds doable.
There are places that print race stickers, but I’m averse to paying for them when these are only faux sponsors. I like the cheap method of printing them on an inkjet and then using 3M Super 77 to stick them to the car. Only problem with that really (other than looking very DIY, although that too is totally in LeMons style) is that then we’re limited to 8.5 x 11 format.
I think it’s totally legal to get sticker junkie to sponsor us. It’s totally legal to get anybody to sponsor us for anything. Our only limitation on coinage is that we have to keep the car under $500 (after selling off parts) and/or bribe the judges not to penalize us. Seriously. Read the 24 Hours of LeMons rules if you haven’t done so already.
I’ll ask Sticker Junkie to sponsor us.
Looking at their product, I’m not sure that what stickerjunkie does is what we’re looking for, although anyone who wants to sponsor our stickers can have prominent placement on either the top of the windshield or back of the rear bumper/decklid (or both). Is Spirit going to want to sticker the car too? Heck, if SWA wants to come through, the car is almost already the blue color of the new airplane livery, all we would need to do is put a big color change vinyl on the back third to make it look right.
DecalFX looks like they do a lot of vinyl sticker biz for cars, this would be ideal for them. I can provide camera-ready art in whatever format they need (.ai, .eps, etc.). I’m pretty good with Illustrator, not so much with Photoshop although I have it.
edecals looks to be pretty extensive too, although not quite as intense. But it looks like they could print pretty much everything we will need.
Doozywraps is a local company, Farmer’s Branch. They could probably do what we want too, although their product is slightly different than what I envisioned. But it would look very sharp.
Skinzwraps is local too. Same idea as doozywraps.
The vehicle wraps would work best if SWA has any desire to get in on this action. For sponsorship purposes, bear in mind that if we get this car running and we enjoy the experience, this car could end up running as many as four races this year (Houston spring, Carolina, New Orleans, and Houston fall). Is that a pipe dream? Maybe.
Especially since this is all cart-before-the-horse until we have a running car.
Sing with me, Goulet: “To dream, the impossible dream….”
I’m not married to anything (except my wife). TARP is timely and humorous, but may not stand the longer test of time (if we do this once, I’m sure we’ll want to do it again). Understand about Calvin pissing, and it’s not really much of a theme anyway. But I still like the idea of a Calvin head on a Lemon body, pissing on…Idunno, maybe “Lamm.” Just not this time. Pirates are fun and all, but also not much to go on there–a bunch of impoverished Africans who’ve resurrected the jaunty pasttime of kidnapping and pillaging…probably also not family-friendly.
I wonder if these sticker shops would hesitate to print copyrighted logos, considering they will get national exposure? If you read the Krider racing Lemons blog , you can see that they have a ton of “dontated”/sponsored parts. Perhaps a lot were safety-related. If no sponsors are willing, I like the idea of stickum + coating.
Even if we could get SWA (do they really want to put their name on a <$500 crapcan? I’d call that poor messaging), do you think a SWA sponsorship would be a good idea for Lemons? “Hey, we’re sponsored by The Corporate Man. Let us race Lemons!” Also, wasn’t SWA the only airline to not take a Fed bailout a few years ago? Another mixed message.
Another name that was recently brainstormed: Goat Rodeo Racing. I think we maybe pick this up for later races if the TARP theme wears out.
We wouldn’t want to imply that Southwest sponsored our car, for the reason Matt mentioned and then some. They do not want a piece of our action.
I would guess that bankrupt companies wouldn’t sue us for copyrighted logos, but the sticker companies might refuse to do them anyway.
Let’s go back to themes:
1) TARP
2) Pirates
3) Goat racing
Out of all of these, TARP is the most timely but the most likely to be dated down the line. That doesn’t seem like a huge deal–unless we want to make a semi-hobby out of LeMons races. I’m not sure I do. Reminds me of the quote from Oscar Wilde (paraphrased): “Socialism is great. Except for all of the meetings.”
Can we settle on a theme?
Go with TARP.
TARP is the theme for this race.
As far as the IB logos issue goes, it’s fair use (parody), so there’s no copyright issue.
The Oscar Wilde quote reminds me of a Churchill quote: “Capitalism is the worst economic system, except for all the others.” I think that the TARP theme celebrates this idea.
Tarp is awesome and so is the $700 billion number…maybe get some fake money printed up and have it blowing out the back as you drive around the track. I like the idea of having failed banks and such as sponsor names. maybe have somebody print up one of those vinyl skins for the entire car…logos and all? that maybe to “top shelf” for lemons
@Grayson
Like it. Also could tape the fake money to our gas cans. Get it? Burning money? HAR
I think that with Congress approving the “bankruptcy lite” auto bailout, we can now add the Big 3 logos to the TARP car. Plus all the subsidiary logos like Mercury, Lincoln, Pontiac, etc.