Yes, its been a while since we did a post!
We finally got around to doing some product shots last week. We got lucky, I didn’t even have to drag out my camera setup, our office neighbour was already doing some test shoots for some of his products, so I latched onto that quick quick, and we now have some usable artwork. Yay!
Full size shots are available for download on the press page.
Fruits of our efforts are below, enjoy!:
Born in the UK and raised in South Africa, Lawrence Sheed moved to Shanghai in 1994 to set up an IT department for a successful clothing company. But he had a side project. A very cool side project. For Lawrence Sheed builds his own arcade machines.
“I’ve always liked arcade machines,and around 2002 I thought, ‘Hey, why don’t I build one,’” he explains. Back then he imported all the parts as he couldn’t find anything locally. “So I built one, and friends would come round and go, ‘Holy shit! What the hell? Where did you get this?’ I would say that I’d made it and they would ask to buy one.”
He sold half a dozen or so, mostly to bars and clubs, names of yore such as Judy’s, Pegasus and the Big Bamboo. You can still find one of his machines in Bubba’s BBQ on Hongqiao Lu.
These days Sheed sources stuff in China. “The best place in the world is Taobao. I love Taobao. If you look carefully there are lots of places where you can buy old crap from Japan. Then we order the buttons from a factory in Guangzhou, the joysticks from somewhere else.”
He shows us an original Neo-Geo cartridge. “These used to cost hundreds of dollars in the US originally. Now they’re RMB100 or so. You can buy ones with hundreds of games on them for a couple of hundred.”
Sheed says his machines usually have 200-300 games on them, and customers can pick and choose the ones they want. We’re talking Metal Slug, Street Fighter, Pac- Man, Bubble Bobble, Asteroids and Defender. “You can basically run any games on them.”
They can also customize the look of your machine. “For things like bars we’ll throw their logo on and make a graphic for them. For home clients we can make an original style Pac-Man or Space Invaders or whatever. And it’s not just that, it’s that plus hundreds of games.”
So to the big question – how much do his machines cost? “We’re kind of bespoke,” explains Sheed. “I can get the big plastic things for about RMB1,500 on Taobao fully done. But mine are smaller and customized for home use – so table-sized – and we’re selling them for RMB4,500.”
He says the only difficulty he has building them for himself is finishing the job. “The problem with making arcade machines is you get to a certain point where it works and it plays, and it’s like, ‘Do I need to spend the other two hours doing it up now I can turn it on and play the game?’”
Don’t let that put you off ordering one though. “For the client stuff, it’s got to be done and out,” Sheed assures us.
Shanghai Talk has put us in their gift guide in the December 2011 edition.
We’re in the top right corner of the gift guide. Unfortunately one small mistake – the price is wrong!
I just know going to hear more griping from people complaining about that 12rmb price difference from their published 88RMB (where did they pick that from?) vs the actual price of 100RMB
Click below for a full size version.
Shanghai family (a City Weekend production) put a small page up about the Magnets, but unfortunately didn’t put a link to us. Shanghai Lollipop, one of the stores that carries us got a link instead.
Wonderful. The page in question is here – http://www.shfamily.com/blog/2011/06/12/fresh-tips-bits-for-the-summer/
Oh well, some publicity is better than no publicity, and I have put a comment on their blog page about that.
In other news, we’re currently on our 3rd reprint for the Magnets – so they’re doing quite well.
We’re currently out of stock till the reprints arrive, mostly as my assistant didn’t order as many boxes as I asked for.
I told her to get 1000 boxes, she only ordered 500… and they take about 3 weeks from ordering till delivery. Doh!
So…. this time I took control, and I’ve re-ordered 5000 boxes now to ensure it doesn’t happen again, (plus a few thousand more magnets). We should have new stock at the end of the month assuming our printers don’t make the usual mistakes with the glue and we have to send them back yet again.
QC – something I do, and they don’t hehe…
The Fridge lingo Published in the 《CITY WEEKEND 城市周刊》Magazine.
Magazine picture shown on the left.
Some updates on what we’re up to, as its been a little quiet on the blog recently.
We’re currently working on Set #3 of our Fridge Lingo fridge magnets.
If you’ve been following the blog, you’ll note that Set #3 is about Food. Hence the “Food, Glorious Food” title 🙂
Given the lack of feedback from clients, this one is another lets just see how it goes style production.
Our initial topics added are 水果 (Fruit), 菜 (Vegetables), 饮料 (Drinks), 香料 (Spices), 量词 (Measure Words) and other 常用的 (Basics) like 牛奶(Milk), 鸡蛋(Eggs) and 米饭(Rice).
We’d love some comments, suggestions, or even photo’s of our sets in use on your Fridge, or other surfaces.
People ask us all the time, where oh where can I buy a set?
Online Vendors
Aside from the obvious Shanghai site listed on the right hand side, iWantOne.cn http://www.iwantone.cn
We also now have a new online retailer up in Beijing, with the nice people at Beijing home delivery carrying Set #1. You can buy that, and more products from Beijing Home Delivery http://www.beijinghomedelivery.com/fridgelingo.html
Retail Outlets
For those who don’t want the convenience of door to door delivery, you can brave the cold winter and visit one of the retail outlets who carry stock of the magnets around town.
Most of the retailers are in Jing An (and strangely enough all close to our office!).
You can find Set #1 at the following venues:
If you would also like to carry our magnets, drop an email to: lawrence at iwantone dot cn, and we can talk.
You asked for Sex, you got it.
Sex in the City has gone to the printers, and we should have our not some grubby hands on the new sets in 2-3 weeks.
Wondering why it took so long?
Our first attempt went out to select friends and the consensus was that while it was really really cool, it could be construed as too over the top. We then went through revision after revision after revision – our final count was 57 versions!
All the clients that came to our offices also supplied us with suggestions, changes and additions which also got incorporated.
No doubt, despite the editing, re-editing we’ll still manage too offend, miss minor mistakes, and entertain and inform.
We just hope we don’t end up going to jail for being too naughty!
The Fridge lingo Published in the 《That’s Shanghai》Magazine.
Magazine picture shown on the left.
Despite us sending them corrections, sadly they got both my name wrong, and the website wrong. Score one for accuracy, sigh.
Talking to your Ayi has Over 200 words and phrases useful for basic household tasks inside!
Our FridgeLingo™ word sets have English, Pinyin and Chinese Characters on each magnet.
Additional phrase sets are also available at http://www.iwantone.cn
Stuck for words, at a loss for what to say? Improve your Chinese skills with our second, and more risque word set. Ever wondered what how to say golddigger in Chinese?
Do you even know what cuckolded is? (or how to say it in Chinese)
Learn all this, and more with our second set. First few orders come with a special gift ;)
Additional phrase sets are also available at http://www.iwantone.cn
When you go to the supermarket, when you want call a
takeaway, when you want to make a traditional Chinese dish
yourself...Don’t be stuck! Use the FridgeLingo™, all will be so
easy.
Additional phrase sets are also available at http://www.iwantone.cn