Sep 30 2008

“What do you use them for? Who buys them?”

Category: Design, Events, General, Good TimesTrisha @ 3:15 pm Comments (3)

This past weekend I had the opportunity to participate in a great event - the 2008 Parkway Run/Walk for children’s cancer research. Despite the light rain that drizzled down the entire morning, over 1200 people still filled the Parkway with their running shoes and rain attire, and even more did the 2K walk. I participate in a lot of charity 5Ks, triathalons, and road races, but this was the first time I had run in this specific race. A big thank you and a job well done goes out to the race planners and the Four Seasons for the volunteers and delicious breakfast following the race. It’s great to see Philadelphia come together for such a great cause!

After the race on Sunday I ran into some old colleagues and co-workers of mine who I haven’t seen since I joined LTLprints.com. We huddled under umbrellas and canopies to catch up and chat between bites of scrambled eggs and bananas (thanks again, Four Seasons!) As I described what I was doing, one of the gentleman I was talking to asked a question that I get a lot when I am talking about wall graphics and our product;

“What do you use them for? Who buys them?”

This might be my favorite question to answer. The possibilities of this product are endless. I turned to my colleague and started my speel. If you’re a parent or an aunt or uncle, it’s a great idea to take a picture of your child doing their favorite activity (playing sports, an instrument, drawing, or just smiling at the camera) and have a print made for their bedroom (great gift idea!.) You can edit the picture to add other people in, such as a celebrity, athlete, or a relative that lives far away. If you’re a creative person, you can submit a design or graphic as a great solution for decorating; it’s removable and reusable without leaving any mark or residue on the wall. Plus, it adds a personal touch that you can’t get in a home store. Businesses can use LTLprints for company publicity too -they travel so easily and are a great answer for trade shows or expos. When you need to bring a poster or billboard of some kind but don’t want to deal with the hassle of tearing or ripping the paper in transit, take LTLprints instead!

I found myself going on and on at the race, talking about some of the prints we did for other companies at IgnitePhilly and IndyHall. Before I knew it I was chatting to a group of about 5 or 6 people who had crowded around me to catch what I was talking about. I answered questions about the service, described how durable the material is (it can even go through the washer!) and laughed about some new ideas people were shouting out (the Kelly Kalpalski - Saved By the Bell cut-out idea came up quite a few times.)

As a friend of mine and I walked home after the race, he was teasing me for being a walking, talking advertisement for LTLprints. I defended myself by saying that as the director of PR, it IS my job after all:) But it’s also easy to talk about, because LTLprints is a great product that really is going to change the way people decorate. What other product allows people to add a personal touch to anything they put on their walls? I invite anyone to leave a comment with a creative idea of how to utilize LTLprints.com - it’s fun to see what people come up with!

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Sep 25 2008

Inspiration, Ideas, and Beers

Category: Events, Good TimesTrisha @ 9:48 am Comments (3)

As Carsten mentions, LTLprints had the pleasure of attending IgnitePhilly, a series of speakers with five minutes each to talk about inspiring ideas. It’s truly a great idea - the room buzzed with creative and innovative minds. In my opinion, anytime you can get great people, innovation, and a few beers in the same room, it’s guaranteed to be a good time!

LTLprints was there in full force - we actually provided the prints for all the speakers at the IgnitePhilly event. I hope everyone got a chance to see how neat the material is - if you missed one of our handouts for “IgnitePhilly,” just contact Kendall or myself and we’ll be happy to mail you one. I dare you to test the material - take it off the wall, crumple it up, and put it back on a different wall, good as new. Go ahead, I dare you. Or you can watch Alex’s video!

Much credit is deserved to each of the speakers last night. My personal favorites included Pamela Zimmerman from Park(ing) Day Philadelphia. Pam, great idea and concept - it shows just how creative this city really is and I loved the pictures! Credit is also due to Stu Hankin and Will Robinson from IdeaBlob. My favorite quote of the night came from this presentation; “You shouldn’t be afraid of somebody stealing your idea. You should be afraid of no one ever seeing it.”

ArtSphere and MakePhilly rounded out my favorites (which by the way, I plan to attend the ArtBuggyDerby), but a round of applause goes out to each presenter. Hearing each of your presentations was an inspiration to wake up and get back to work this morning:)

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Sep 24 2008

LTLprints thru the washer and dryer!

Category: Videosschoenrock @ 11:52 pm Comments (7)

Alex Hillman, the rockstar co-founder at IndyHall just posted this video. Thanks for the video - we love it!!!

We want to bring you high quality material and we can’t brag enough about how durable our LTLprints actually are. Lucky for us we’ve got cool friends (who also love Viddler) to help us out on our mission of spreading the LTLprints.com word.

Thank you Alex. You rock.

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Sep 24 2008

2 Companies ago and Impact on Society

Category: General, ThoughtsCarsten @ 1:36 pm Comments (2)

Yesterday Kendall, Trisha and I attended IgnitePhilly. Talking to Jesse i heard something very interesting: ‘2 companies ago’. Today he writes a post about not only gathering information and painting ideas to a wall but also taking the risk and ‘jumping into the entrepeneur world.’ One other thought I heard in a presentation (not sure who spoke - maybe someone else who was there remembers - thanks for your comment) was that ‘Companies with great success have a positive impact on society’.

For me - as a serial entrepreneur - Jesse’s words, his post and the ‘Impact on Society’ really inspired me:

  • start moving, act upon your ideas and dreams
  • keep pushing
  • once you move it becomes addictive and you want to do more and do it again
  • before you can realize you are into company #3 and can share learnings from ‘2 Companies ago’
  • Do something positive and you will have an impact on society

How does this relate to you and ‘larger than life’?

Who ever you are, what ever you are good at, what ever your dreams are: act upon your ideas and skills! And, do it now - don’t wait. Focus on what is good for your family, your friends and - of course - your customers you will have a positive impact on society.

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Sep 23 2008

Lina installing her LTLprints

Category: Customers, Design, VideosCarsten @ 12:50 pm Comments (4)

The other day we saved some shipping cost on a print. Instead of shipping it to our customer we went for a short walk and handed a unique larger than print to Lina Moysis. Lina is a graphics artist and designer. She came up with this wonderful design. Not sure what the name of her wall art is - maybe ‘Autumn field with birds’?! Anyhow the wall graphic turned out great and totally fits Lina’s room. We at LTLprints like the decor particularly because it nicely displays our capability of producing multiple ‘cutouts’ in one print. Did you know that having multiple cutouts in one print gives you the opportunity to increase the size of your design when installing it? Just stick the pieces of your print slightly further apart and you make an ‘oversized’ print a ‘larger than life print’.

The catalog is not ready yet but will be launched in October. You can for sure expect Lina’s print to be included in our selection of available prints. If you’d like to purchase Lina’s design immediately just send an email to cpe at LTLprints.com and I will personally take care of your order!

PS.: If you are in Philly - let us know and we save you some time on shipping with your order.

PS.: If you have a great design and want to get it featured in our catalog (starting October) or on the LTLprints blog - let me know!

Art, Wall Poster, Wall Print, Design, LTLprints, Larger Than Life Prints,
Wall Decor, Wall Art, Wall Poster, Wall Print, Design, LTLprints, Larger Than Life Prints

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Sep 22 2008

SteubenParade in NYC

Category: Good Times, Partners, VideosCarsten @ 3:59 pm Comments (11)

As promised in my introductory post I want to give you some more insight on me. This post will deal a little bit with me being a native German having lived in the US since 2005. I totally fell in love with the entrepreneurial spirit in the US and this unique ¿get the job done¿ attitude I encounter everywhere around the country. Hence, I spend most of the time in the US and can go home only occasionally. The more I was psyched to experience ¿home¿ last weekend in New York. Last Saturday I took the chance to go up to the City with new friends from the German Stammtisch group of Philadelphia (thanks Tom, thanks Powen!) to attend the Steuben Parade. The parade wants to keep the German traditions alive and commemorates von Steuben - a German General who served under George Washington during the American Revolutionary War. So Steuben helped the USA in its struggle for independence and his heritage is larger than life. ;)

Somehow we were late for the parade but joined in the German American Friendship Party. That is a long name for what I basically would call ¿Oktoberfest in New York¿. We had a great time and if you watch the video to the right you¿ll see a few things I personally truly care about. First ¿ you guessed it - Germans like beer. But I was in particular psyched to see ¿Radeberger Bier¿ being served. Radeberg is a small city close to Dresden (my hometown) in Germany and it is one of the best beers I know of. Secondly, I LOVE a good German Schnitzel ¿ basically a breaded flat piece of meet. So the question I read on a t-shirt ¿got schnitzel¿ means a lot to me. Last but not least Germans know how to party and sing. I got excited when the girl from Bavaria(?) dressed in a ‘dirndl‘ let me know that she loves German boys. Well ¿ just see for yourself¿
BTW: If you couldn¿t make it to New York last weekend you¿ll have to fly to Munich to experience the real: Oktoberfest!

PS.: As you will have seen: This is my first video - . Pls. comment and let me know your thoughts - i appreciate it!

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Sep 19 2008

LTLprints.net vs. LTLprints.com

Category: General, VideosCarsten @ 9:38 pm Comments (1)

A lot of you guys approached us asking “hey, what’s up with ltlprints.net?”. The .net is our alpha site that we put together in just little over a weekend. You’ll have realized that it is not quite polished and does lack a lot of the functionality. Please be just a little more patient with us and we’ll bring some love your way with our release later in October. In the meantime watch the video to the left (we shot it for the .net) and get a grasp on how easy it is to install the prints. The graffiti and the penguin give you some examples of what is possible. If you like: play around on www.ltlprints.com and get a large print into your home.

We love to hear your thoughts and feedback! So drop us a line here in the comments, use twitter @schoenrock, @cpeLTLprints or shoot us an email: kendall at ltlprints.com; cpe at ltlprints.com.

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Sep 18 2008

Larger Than Life prints - Episode #1

Category: Videosschoenrock @ 9:45 pm Comments (4)

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Sep 18 2008

AI Institute of Philadelphia - Web Design Senior Portfolio Show / Job Fair

Category: Design, JobsCarsten @ 8:56 pm Comments (0)

In search for a web designer [We are Hiring] i just went to the Art Institute of Philadelphia. Graduates from both the graphic design and web design programs were showing their portfolios.

I talked to a lot of the graduating students and was truly impressed with the quality of work. With a wide array of styles and skills everyone showed really great talent, passion for art and dedication in seeing projects through. These are excatly the traits we are looking for. I’ll reach out to everyone I talked to tonight individually. On a general note: Good job and Congrats on your Graduation!

Are you interested in working as web/graphic designer for ltlprints.com?

As a ground-floor member of the LTLprints team, you will play a key role in the design of our next-generation design and art décor platform. Our environment is fast-paced. Our product is exciting. And, most importantly, we respect and appreciate talented ¿go getters¿.

Responsibilities:
* Graphic Design Work (WebDesign, Ads, Communication Materials)
* Enhance Corporate Style
* CSS
* Creation of Artwork for Wallprints

Education and Experience Requirements:
* Outstanding Web2.0 Style Portfolio
* Strong creative and strategic skills.
* Self-starter with the ability to meet tight deadlines for multiple tasks.
* Team Player

We will exclusively consider full time applications for on site employment in center city Philadelphia only. Benefits will be available after a test period of 2 months. Part time work is possible initially. Please send your application and portfolio to jobs at ltlprints.com.

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Sep 17 2008

Greetings to everyone

Category: PartnersCarsten @ 1:21 pm Comments (7)

Hi! I am Carsten ¿ co-founder of LTLprints.com. Originally I am from Dresden ¿ a lovely city in Germany. I got my Diploma in Business Administration [basically an MBA equivalent] from HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management. After my experiences working for companies like Nestle, SAP, and Roland Berger, I quickly realized that I was not made for the corporate world. The founder of spreadshirt, Lukasz Gadowski, (often considered as one of the fathers of entrepreneurship in German), is an HHL graduate as well. Having worked on a project for Spreadshirt as an MBA student Lukasz offered me the position of COO at spreadshirt USA upon my graduation. In 2005 I left Germany, bringing Spreadshirt.com to the U.S. market. In 2006 I became the country manager USA. I look back now with pride at the tremendous success we have had establishing spreadshirt as the U.S. leader in quality and the global leader in the custom apparel world.

In 2007, I got my feet wet as an entrepreneur with my own company CP Venture Consultants. Here at CP Venture Consultants, Kendall and I consulted various start-ups, in the US, Germany and Russia. With Spreadshirt, as well as my consultancy experience, I learned one thing quickly; before anything, team really matters. Only when smart people work 110% dedicated a common goal you have a chance to succeed as an entrepreneur. So finding the right partners one can trust and who are in the same career phase like oneself really mattered to me when thinking about what company to launch next. In this token, I am happy to have met Kendall back in 2006. We became friends over time, room mates in NYC, and ultimately decided to launch our own company together: LTLprints.com. We believe that our overlapping career paths, backgrounds and mindsets are the right basis for working together.

There is a lot more on my mind so keep on checking back from time to time.

BTW: You can send me an email any time to cpe at ltlprints.com!

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