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Puma's Brand New Shoe Box/Bag

This is extremely cool. It almost makes me want to buy a pair of Pumas. I certainly will once this becomes commercially available.
PUMA's new shoe box.

After spending 21 months studying box fabrication and shipping, Fuseproject realized that any improvement to that already lean system would merely be incremental. So instead, the “clever little bag” combines the two packaging components of any shoe sale–the bag and the box–with high-tech ingenuity.

The bag tightly wraps an interior cardboard scaffolding–giving it shape and reducing cardboard use by 65%. Moreover, without that shiny box exterior, there’s no laminated cardboard (which interferes with recycling). There’s no tissue paper inside. And there’s no throw-away plastic bag. The bag itself is made of recycled PET, and it’s non-woven–woven fibers increase density and materials use–and stitched with heat, so that it’s less manufacturing intensive.

The impact: Puma estimates that the bag will slash water, energy, and fuel consumption during manufacturing alone by 60%–in one year, that comes to a savings of 8,500 tons of paper, 20 million mega joules of electricity, 264,000 gallons of fuel, and 264 gallons of water. Ditching the plastic bags will save 275 tons of plastic, and the lighter shipping weight will save another 132,000 gallons of diesel.

Full Story: Reboot: Puma and Yves Béhar Spend Three Years Designing Super-Green Shoebox

EARLY Jim Henson commercials selling coffee are genius...

If only commercials were this good today. I love these two.

Shirt Notice: 1 More Week

Hey gang, I’m going to keep the current shirt up for another week. Considering the inspiration behind it and the fact that the SEC filed civil charges of securities fraud against Goldman Sachs on Friday, it seems like a good idea. I’d also like an excuse to call attention to that news story here, because it was mostly reported by mainstream media in the Friday news dump.

Also, we went to a new fixed pricing structure ($29/shirt with free shipping worldwide) and there was a lot of pissing and moaning about it. There was also some positive reception, too. So I want to explain something really quickly…

The new pricing model is better for more people.

In the past with our variable pricing model, shirt #24 would be priced at $29 when you include shipping. So that means that only #’s below 24 were cheaper than they are now.   Our bargain-hunters loved us for the chance of getting a $1 shirt that we no longer offer, but the trade off is offering more shirts at cheaper prices to our customers who dig what we’re doing here. And they can get the numbers they want. (It would actually be #19 for international shipping addresses, which better illustrates my point, but those are only about 15% or our orders.)

As we grow, we hope to offer 100 affordable chances at being part of something truly unique and to continue to offer the personal customer service that is possible with a small customer base. Low-quantity runs are less cost effective, but we feel the value of exclusivity for the purchaser is worth it to some. This is all not  mention that our quality is better than most.

So that’s the deal. I know we won’t be bringing everyone from before along with us, and that’s OK. This will be a good thing for more customers in the long run.

New Shirt Notice: Upside Down

Upside Down is the only way I can succinctly describe a world in which 25 hedge fund managers are paid a sum that would employ 680,000 entry-level teachers. The person in the swing is supported by an infrastructure (the tree) grown of violence (the bomb). I think of that person as your average first-world citizen living in a waking dream powered by fast food value menus, Dancing With The Stars, NASCAR and the NFL (all streaming in high definition).

It’s notable that this shirt is the first 200 Nipples shirt we will sell at flat pricing ($29) and with free shipping (every order, every location, worldwide). It’s a big change and you can read more about it here. The short story is that we’ve had a lot people ask for flat pricing, it will allow us to keep doing what we’re doing and now people who want the higher numbers can get them. We’re shipping free because at flat pricing we can afford to.

“Upside Down” goes on sale on the home page April 12th, 2010 at 12:00am (US CST). Enjoy…

If you like this shirt, let us know in the comments. If you hate it, tell us why. The more feedback we get, the better.

Microsoft attributes $100,000,000 to using the right shade of blue...

In his Designing Bing: Heart & Science presentation at Microsoft’s MIX10 conference, Paul Ray talked about the design process behind Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing, including how the team uses data and design principles to make decisions.

MIX10: Designing Bing with Heart & Science