Our friends from laFraise are busy re-launching the brand new laFraise website, and for the past few months they’ve tackled the exciting project of coming up with a concept for the new site and developing the new shop at the same time.
Reason enough for us to meet up with Michael and Thomas and find out what makes the new laFraise so good. Here we go!
Hello Michael and Thomas, could you tell us what exactly you do at laFraise?
MICHAEL:
I’m what you could call the leader of laFraise. 2 years ago, I joined the company, and my main focus has been on re-launching the website and accomplishing a set of goals.THOMAS:
I’ve been here since 2012, and my very interesting work field is that of a Quality Assurance Manager. I make sure that our design contest meets certain criteria so that the products we offer in our shop are top notch. And I also communicate to designers what kind of designs we want to see at laFraise.
When re-launcheing the site, you changed pretty much everything: content, concept and commercial side of things. What exactly did you have to do?
MICHAEL:
We wanted to implement new technology to be able to do things more quickly in future. And now it is much easier to implement new features in the site, which is quite a big step forward for us.
Ever since laFraise was taken over by Spreadshirt, the main focus was on not really on fostering both the design contest and the community anymore – it was on the shop. The contest just served as a means of getting designs for the shop.
The new laFraise is much more concerned with the designers and the platform they find at laFraise to exchange and connect with other designers. You can still order T-shirts, of course, but that’s no longer the main thing.THOMAS:
If you get onto our website now, it says the “We are a social network for graphic designers and artists“. And this is precisely how we understand the concept as a whole.
We are no longer just a t-shirt shop that you can use to get creative input, we are now a social network offering many ways to communicate and exchange ideas with other designers and artists.
And then it should also be possible to have those creative designs printed on products and delivered to your doorstep. That’s part of refinancing the project.
In how far does this affect the design contest?
THOMAS:
Before the re-launch, people uploaded their designs to take part in the Contest, and we accepted those of which we thought they’d be good enough to meet the average quality of what had been submitted. Then they were up to be rated by the community for a matter of 7 days, and at the end of the day the winning design was the one that that had received most of the positive feedback. And of course we had to be able to print it on a tee.
The new system we put into place is less restrictive in the beginning. Everyone can upload their designs and show them to the world. We then choose 10 designs from all the designs submitted in a matter of a week. These are then in contention for the contest. Then it is up to the community to decide which design wins the contest.
Does that mean a designer can no longer directly apply for taking part in the contest?
THOMAS:
Initially, you have the chance to apply by uploading your design. This is your application ticket, and if the quality of your design stands out from the rest, then you have a fair chance of taking part.MICHAEL:
Of course you can’t quite compare it, but it’s a bit like with the Oscars. You’ll get nominated if you star in a film and people then think that you did exceptionally well. It’s a massive sign of appreciation if you get nominated, and winning it is quite an achievement. Just like winning our prize money €1,000 ain’t all that shabby.THOMAS:
And we are intent on keeping things varied, so we will keep offering topic-based contests and partner codes in order to collaborate with partners externally. These will still be open to everyone to apply for, and you can submit your design specifically to take part in this contest.
Has the laFraise community greeted the re-launch positively so far?
THOMAS:
There has been a lot of feedback.
The old hands who have been with us for over 6 years or so sometimes have a bit of a hard time coming to terms with the changes that we have introduced. Those people need to get used to the new ways, and that’s also a bit difficult for us at times.
We need to explain to the community that it’s not all about creating a website with a trendy look, but that it was necessary to come up with a new system and set of rules to offer an interesting platform for a growing community.
Did you at all involve the laFraise community in the development of the new platform?
MICHAEL:
The new laFraise concept was developed in collaboration with two graphic design colleges in Berlin. There was a workshop designed at identifying the needs that desigers have when publishing their work We wanted to know what they actually have in mind when publishing a design.THOMAS:
The basic concept is a result of the work with the students and the feedback we received from them. It’s all based on thorough research with people who are close to what we consider our peer group.
We then invited some 20 laFraise designers to put all the new developments to a test by working with a click prototype.
How long did it take you in total to develop and impllement the re-launch?
MICHAEL:
It took pretty much a year from the moment we decided on the new concept until we were actually able to launch a beta version of the site last year in December.
But when I started working for laFraise about 2 years ago, I mainly tried to identify a way that made laFraise future-proof. It took a while to master the chaos first, and once we knew where we stood it was easier to settle on a new path of conduct.
Strategic decisions are not made in a matter of days or weeks as it does take a while to come up with a sound concept initially. You need to do a lot of research, assessment of information and market survey.
This reminds me of a short anecdote. When I started out at laFraise, I came across a blog post that had already been online for about 2 years. This post listed a total of 46 graphic design contest winners that should one day be available as T-shirt prints at laFraise. The blog post was linked to a more ’current‘ blog post showing 23 available contest winning T-shirt designs, some of which weren’t readily available either – they weren’t yet ready for print. This can be taken as an indication that the contest in its prior form does no longer meet the requirements of time. The customer used to see a winning design, and then it would take 6 to 8 weeks until he could order the T-shirt.We tried to find out ‘how to reduce this period?’, and this brought about the need to change the system in place as there was no way to do it in less than 4 weeks. This in turn led to the approach of completely redeveloping the laFraise concept.
Which area needs tending to most? What’s on top of your to-do list?
MICHAEL:
Two things:
The overall concept still needs a bite of fine-tuning, and then there are the website features that have already been implemented but still need developing. We’re trying to pay heed to what we’ve learnt when implementing the re-launch before we look for completely new challenges.
What kind of role did Spreadshirt play in this whole process?
MICHAEL:
Not a major one as we are trying to establish a position independent from Spreadshirt. As long as we are too closely connected to Spreadshirt, we will not be able to gather the momentum and freedom that we need in order to develop what is at the heart of our endeavours. And we need to avoid running the risk of being a mere ‘little Spreadshirt’ or ‘contest Spreadshirt’.THOMAS:
Metaphorically speaking, we’re on a class trip and need to be able to get on independently, but mum’s still on the bus having an eye out for us.
Is laFraise going to be able to use Spreadshirt’s production facilities?
MICHAEL:
There’s a general directive: we can only be happy to use all the resources that Spreadshirt makes available to us. Processes at Spreadshirt are well established, and procedures are very sound.
Apart from that, our collaboration with Spreadshirt is more like that of a Premium Shop Partner, and we’re not looking for exceptional regulations of some kind in order to keep things simple.
What will the future bring for laFraise?
MICHAEL:
We still want to do partner contests and special topic-related contests while at the same time expanding our product range. laFraise designs express a certain kind of lifestyle that shouldn’t be restricted to T-shirts. We’ve already introduced smartphone covers, and in future there’ll be a host of cool new products such as snowboards, headphones, helmets, shoes and more.First of all, priority will be given to extend the designer network on the website along with interaction channels. If we want to turn laFraise into a global-scale contender, we need to make sure that we don’t lose touch with the designers. Ideally, they still get to know us personally!
THOMAS:
This can e.g. be achieved by the platform having no backend. Every member of the laFraise team has an account with the site like every other user does as well, only that theirs gives them a few more moderating rights. This way, we can do everything directly on the platform, we are still eye to eye with all the other users of the site, and any weakness can be addressed immediately.
Before we say goodbye, a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to laFraise – the social designer network is turning 10 this year! Are you going to celebrate?
MICHAEL:
To be perfectly honest, I don’t think we’ll be able to make time for having a big party in midst our ongoing re-launching activities. We’re just quite busy getting the new ideas underway, and we are devoting a lot of time to keeping in touch with the community. It’s important to keep getting better to us!THOMAS:
Maybe this is what is different to the old start-up laFraise: there’s less party and more work. But we are sure that this is exactly what makes using the new laFraise more fun for our clientele. And this is what really counts.
Thank you for taking the time for this elaborate interview!
Feel like asking Thomas and Michael a question? Please leave a comment!
