Ox - Printing Services

1. The Beginning

Temple Accesorios’s Ox brand started as a t-shirt selling project with the ultimate goal of inspiring creative people in Perú to follow their passion. I was called in from the go, officially as a Creative Copy Writer, to assist with the brand creation and management but it was quickly clear, after some workshops with users and stakeholders, that the market was already saturated with similar products well- established products and brands so it became a product-re-thinking-and-re-design mission even though we experienced resistance to the idea of change, from our own biases. This startup project became my first experience with product and service design.

1.1. Failing Fast

One of the most enduring memories I kept from working on this project is the founder’s willingness to try new things and making decisions based on facts. So after our initial workshops, we decided to stay on course to prove our theories on the need of changing the strategy and put our vision under testing. So, after a few months pushing hard to position our brand and products on the market, we realized we had to find a different way to fulfill our vision and mission statement and started to run focus-groups and workshops with our users and consumers.

2. The Turn

We realized that the t-shirt market wasn’t the ideal space because it wasn’t easy at all to get into it, and especially it wouldn’t help us fulfill our vision. Because of its nature, a commercial product like a t- shirt seemed unsuited for the task, the inspiration it offered was too fleeting. We started to do some research and the ideate services and products that would match the needs of our users. Based on the knowledge acquired from getting into the t-shirt business as well as the gathered info and the tools we had at our disposal, we decided to take the business in another direction and instead of trying to sell inspiring messages on t-shirts we focused on giving them the tools to inspire each other without requiring deep tech literacy. We knew our users didn't want to buy t-shirts but to make their own. So all our research and workshops translated into a low-volume digital printing service for designers, artists, and anyone wanting to express their creative impulses into t-shirts and other garments.

3. Branding & Communications

I was lucky to work on the initial digital marketing strategy, content creation and community management, so I used my college acquired videography and photography skills to create some fun engaging content that also helped explain and position the service as well as the brand. We even created a YouTube series with known as well as new artists and designers.

4. Afterwards

The service started to run using social networks as the main gate for the service, not only as a way to communicate but as the main space for community and even for using the service we provided. Nowadays, technology is easier to use as it has matured to a point that is possible to offer users the tools they need to quickly create their brands and products and sell them using Ox's online services. Ox has accompanied its users throughout the learning process and has become a self-sustained business that serves as a platform for independent artists and designers to share, inspire, and make a living out of their passion, giving them not only a printing service and e-commerce platform but also a place to learn about design and business. Ox is accomplishing the vision it initially sat out to fulfill.