Angry Squid Ink

So, once again, I find myself doing stuff at the last minute, and this time it was a doozy!
As you may or may not know, I teach 7^th grade. Yes, that’s right, I must have mental problems to take on such craziness, but I love it!
This year, I had a particularly amazing group of kids. I know, I know… you’re asking yourself, «7^th Graders? Amazing? Impossible» but it’s true! Anyways, I wanted to do something for them that befit their awesome sauce status. But, the end of the year is a crazy time, and minutes and hours slipped away from me and sadly, my brilliant idea didn’t come to me until two weeks before school was out.
If you know anything about middle school kids, you know they are obsessed with being cool and cutting edge. I had the genius idea to design school t shirts they could be proud of. (On a side note, our school shirts suck and I wanted my kids look swag) So, I looked around, delved in to Unilocal and found a few places with awesome reviews. However, when I told them the turn around time that I would need my insanely awesome swag gear, they all but laughed at me. Actually, one person did laugh at me. That’s when I stumbled on Angry Squid Ink. I ain’t gonna lie, some of their reviews made me nervous, but as any savvy Unilocaler knows, sometimes people write crap reviews because they have nothing better to do… but I digress… and I was in a jam! Desperate times call for desperate measures.
I went on their website, which is slightly outdated. I mean really, who has a MySpace page?!? But again, I digress… I took a gander at their page and their prices seemed legit. Besides, I was gonna pull the «teacher card» and see if I could get a bit of a discount, because well, that’s just what teachers do. When I called, I was surprised to find out that I was talking to the owner, Brian. Let me just say, the guy is funny as hell and charming to boot. Even if I didn’t get shirts from him, I immediately felt the need to hang out with him and go for a few beers; super laid back guy, my kinda people. Best part is, when I told him what I wanted, and the time frame I needed, he didn’t even flinch. He actually started a rambling Q&A with me regarding color, font, logo, type of shirts.
Now, here is the AMAZING part…
Brian could tell I had NO IDEA what I was talking about regarding printing and designing logos. So, he asked the name of my school and our colors and wanted to know if he could come up with a few options for me to choose from. Seriously? Who does this? Angry Squid Ink, that’s who!
Two hours later, I had an email from Brian with two different logos, font and color options. I picked the one I liked and thought we were on our way to t shirt printing bliss… until…I found out that Brian’s shop is located in Seattle. WTH? What happened to the Laguna location?!? As it turns out, Angry Squid Ink was going through a major overhaul, and to «clean house,» they temporarily shut down the location in the OC and were focusing on their Washington store. Well, I knew it was too good to be true. My heart sank. Brian, the owner, apologized profusely for the misunderstanding and started brain storming on a way to make it work.
Now, I know you are DYING to find out what happened… did she get her shirts? Were her students the swaggest 7^th graders around? Yes, and YES! When Brian found out I lived in Long Beach, he offered to print the shirts in Seattle and bring them to me when he flew back to Southern California. I actually ended up meeting him at the Long Beach Airport to pick the shirts up when he landed. Again… seriously? Who does that?!? Freaking Angry Squid Ink, that’s who!
Now, as much as it is killing me not to give this business five stars, I can’t because they don’t take credit cards. I know, I know… but I’m a teacher for heavens sake, not a baller! I need to finance stuff!