Updated 08.26.16
Let me first say I am super excited to launch Live Love Dogs. I have been thinking about and talking about this for years. While I have a tremendous amount of experience in design and branding, this is the first time I have created a brand of my own (aside from branding my professional designer-self as Orange Star Design). Live Love Dogs is different because I was creating something from nothing.
My goal is to share my passion for dogs and life with other like-minded folks, celebrate our fur-friends and fur-kids and all that they add to our lives. In addition, I’ll be donating a portion of each sale to support canine rescue organizations.
This has been a tremendous amount of work and a huge learning experience for me. One would think with my 20+ years of experience designing for others, helping bring their visions to life… I would have had a better road map. Well, maybe I did, but it was zig-zaggy. I really have been my own worst client! The amount of decisions and technology hurdles have been mind boggling (yet rewarding), and the research exhausting and confusing at times. But, all in all, it’s been an amazing adventure thus far and we are just getting started!
I had product ideas before I even had a name. With my background designing concert shirts for various bands, naturally Walk ‘n’ Roll Forever was the first, followed by Sticks Licks & Walk ‘n’ Roll. The Live Love Dogs® name and tag line (Run free. Play hard.®) came next. Working with a trademark attorney (Sandy Burchett, B3Esq.com) has been a real pawsitive learning experience as well. Then the domain — livelovedogs.com, that was a challenge! I had been watching it sit idly unused for close to a year (owned by someone else) and was waiting for it to expire so I could buy it. In an instant it was snatched by a domain broker of some kind and I had to get it through a pretty suspicious auction. It took about 6 months to finally get it.
Next came brainstorming more product ideas and starting to design things — this is really fun for me to do. Then I started on the logo and the website and it all started coming together. I’ve enlisted those closest to me to bounce ideas around, think through some of the more challenging decisions and plan content for the blog and social media. I will write much of it myself but also publish material by others in my pack, as well as periodic and maybe episodic guest bloggers. If you have any content ideas, I’m all ears. Please reply down below or drop me a note!
After a lot of back and forth, I have partnered with ThePrintful for printing and fulfillment. They will print each order on-demand. Based on my own research they offer the best quality on-demand apparel printing out there and are very easy to work with. My true vision is to ultimately print locally and bring fulfillment in-house but we are not there yet.
So that, my friends, is a very condensed timeline of how we got here. And now that we are here, I am excited to share it with you! We will be sharing LLD produced videos, fun dog facts, discount codes, product review and more via our mailing list and social media sites.
Please be sure to follow us wherever you prefer to hang out online. We are currently on… Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest, and be sure to sign up to Join the Pack to be included in monthly drawings for free sWAG and to receive alerts about special promotions.
Jodi Hersh
Founder / Pack Leader
