Awhile ago on one of the forums I frequent, someone posted an offer for one of the many custom printing websites. Not too surprising as there are a million such services and have been ever since the internet’s inception, but this offer was notable in that one could design one’s own custom bumper sticker, upload the image, and in return for giving them your contact information they’d print one up and send it out to you, free of charge. Typically these “free custom printing” offers require some ridiculous postage and handling fee and a credit card number, but this one seemed clear of such hitches, so I thought for about two minutes, came up with an idea, whipped it together in another two minutes using Google Image Search and Irfanview (no fancy image editin’ software for me, no sirree), uploaded the design, and promptly forgot all about it.
Months later, someone bumped that thread containing the original offer, asking whether anyone had received their stickers. No one had, and I assumed it was yet another example of the internet adage, “If it sounds too good to be true, it is,” cursed them for swindling my precious email address out of me with the promise of free printed goods, and forgot all about it again. (Hey, it’s the internet, a picture of a cat can make you forget what you were doing five seconds ago.)
But then miraculously a few weeks later, people started posting saying “I got my sticker!” Still, an equal number of people posted saying their designs had been rejected due to profanity or similar concerns, so I didn’t get my hopes up, as while profanity didn’t apply in my case I could think of at least three good reasons off the top of my head why a company might not want to print and mail out my design. (So, yes, I forgot about it again).
Then, last week, an envelope in my mailbox. Recognizing the company name in the return address, I eagerly tore it open to find within a surprisingly well-made, sharply printed vinyl sticker:
Awesome.
Now I just have to figure out where to put it. Kitchen fridge, maybe?
Edit: Clueless, go here. Also note this post’s meta keywords were specially SEO’ed.
