Branding and Feedback Survey Results

We recently surveyed a portion of our database to get some feedback on our brand direction and to see how you guys felt we are doing at the moment.  Here is what you came back to us with:

Brand Direction:

We wanted to know what was important to you and see if someone could come up with a tag line or short phrase for Pixel Paint in this competition.  You guys are very creative and the general vibe was that our canvases make you feel happy and smile.  Out of all the entries, we felt that Lani Leiataua nailed it when she said:

"Pixelpaint - Put a smile on your wall."

We're continuing to work on the brand and you'll see the results in a few months once we've tied a few other parts of the puzzle together.

As for general feedback, we were stoked to see the comments you made.  We honestly had lumps in our throats to see what a difference and impact we had made to your lives!  Here is a summary:

Things You Love

• Great Quality - Much better than competitors, colour reproduction is great, and general good vibes.
• Communication - Reprint notifications and our newsletters seem to go down well
• Service - Fast and helpful responses to questions or issues
• Tone of voice and humour - you love our down to earth style
• Us!

Things We Could Improve On

• Occasional inconsistent delivery speed
• Add image proofs so you can see what the whole canvas will look like including some sort of size comparison of how it might look in the home
• Add an image resizing and retouching service
• Make it easier to understand image size requirements
• More sizes around photo based ratios e.g. 16 x 9 or 3 x 1
• Add more image effects and some sort of collage/montage creation tool
• Ability to split one image across multiple canvases
• Add a fragile sticker/print to the boxes
• Do more competitions and draws
• Add more edge options, like full image (gallery) wrap
• Make it easier to colour match
• Stamp our business details on back of the canvas
• Add canvas care instructions in the box

Thanks for all your honest feedback which we are taking on board and working through.  We love you guys!

We Turned Two!

The Pixelpaint crew celebrated it's 2nd Birthday last Thursday and we found ourselves getting kind of emotional. It wasn't just because we were sipping on the good stuff out of plastic champagne flutes or because the cake was so tasty, it was because we've actually come a really (really really) long way in the past two years, and it's been a wild ride.

We wanted to share a bit of our story, because we're proud of ourselves and we couldn't have done it without all of you! Massive shout out to all of our customers and friends for your support, help and encouragement over the past couple of years.

Not many people know this, but when Pixelpaint started we didn't even have our own office space. In fact, we didn't have our own phone line, workshop, or even our own Internet connection. We were a laptop on a desk in the middle of someone else's office, with a single printer and a lot of enthusiasm.

We used to laminate our canvases by hand, and hang them up in an old commercial meat freezer to dry. We had to hand write all of the addresses on each package and write down every tracking number. We sold over a thousand canvases with our first Treat Me promotion, so as you can probably imagine, things got out of hand pretty quickly. We were challenged daily to change, grow and improve our systems in order to process the amount of orders we were receiving which seemed to be growing at a phenomenal rate. Back then it was hard to imagine that we would ever be where we are now!

We currently occupy our own entire building, which we renovated and decorated DIY style ourselves. We have a workshop, an office, our own bathroom and even our own beer fridge. We've implemented some awesome systems in our workshop to streamline production, and we've automated a lot of our processes to make everything run like clockwork. We also actively practise lean manufacturing and KANBAN, both are working for us like a dream.

We thought it was important to celebrate our progress like rock stars, so obviously we ate sushi and cupcakes followed by an afternoon of video games at the Game Masters Exhibition at Te Papa (which was amazing, go along if you can!). It was magical. At the end of the day we sat around and did what we do what we do best (apart from creating beautiful canvas from your amazing images), we drank some beers and toasted to the last two years. Here are some photos from our Birthday party, check us out!

Canvas Inspiration: Close Ups!

All too often we fail to notice the beauty in the details right in front of us. Most of us lead pretty busy lives and it's easy to rush through your day without appreciating cheesy stuff like your girlfriends dimples or how cool it looks when you add a few drops of milk to black coffee. Don't miss out! A great way to slow down, and get up close and personal is through the lens of your camera.

Here are some cool examples and a few tips to get you started!

Four tips for better close up photography:

1. Scope the area out while looking through your lens. Test out some different angles, get creative! Take your time.
2. Use a cushion or beanbag to lie on so you can get really really low without being really really uncomfortable.
3. Try to get your hands on a right angle lens, this will allow you to get closer to the subject without having to squash your face into it.
4. Put some diffusing material over the flash to get better lighting. Most cameras with a flash don't work well with close ups! You could use some white cloth or paper.

Good luck and happy shooting!