Mumsnet merchandise - your input needed please

[JustineMumsnet]

Hi all

After years of being asked to come up with MN merchandise and (aside from some incredibly tight t-shirts with virtual mother on them way back in the early-2000s) pretty much sticking our collective fingers in our ears, we've finally found someone who can help us produce and sell a qualiteee online range - hopefully available in time for Christmas. And we're looking for your input.

We reckon a range of T-shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies and mugs with Mumsnet in-jokes/ popular phrases - which is what folks have mentioned in the past - but is there anything else we've collectively missed? And what do you want on them? A T-shirt telling all and sundry to LTB? A mug asking whether YABU? A hoody announcing that it' really best to RTFT?

Ideas very much welcome please

OK, the launch range is all signed off now. We'll be able to show these very soon.

We have at this stage parked the emoticon illustrations, simply because scaling them up well was proving to be a total nightmare and we're up against a very tight deadline. To be honest, the illustration looked like a giant (and very sore) nipple, rather than a jammy dodger. We'd rather not do them until they look good and, well, right now they don't. Trust me on that one...

We'll revisit those very soon, but to start with we're going to have a series of text based designs, with words in square brackets and a very small & very discreet angels logo (with no words) by way of an identifier.

We think they look very good, and hope that you will too.

Oi, what's wrong with a giant sore nipple?

well, to solve that, you would need to talk to the owner of the jammie dodger.
dunno if it's crawford's or someone else who makes the real ones.

they would have to give you permission to yse the proper image.

oh, was the "twee" yabu/yanbu gussie's?
I do think it's too frilly for us, but I love that idea for anything that can be turned upside down in use (eg flannels and tea towels)

Get a test run out to purchase,monitor sales and hope the tills ring-ding-ding

Not much wrong with a sore nipple if you're Lansinoh I suppose, but it wasn't something that any of us really fancied wearing on a shirt.

We'll keep trying, but we have our launch range now and the shop will be live in just over a week.

Here's a sneak preview, of just a couple of designs. Hope you like them.

I love the YABU mug.

Ooh I really do like those ones. Very nice!

disappointed in the YABU mug. Too shouty.

I would have bought a mug with YABU on one side and YANBU on the other.

Those are great! The YABU mug is going on my christmas list.

The YABU is v v strident, agreed. Maybe there is a YABU/YANBU mug coming? [hopeful] You know, for those awkward occasions where you want to actually say YABU or YANBU in real life but have to offer tea and sympathy instead. You could send a subtle message depending which way you turn the handle. Or give signals with your own mug.

I should add, these are just a couple of the designs and there is also a YABU/YANBU mug. With all the designs we made the text as big as we could within the width, so longer text such as YABU/YANBU has smaller text. So I suppose it is more subtle than the YABU mug. There are 20+ designs for the first wave, with more to come as and when you all have good ideas.

We can also play around with designs, so if there's demand for a very small typeface, then we can try that too. Same thing with different coloured letters. We've done this with a couple of the square bracket designs. These are shown on tees, but will be available on mugs and other stuff as well.

Happy now

Can I have a Nobdie's Mug as well, please?

Ooh I like the Naice Coffee mug, and the [ grin ] t-shirt - I'd probably wear that myself.

I think you have to be careful that they really are in-jokes for here, though. is a fairly standard emoticon on lots of forums. Things like 'did you mean to be so rude?' is hardly unique to MN. Etc. I know lots of people assume stuff originated here, but often the first person to post something like it got it from elsewhere, and then it developed as a 'thing' - but it also developed elsewhere. Or sometimes several things appear independently but simultaneously on several forums. I'm a member of a few, and in all of them, people are quite sure that they have some special catch-phrase or game or whatever that only happens there, but it doesn't.

So it might have to be very specific - e.g., the YANBU and YABU ones - if you really want people to associate it with this site and not forums in general.

Quite.

Eg - Boak is just scottish for vomit. do we really want a mug that in the country next door (or in your own, for many) just says "puke"?

Agree. Boak isn't in the range - I think we've been very careful either to choose specifically MN expressions, or to use the square brackets for stuff which reflects how people write here.

Surely you need..:

Oh quite possibly. Forgive me, and I'm sure I'll regret asking, but what does that mean?

Oh gosh yes,a noni mug is simply tops!

TSSDNCOP + OR

on a mug.

achyfox - TSSDNCOP coming soon. Square brackets + text for the others too, actual drawn emoticons in the 2nd wave.

What does TSSDNCOP mean?

Bag for Life with 'Off to buy some naice ham and Pombears' on it.

Something for you to think about...could you resist the temptation to put the MN logo on everything? Because I know you'll be focussed on branding...but it would be so much more engaging if it's MN phrases/acronyms and you're leaving it up to the public to go 'oo is that from MN?' Adds a nice masonic element and reinforces the community idea.

Definitely need a scarf. Could you do it with a design that, from a distance, looks a bit Joules-like, with a little horseshoe or something, but up close is made up of the letters L, T and B?

It means The Secret Service Does Not Comment On Procedure.

Creepy wee brackets are used for asides, Stuart - like Achy did up there with . It could be an action or something else.