Ray at lowdtown has written some awesome articles for this site and I thought it was only right that I help him when he needs it. Here is his post he wrote
This post has been a long time coming, but it should definitely clear everything up for those confused with the state of Lowdtown.
First of all, to save the drama, Lowdtown will be closing in the next month or so. As the story goes, I was contacted by an artist who has a logo concept very similar to mine. Though I didn’t hear of the artist til he actually contacted me, he apparently copyrighted his logo, and I made the mistake of never doing so. Immediately after, I had to remove everything with the mouthcan logo and the lowdmouth logo.
As you can probably guess, this caused a whole mess of problems for me, and is the reason I had to take down nearly half of the products listed on my store. And as you can imagine, this is at a huge financial loss to me. Especially so because he contacted me literally weeks after I had received my Winter line. To make matters even worse, I’ve been working with Hong Kong since late 2009 and finally received fitted hats in February in which I spent several thousand dollars on; I will not be able to sell those off either.
It is hard to explain how frustrating this is for me, considering I’m a college kid who put my own hard earned cash into making Lowdtown, and the reason why I was able to do wallets and sweaters was from the culmination of my hard work and dedication for Lowdtown. With this event, I pretty much lost all the profit that I’ve been building up to make my future lines even greater.
So what I am asking for is your support. I’m having a clearance sale where I’m literally going to try to get rid of all remaining stock. Shirts will be $6, and the crewnecks will be $12. These prices are pretty much the price I bought them at, so it’s an unbelievably good deal for you guys. Please tell your friends and spread the word about it; I just really need to cut my losses and try to rebuild. If you’re a blogger, I would truly appreciate a post!
On another note, please don’t harass the artist who contacted me, because the logos are in fact very similar. It’s an unbelievably unfortunate coincidence on my part, but I would’ve thought the same thing if I were him.
On a happier note, I can promise you with my utmost conviction that the rebirth of Lowdtown will be glorious. I’ve already been working on several projects that will definitely put Lowdtown on the map. I’m not one for braggadocio, but I have a secret project that I’ve been developing since November 2009 that I think will blow everyone’s socks off. I’ve never seen it done before, and I’m more than excited to see what everyone’s reactions will be.
Lowdtown, as you might’ve already guessed, will be going through a complete rebranding. I’ve shared the concepts for the new logo with a bunch of my designer friends, and I’ve gotten really positive responses so far. In addition, the website will get a complete overhaul. I’ve been really flexing my web design muscles lately, and if all goes to plan, the new website will be the slickest and sexiest yet.
I’ve also been receiving an amazing amount of support from my twitter followers, so I just want to thank all you guys! I’ll probably post up WIPs and sneak peeks when it gets closer to the relaunch, so if you’re interested you should follow me: @Lowdtown.
Right now, I’m shooting for Summer 2010 (probably late June or July), which is a really ambitious date, but hopefully I can pull it off. I’ll keep you guys posted! Thanks again for all the support!
-Ray (Lowdtown Friends & Freaks)