Sugar Sugar Feature

We're so happy that we got a mention in this month's latest issue of Sugar Sugar magazine. It's a fantastic up-and-coming publication that shares a lot of our sensibilities. The team behind this magazine is the same group of sistas behind Pink. This time around, they've been given more creative freedom and a bigger budget. It really shows as each page flip is a bolder step-up in artistic direction and content. Good news is that quantity goes up with quality. It's a monthly dose of Sugar now compared to the two-month wait for Pink. Also, the editorial staff is a dream to work with!

Educathon Photos

Here are some photos from Educathon, a public walk to raise more awareness for this country's need of more quality education that we've written about in the past. Thanks to our partner, Pathways for Higher Education for giving us a chance to support such a great event and sending us photos to share!

New Novelty Products Preview

Here are three super cute novelty products that we have coming up. The first is a set of translucent star cell phone charms that has color which blends with the background. The second is a set of computer cleansing animals featuring monitor cleaner bodies and keyboard brushing heads (it actually sounds a bit creepy if we put it that way haha). The third is a new design lineup of our popular glow-in-the-dark wrist support jelly animals.

Expect all these to be in stores in time for the holidays.

Fresh + Wee Will Doodle

Inspiring us this week are two Manila representatives.

Fresh is an independent designer toy store in Manila that is teaming up with our second inspiration, a public arts collective known as Wee Will Doodle. Wee Will Doodle's mission is to apparently fill all forms of blank spaces (from walls to white t-shirts) with their signature spontaneous pop art. On October 17, Fresh will be launching a line of toys popular in designer circles known as Dunnys, which are alien-rabbit shaped white vinyl molds that you can draw on. Obviously, Wee Will Doodle is going crazy over these toys and intends to bring the blanks to life in Embassy no less (first time we've seen a toy being released in a club).

By the way, we've begun talking with Wee Will Doodle for a little toy tie-up ourselves.

Paint-a-Lot Project

Last week, It's Cool was a proud participant of Paint-a-Lot, a small project organized by the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) of the Philippines to promote art, culture and original work in the country. The very intriguing collaborative public arts group known as Wee Will Doodle was given full creative authority to do what they will on the entrance of IPO's Makati office building. Feel free to pass by anytime to see what they did (some preview pictures posted for you here). It's a simple but exciting gesture by IPO to openly show to the public the leadership role that they intend to play in the continuing development of freestyle innovation.

Shining the Light with Pathways

We've constantly stated that we're a strong supporter of education here at It's Cool, particularly for higher education (i.e. college level). We believe that closing the higher education gap between rich and poor will go a long way in solving the gap between rich and poor itself. Higher education is also a significant driver of creativity, culture, art and smart world-changing behavior (four things that we obviously want more of). It's no surprise then that we've been working quite closely with Pathways to help gifted but underprivileged kids get a better chance of having a great college education.

Throughout the year, we've been using our gift bags as awareness advertising so that our cool customers can find out more about this wonderful organization and learn what they can do to contribute. It makes us incredibly happy to receive inquiries like this:

Ei! I'm quite interested with teaching kids during the weekend. Do you need to be an education graduate?

To answer, passion and the gameness to do good is more than enough.

Keep the inquiries coming or contact Pathways directly at:

Tel: +63(2) 426-6001 loc. 4044 to 4049
Alingal Hall
Ateneo De Manila University
Loyola Heights, Quezon City
Metro Manila 0917
Philippines

We were also a partner of Pathways in their "Shining the Light" event last April which brought together representatives from different schools all over the country for a conference on how to raise Philippine education to the next level.

Shining the Light ended with a walk for education (dubbed "educaTHON") that also saw generous celebrities participate to raise further awareness for the country's growing need for better education (figures show that an alarming 80% of the population are not even able to finish high school). The celebs included Karylle, Dingdong Dantes, TJ Manotoc, Philippine Allstars, and Starstruck survivors Vivo Ouano, Johan Santos and Jeric Rizalado.

Bad Monkeys

Here's a preview of a toy design that we plan on releasing next year just in time for all you crazy-in-love couples looking for something devilishly flirty to give on Valentine's.

New Store Opening: TriNoMa

We've just finalized a deal with Ayala to open a small cart in their new super mall, TriNoMa. You'll soon be able to find us in their Teen Zone area (beside Starbucks, across the food court) on the second floor starting in October =)

Packaging 2008 (Final)

This is the final look of our new toy packaging. At first we wanted to restrict it to one color to keep it more minimalist (and yes, we'll be honest, more cheap), but those few dabs of color on our logo just made it too irresistible.

Expansion Stores

This September, we'll be increasing our presence in a couple of Ayala malls. We will start selling right at the heart of Glorietta this coming Saturday (September 1st). Do visit our humble cart at the Activity Center (ground floor) of the mall. We will be in front of Kamiseta and Gift Gate. The cart is basically a test that Ayala is giving us. If we sell well, we can get a bigger store space some time in the future.

Also, we will be selling at a satellite kiosk near the entrance of Market! Market! for two weeks beginning on September 2nd. This is to support sales of our existing store located in the Street Market (which happens to be beside the mall's Activity Center at the ground floor as well).

Here's hoping we'll see more of you in September! =)

New Packaging

We're really proud of the gift bags that we've been packaging our products with for our customers. Not only does it have a fresh full-color design, it also promotes a very worthy cause of helping Pathways get promising underprivileged kids a good shot at a college education.

To help Pathways a little bit more, we've decided to charge a token amount for our gift bags (Php20 for the regular size and Php50 for the extra large size) and donate the proceeds to the organization. At the same time, we also felt that our customers deserve the option of free packaging with a signature cute-loving look that only we can deliver. So we asked our super designer friend Tarn to give some Thai flavor to a brand new set of bags. We're giving you a preview here today and you guys will be able to see the real thing in stores before we end the year.

Plastic and Plush

We're adding a new link today to a blog called Plastic and Plush, which keeps us updated on the latest designer toys around the world. Really good inspiration so far =)

It's Cool Poster

We modified the print ad that we did recently to make this one poster size.

Farewell to Pink Magazine, Hello to Sugar Sugar

It saddens us to discover that Pink Magazine, a strong supporter of our business for the past year, has seen its last issue this month =(

Fans of the magazine however need not feel all that devastated. Thanks to some quick thinking and creativity, many of the writing staff from Pink have come together to create a new teen lifestyle magazine called Sugar Sugar. Contact editor-in-chief Kai Magsanoc (business card pictured here) to know more about this exciting new release.

We're really happy that the staff recovered so fast and we're sure that this second coming will be better than ever. They definitely have our support since we'd like to think that we're pretty sugary ourselves.

By the way, if there are any aspiring young models reading this, Kai told us to forward the following message to you:

SUGARSUGAR Magazine will be conducting a go-see for aspiring models on Aug 25, Saturday, from 9am-12nn at Lumina, Crowne88 Condominium, 88 Panay Ave., QC. College students are encouraged to come. Pls tell ur friends, too. Thanks and see u! :) Pls pass.

Ad on the Beat

Here's our print ad as it will look in this month's upcoming issue of the Beat magazine, which is distributed for free in some of Manila's best shopping and dining establishments. We're sharing the page with fashion accessory brand Eiko.

New Print Ad

We just finished a nice looking new print ad. If only we had the budget to print this on more magazines... =)

Happier Home

Our Thai designer friend Tarn (AKA: Sugar Lullaby) sent us some great pictures of homeware that she wants to bring into Manila. We don't want to spoil the surprise when they do arrive, but we can't resist sharing this pic of happy flower pots. Talk about super cute!

Cute Evil (Part 2)

We were kinda surprised about how well our first line of toy devils did. Apparently, a lot of girls bought them for their boyfriends =)

We decided to create a new design and we're planning to release this little guy in time for Halloween.

Tarn's Toys

The days when designs turn to actual toys are always magical moments for us. This time around it's extra special because the designs were brought to us by our Thai friend Tarn. We were so excited about these that we didn't even bother to take the time to take proper studio photos of the toys =)

Moms Heart Sons' Girlfriends

We had an interesting meeting with the sales team yesterday. It appears that we have a lot of customers who are mothers buying gifts for girls on behalf of their sons. These purchases also represent a way for mothers to express their approval for the girlfriends/potential daughter-in-laws. It should be noted that moms tend to buy bigger and more pricier items as boyfriend proxies compared to when the boyfriends themselves are buying. So more power to you moms! Heaven knows guys need as much help as they can =)