An idea: BOXware Hat, ‘cause every show needs schwag

Dear Cathy Farwell (BOX Art organizer extraordinaire),

I was thinking about ways to promote the upcoming and fabulous BOX11 Art Show & Sale, and reflected on all the conferences, trade shows, and meet-ups that I attend in my other life.  They all feature a metric tonne of promotional items we commonly call schwag.  BOX11 could have schwag too!  And what more fitting construction material to use for BOX promos than good old corrugated cardboard?  We’ll call it… BOXware.

The first thing I thought of was a cardboard hat!  Perfect!  Light weight, recyclable, stylish.  Many thanks to Jim Erb (above), guest curator for BOX11, for modelling the prototype BOXware Hat.  As you know, BOX11’s Charity Partner is the Kitchener Conestoga Rotary Club Turkey Drive for House of Friendship Christmas Hamper Project, which Jim chairs, so I really appreciated him dropping by to test drive the Hat.

Now, before we make thousands of these Hats…

I’d like to tell you about the BOXware Hat design and fabrication.  This Hat is 100% cardboard (and a little hot glue).

I designed it in Adobe Illustrator to be cut out on a laser cutter.  The black sections of the design are burned by the laser at lower power to only remove the top layer of paper from the cardboard leaving the BOX logo.  The red lines are cut at full power to…

punch out the 3 simple components of..

the Hat.

Well, Cathy, let me know what you think.  The Hat is a strong candidate, but I’ve got lots of ideas.  BTW, hats off (I’ll be here all week!) to Mr. James Bastow for his expert advice on all things laser’ish.

Sincerely,

DW