Would you believe us if we told you our new Community Cars print began in a 2-year-old’s imagination? While it may not be a farfetched thought for toddler caregivers, the story behind our new car and truck-themed print really is adorable.
In this post, we’ll take you from a toddler’s mind, through the brainstorming and design process, all the way through creating our super-special car Sleepyhead Lovies!
How Community Cars got started
Our story begins with a Slack message. A cherished member of our Community Management team relayed a very important message from her son, Buster.
For context, we’re always open to new print ideas and suggestions. Our team reads through the thousands of suggestions in our LS VIP Facebook group, emails we get from customers, and, of course, the ideas curated by our very own team. (We *love* receiving suggestions from the littlest members of our Little Sleepies community — they’re often so unique and adorable!)
It’s important to us to be inclusive of different tastes and interests, so we’re mindful of offering a variety of prints: abstract to nature, movies to fantastical creatures. Planning our designs well in advance helps us make sure there’s something for everyone. So, we recorded Buster’s idea in a spreadsheet, down to the very last truck suggestion.
Months later, the idea really got revving
Later that season, we were deep into developing prints for the following spring. Buster’s idea resurfaced and began to gain momentum! To determine which vehicles to include, we decided to ping more of our team members’ kids! Who better to decide which trucks, cars and vehicles belonged on the print?
The results started trickling in…
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“The tractor and the cement truck fixes the streets and I can use it with my sand.” - Mylo, 3
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“Firetrucks are my favorite, because they help put out fires and save lives.” - Alex, 8
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“I like the street cleaner. It’s green and has stars on it.” - Levi, 3
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“Mail trucks deliver mail, and they give us cool things from Mimi and Pappy.” - Luna, 4
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"The fweet fweeper (That’s Buster for street sweeper) because I just like it!” - Buster, 3
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“A black car, because it’s my favorite.” - Levi, 3
Fair enough, kids. Fair enough!
Creating a perfectly playful design
Once we had our final list of vehicles, our creative team began to brainstorm how to bring the idea to life. Knowing that a fresh, outside perspective would add a unique spin to the design, we decided to get a freelance artist with a colorful and playful illustration style involved!
The print turned out better than we (and Buster) could have imagined! Featuring mail trucks, recycling trucks, cement trucks, taxis and more, it weaves charming elements like hearts, stars, rainbows and roosters into the design. In order to let the illustrations shine, we chose a soft and neutral shade of heather gray as a background.
Driving Loveys in a new direction
After the print was finalized, our product design team turned to developing the graphic tees and loveys. When it came to the t-shirts, we got to work adapting the print. We went bigger and bolder, highlighting some of the vehicles most-requested by the Little Sleepies kids. Fire trucks, cement trucks, recycling trucks and taxis were made larger and placed on a bright white background, to add variety to the collection. Just the perfect summer tee!
Sleepyhead Loveys were up next. Tasked with adapting trucks to a topper for our soft Lunaluxe™ bamboo blankets, we did something we had never done before: we screen printed art for the 3D toppers! This allowed our design team to bring tiny details like the wheels and windows to life in a way that was cute, yet safe enough for our littlest Little Sleepies fans.
We just love how this collection turned out, and hope you do too! We can’t wait to see you and your little ones rocking these jams and tees all summer, so be sure to tag us on Instagram in your warm-weather adventures.
We’ll leave you with a quote from little Buster.
“Buster, this print was your idea! How cool is it to see your idea on your pajamas?!”
Buster: “I’m happy! I will ask Santa for these trucks, too, and I will match it with my jammies. I don’t have a trolley or fweet fweeper yet, but I have all of them else. Mama is gonna get all of the car Sleepies for me and my brother and Baby Muffin.
Mommy I’m done talking now.”
Get ready for the drop! The Community Cars print releases this Tuesday, May 23rd.
