By the way, we’re offering free shipping this week only on any NPS-tagged items in the shop. What are you waiting for? Put on your best John Muir hat, and go explore.
(Just don’t forget to use code CBNPS at checkout.)
But wait, there’s more!
We're also giving away 3 America The Beautiful passes. That’s free entry to EVERY park for an entire year! And all we're asking you to do is post a picture. Seriously.
Post a picture of yourself in a National Park with the hashtag #CBNPS
Don’t wait! We will select 3 winners on Monday 5/1
If your picture happens to be with a CB item, we’ll count it as a triple entry. Just make sure your social media post is live by in time! And don’t forget the hashtag.
We’ll be keeping an eye on Instagram, Twitter, and Mastodon. If you post somewhere else that we might miss, email us. We’ll make sure you’re included in the drawing.
We’ve been making hats almost as long as we’ve been making t-shirts, though on a much smaller scale. For just as long, we’ve been asking ourselves, “why can’t we sell hats on demand? People seem to like ‘em.” Well, now we can.
We are very pleased to officially announce our on demand embroidery program. What you see below are real photos of real hats that are really available to buy right now. The quality is fantastic. We’re using the exact same hats and machines that we use for our stock and campaign embroidery. The only difference is that on demand embroidered hats are available 24/7 and ship within a week.
Let’s get those questions and answers out of the way. Especially the Big One.
Can I make a hat?
Possibly! That’s not a “no”, but it’s also not a “yes”. It’s complicated. We’re very constrained right now on the new product creation side, and we’re still evaluating the production process as well. If you are curious, please feel free to email us. We can say that the interest has been phenomenal. We’re accelerating our plans to build a self-serve tool for creating embroidery products. It’s something we intend to deploy widely as soon as possible.
Can I use whatever color thread I want?
You can use whatever color thread you want as long as it is in the list of 15 colors we offer. Said colors include red, orange, gold, brown, lime green, forest green, cyan, sky blue, royal blue, navy, purple, pink, black, white, and silver. If you’re more of a visual learner, here’s a PDF you can use.
What kinds of hats do you have?
We’ve got low-profile dad hats, flat-brimmed snapbacks, and mesh-backed trucker hats, withand without ropes. Hat colors are black, black, black, black, black, navy, and dark grey. Just kidding, we also have light blue and light khaki available in the dad hats. Other colors maybe, possibly available upon request as we continue to build out and expand our catalog.
How much do hats cost?
The base costs for all hats is $30. Just like other on demand products, the default margin is $5 for a retail price of $35. You’re welcome to adjust that up or down as needed.
Are there any other limitations I should be aware of?
Yes. Thank you for asking. In general, the smallest details that can be rendered are about 0.04" (1mm). The smallest gaps that can be maintained are 0.01" (0.25mm). The max size on a hat is 5.5" x 2.25". Here’s a good way to think about it: for a medium size design of 1.5", you have canvas that is roughly 75 x 75 pixels. It’s possible to get creative with running stitches and contrasting stitch directions to show subtle detail, but the best hats are going to avoid squishing too much detail into too small a space. When in doubt, err in favor of smaller and simpler.
Sometimes you work hard all month, and… you have nothing to show for it. You can’t talk about the new on demand product that is almost ready, or the other new on demand product that is coming soon. You definitely can’t talk about the highly classified on demand products in development for the second half of the year, no matter how excited you are.
Who cares if there is a whole laundry list of site features, improvements, and optimizations that will eventually be shipping? They aren’t done.
Yet. Groundwork is being laid. Plans concocted. Bold strides taken. Seeds planted, as it were, to grow and be gathered when the time is right.
Not a joke, we have nothing to share. If you email us though, we might be able to squeeze you in to the beta for the almost-but-not-quite-ready products we have in the bag. Keep this one under your hat though, if you know what we mean.
Want to see real time stats for your product sales? Pop over to your account, view a product, and click through to the new “Sales Stats” page. Sales can be viewed by month, day, and most recent. Aggregated sales are also filterable by product attributes like color and size. Take a look, let us know what you think! We have several additional features we intend to add this year to better communicate product sales history. Stay tuned.
As the Twitter implosion continues unabated, we took a moment to revisit Cotton Bureau profiles and the support we offer for outbound links. Until today, your only options were Twitter, Instagram, and a generic link field to be used at your discretion. We’ve significantly extended that now to include some other networks you might have heard of including Facebook, Twitch, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Dribbble, Behance, Github, Patreon, and, yes, Mastodon. If we missed your favorite, let us know. We can always add more if enough people are interested.
Speaking of Mastodon, we went ahead and created an official @cottonbureau account. If you’re looking for The Back Room Lite (or The Back Room, Slightly More Frequently Than Once a Month), look no further.
While we were sweeping, dusting, and moving the profile link furniture around, we also implemented support for URL-based verification. Cotton Bureau Elsewhere links now support rel="me" which means if you point them at one of your off-site accounts (like Mastodon), others might just see a fancy checkmark indicating your account is authentic.
Lastly, if all this talk of Mastodon has made you curious, please feel free to sign up using our @mastodon.social invite link. The front door has been closed for a while, but we found this secret loophole that allows all our friends to get in. Shhh, don’t tell anyone.
