The JetPunk Shop Backstory

You can find the original blog for this announcement here.

I first had the idea for JetPunk-themed merchandise long before I started working for JetPunk. However, I was younger then and it was not possible to achieve.

In mid 2020, I pitched the idea to Dan (our beloved Quizmaster) of having JetPunk merchandise. He loved the idea, and had always wanted some merch for himself as well, but never had the knowledge, or patience, to explore the idea and turn it into a finished product. Unfortunately, back in 2020, neither did I.

Two further years go by, and I now had some experience via other endeavours, and so in late 2022 I started researching into companies which could handle what we wanted.

The one item I always wanted, was a keyring of Jeppy the JetPunk Fish. Unfortunately, it was proving difficult to find a way to source these kinds of products, due to 3D modelling required, and more difficulties including buying in bulk, and up-front.

It would become a repeating problem that buying in bulk or pre-buying stock would prove to be a problem, and then a solution presented itself - "Print On-Demand" (POD). These companies will print your designs onto various garments and send them out to you, and since you're not buying products beforehand, it meant this solution became viable. The downside is, that this method often makes the products more expensive.

And so, in February 2023 I ordered my first sample batch from a POD company. Once it had arrived (which took 3.5 weeks!) The results were... "okay". They weren't what I was hoping in terms of quality, and I had lost a bit of hope.

In mid March 2023, after doing some research into companies, I came across one which sounded perfect and much better print quality. So again, I ordered up the samples and waited. Just 3 days later, they had arrived - I was already impressed! The products themselves were very good quality, and it put into perspective how bad the first sample batch was.

After this, I had been discussing back and forth with Dan throughout the process and we realised that it would be beneficial to have an actual "design" that could be printed, and not just a standard "world map" or "jeppy", but an actual design created especially for us.

With this, I got in contact with a user who has been on JetPunk a long while, and who has shown his natural artistic and creative qualities time and time again. This user was in fact Dug! If you haven't seen just how impressive Dug's artistic works are, please go check out his quizzes. He deserves every bit of fame he can get.

After liaising with Dug back on forth, we settled on 1 design to progress forward and perfect, ready for the world to experience. It took a few sample orders, and a lot of iterating, but we finally settled on a finished design. And personally, I absolutely love it! It is the thumbnail of this blog, but here's a larger version for you to marvel at:

The design is a fun one, with Jeppy jumping out of east coast USA, where JetPunk's servers are hosted, and straight out of the world! Featuring some fun and playful lettering too. Please note the model in the pictures (and all models in the pictures on the shop) are "stock models", they're not myself or anybody affiliated with JetPunk.

We thoroughly hope you enjoy the shop, whether you're able to purchase items, or just share in the achievement of getting to this point, it would not have been possible without the support of our users on JetPunk.