I was photographing my computer room the other day and doing some close up shots of my Oakley display cases and realized that I haven't posted about Oakley in a while, in fact I don't think I ever posted about my collection.
Back in 1999 I read the article "Supreme O" in Wired magazine about the sunglass company Oakley that started my obsession. The company prides itself on innovation & quality. Their designs are copied and envied over other sunglass companies. What really got my attention was Oakleys attention to detail and how they nitpick over details smaller than five-thousandths of an inch. Oakley has over 450+ patents and using materials like Titanium, Plutonite, Iridium, X Metal just to name a few.
In the spring of 2005, I started a fan site called OaklyeIcon.com named after their apparel line. By the winter I was contacted by Oakley who wanted to purchase the domain from me. At the time I really wanted to work as a designer for the company. I thought if I asked a lot of money for the domain I would kill any chances of working for them. I ended up selling the domain for $300, (which looking back makes me nauseous) and never hearing from them as a job opportunity. I started up another fan site (O-Desktops.com) that I have yet to hear from them on.
My current collection consists of 15 pairs of Oakleys. Most were bought from 2000-2003 when Oakley was doing their most radical designs (9 are discontinued) and 4 watches including Time Tank and Time Bomb.
3 comments:
I just noticed last night: My sister left her sunglasses @ our house, and my brother-in-law called and asked me to put them on the front porch so he could pick them up and take them to my sister... I took a closer look at her glasses as I laid them out on our front bench and, Low and behold: They had the Oakley "O" symbol on the sides!! I thought of you, Bob; WOW, what are the chances!
Gwen
Pretty sweet collection!
Bob,
Let me help you if you need to negotiate with another company.
You were on the right track about not charging too much money, but you must always negotiate with some leverage or perceived leverage. The moment you sold the website you lost your leverage. If you were to do this deal over, ask for a job before committing to a sale. Then, if there is no job the price goes up, or better yet you redesign the site showing naked porn stars wearing Oakley products while killing babies. Since, it is really difficult to design a site showing porn star baby killers, you must also be compensated for the emotional distress of dealing with such a toxic subject matter.
Post a Comment