April 14th, 2015 will mark an entire year of Live and Let Diecast! To celebrate, I've been republishing some of the pivotal posts. Here I'd like to give thanks to those who have sculpted the look of our little site from a Kinja backwater to the international (literally!) powerhouse of diecast it has become. -Jeff
RAOK: Random Act of Kindness
I recall reading at least one comment on Oppo whenever the prospect of an independent blog revolving around diecast cars and models was mentioned....
A sub-blog of a sub-blog?!?
Mind. blown.
(explodinghead.gif)
In fact, even well after we had established ourselves as our own entity it wasn't hard to find LaLD being referred to as a sub-sub-blog. Although this categorization would eventually drive me into insane bouts of rage, our very first logo (designed by ARCHDUKE and PHILIP) was unashamed to link us.
For a first attempt it is surprisingly competent, but it also displays a narrowness to our early thinking. HWEP, by the way, stood/stands for "Hot Wheels Exchange Program". Although I was given ownership of this blog, I signed up SN210, MYCARNEVERRUNS87, and ULY as admins almost immediately. This meant at launch the site had approximately 4 mods to go with perhaps 5 contributors. I had a feeling those 3 were not to be crossed, however... and I also suspect MYCARNEVERRUNS87 considered me a bit of an usurper. :)
Within moments we had our first conflict. I considered the name HWEP to be a cornerstone of our site. It was also the beginning of the web address, which seemed really, really important in my opinion. The other guys had come up with the quite brilliant "Live and Let Die-Cast!" as our name. We went back and forth for awhile via e-mail but I eventually conceded to their cleverness.
Seeing the unbalanced nature of our admins I attempted the old "FDR-in-1936-double-the-amount-of-supreme-court-judges-so-he-could-pack-the-court-in-his-favor" maneuver by quickly enlisting FROSTED (who at that point was going by FROSTED, THE DIECAST CAR GUY) and PHILIPILIHP SPELLED BACKWARDS to help with the admin duties. This now made it about 1 admin for every 2 visitors but would turn out to be one of the pinnacles of my work as guy who delegates....erm, owner.
As to the name HWEP....sure enough it became quickly outdated as someone realized that not all diecasts are actually Hot Wheels. Not everyone was into the "exchange part" either. Using the name LaLD had been a simple but brilliant idea. We abandoned hwep.kinja.com and moved seamlessly into our new life at LaLD. I bought the URL liveandletdiecast.com so that you can get to us direct and the site started to roll. PHILIP designed the accompanying new logo:
The look that we currently sport, however, came well outside the diecast community. A graphic design artist and friend of mine for more than the last decade had taken a look at the site and decided she had her own ideas. Taking the outline of a diecast that was fairly anticipated at the time, a classic red and black combo, deleting the hyphen for good, and adding "goes fast" lines trailing, I feel it is our best look yet.
Philip has even managed to create an actual model of the vehicle!
Could a 1:1 be that far away? :)
If I haven't made it quite clear enough, I am amazed and humbled at the incredible generosity of the Live and Let Diecast community. The enthusiasm, dedication and just daily RAOK has made LaLD easily my favorite place on the internet. Thank you!!!
Now, who wants me to get some t-shirts made?