OK.Reaching out to anyone who’ll listen on this.

Indie shirt companies are what’s going right with the world.   It’s not a big corporation sucking the life out of its employees and not rewarding their hard work.   It’s not a huge conspiracy to mask some political gain.   The pureness of the indie brands is that it’s a person or a handful of people committed to something they love to do, regardless of failure or success.     They care about their work and they care about their fans and customers.   They also care about their peers.  

A few years back I was a struggling entrepreneur and blogger.  Let’s face it,   I still am.   I started putting some designs up on some Print On Demand sites just to see if they’d sell.   They did… a little.    Then, the community of shirt designers stepped in and noticed.     And, we’re not talking a friend of a friend of a brother’s former roommate.   We’re talking folks from Spain, England, and Australia.    I started seeing some tweets and shares, of my stuff, around the net.   Their kindness and welcoming attitude paid off in brand awareness.   Soon, I was getting mentioned in Podcasts and on their sites.    Eventually, I was being asked to participate in giveaways.    I felt like part of something great.    That’s what being a part of the shirt design community is.   It’s being a part of something great and exciting and stimulating.   Nothing smells so sweet as the blood, sweat, and tears on your hard work.   Looking at that finished project and just sort of smirking, as if to say, “FUCK YEAH!”   Pardon the expression, but “FUCK YEAH!”

So, because that community was so inviting and supportive to me, I pledged to help a Kickstarter project for one of those businesses that I’ve benefitted from over the years.  I am paying back a fraction of the rewards I’ve reaped from being part of their world.   And I’m not even part of their world, really.    These folks do so much more than my lazy, cheap ass, hack of a shirt designer.     There is some pure talent and creativity in this work and I am giggling at the work because it is pretty awesome.

Take a look at their work over at Captain Feline.  

Here’s the gist.   Amanda and Dave of GritFx shirts have taken the leap of launching a full indie brand line of shirts.   It mixes iconic characters or scenes from pop culture with cats.     Imagine the following visages as anthropomorphic cats; Frank N. Furter, The MIBs, Gandalf, Ripley and Newt, The Usual Suspects, The Bride from Kill Bill, and even Easy Rider…. CATS ON MOTORCYCLES.

They are in the hopes of raising the funds needed to launch, maintain, and improve the brand through Kickstarter, and you even get some awesome swag if you pledge.I’m getting a shirt, some postcards, and some comfort in knowing I helped make this awesome idea a reality. 

Better hurry, their deadline is around the last week of August, so GET TO DA KICKSTARTA! GO NOWWWW!

I’m such a mooch. LOL. Once again, I am building on another, probably more well thought out, post from Tees In a Pod, called Being Professional Online: No Suit, No Tie, Oh My! In this post, Amanda Ryan discusses what it means to be a professional in a business where you aren’t exactly dressed in a suit. She gives some great tips and advice on how to stay engaged with your customers while maintaining your own brand image and personality.

Sometimes when you are in a self owned business, you tend to be your best customer.   I remember selling candy bars for the band in high school, so that I could go to Disney World.  I ended up having to pay for a lot of them because I'm the one that was eating them.  The only good thing about buying my own shirts is that it won't go straight to my gut.  So, here is a round up of what I've just recently bought or have been sent.  The one to note is first one listed.  This is not my design but one I've been drooling over for months.  I don't mean that in an objectifying of women kind of thing, I just mean from the fact that it's a kick ass design by GritFx.  Manz, over there in the land of Aus....tralia was kind enough to hook a brother up.  Thanks, dear.  I will love it!

I should be good with comfy clothes for at least a few months...  LOL.

I am going to start off this post with a disclaimer. I am neither condoning or condemning what will be used as examples in this post. I am simply illustrating different views and points involving ideas for Print On Demand designs.


Two of the first designs I uploaded onto CafePress were based off of Pop Culture ideas. The first was The Dobler Effect, meant to be a parody of The Doppler Effect and an homage to Lloyd Dobler from Say Anything. When I first put the silhouette, which is supposed to remind you of that iconic scene from Say Anything, on the canvas with the words "The Dobler Effect" I had no clue that there was a band called "The Lloyd Dobler Effect." Still, we both referenced the same idea, Say Anything and Lloyd Dobler.

With Amity Island Swim Club, I was inspired both by the book and movie of Jaws, as well as the idea that I could do this type of work for a living. While the subject matter came from one of my favorite movies, the desire to try out my hand at designing came from seeing this tee in a magazine.




The joke in the design is the same. Promoting the idea of being in the water in a location riddled with shark attacks.


So, what’s inspiration? What’s parody? What’s homage? What’s plagiarism?


I confess that, had it not been for the movies being a source of inspiration, I would have never come up with those designs on my own and yet if I had, they wouldn’t mean anything because no one would know what a guy holding a boom box over his head meant.


Still, in reference to homage and inspiration, I am also guilty of recreations based on "As Seen On TV" moments. I admit that I offer a "Callahan Autos" design that I recreated, not from what I’ve already seen on other shirt sites, but from the what was used in the movie, Tommy Boy. That required watching the movie and freeze framing it to try and see how the design looked. I’ve done the same thing with Meatballs in regards to Camp North Star and Camp Mohawk. There are other sites that have Camp Mohawk designs but I based mine off the original from the movie.




(UPDATE: I was digging around in my files and found the fourth image, which I had used on Skreened. I don’t know why I didn’t have it on Zazzle, as well. It’s something I will have to fix in a bit. In any case, the fourth design was my final go at recreating the original image from the movie. I had to watch it a number of times to find a usable model to work from and I think it’s an overall improvement on the first three.)

The first three are almost the same, in fact the red one and cracked one (mine) are practically identical. Side note: I used a template that I created as an overlay to make it appear distressed and cracked like it came from 1979.  Doing a search on Zazzle and organizing the designs by newest to oldest, my design was added before the red one, while the first one was added before mine. The idea here is, that while all three of us have similar designs, regardless of publish date, all three are using the same focus for the design. In my case, I went with the more distressed look and tried to mimic the original design seen in the movie. So, am I copying another shirt designer, copying the movie, or simply doing a fan recreation?


Now there are far more talented designers out there doing movie and pop culture inspired designs that have no use of imagery directly tied to the source material themselves. Thanks to a friend, I stumbled onto a site called Dark Bunny Tees. This is a one man operation with a limited edition of shirt designs but they are inspired by the films they promote yet have an original take on the source. For instance, this Ghostbusters tee is inspired by the building and the fictional architect Ivo Shandor but makes excellent reference to the film.


Here’s another one from my go to resource, GritFx. Captain Howdy’s Ouija Boards. It borrows the imagery of that shadowy figure played by Eileen Dietz, but also the idea of a Ouija Board. It’s a play on the Ouija Board being a novelty game used to contact spirits and the demon Pazuzu, who is said to have possessed Regan in The Exorcist and who she calls Captain Howdy.


In both of these examples, there is a homage to pop culture and the ideas are inspired by movies. But what about other takes on certain ideas not specifically related to pop culture. If pop culture is your source, the duplications on the different websites are a shooting match between quality and aesthetics. But, if you are basing your idea as a parody of another idea, as in the case of the old saying "When Life Gives You Lemons," sometimes your take can be viewed as plagiarism.


When I started to get more involved with the t-shirt and POD business, I began to take notice of specific sites like Busted Tees and SnorgTees. These were big players in the funny shirt arena. I also became interested in the Print On Demand and Independent designers who talk about the business from the perspective of the designer and the wearer. That’s how I found Tees In A Pod. These four designers do blog posts and podcasts devoted to the t-shirt culture from the both sides of the industry. One of the group, Tim, runs SogeShirts. When I first discovered them I immediately liked one of their designs called when life hands you MELONS you might be dyslexic. Funny, right. It plays on the old saying, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." By rearranging the word LEMON into another fruit and then adding the whole dyslexia angle to it they make it a joke. Yet, this week, SnorgTees debuted a new design using the exact text as SogeShirts but omitted the actual melons from the design. Is it plagiarism?




At first, I was shocked. It was like seeing your kid going off to a costume party in a really well done, homemade, costume and finding out someone else’s kid was wearing the same costume that they paid a lot of money for at the store. Snorg is a big player in the tee biz and to see them put out a design that is nearly identical to SogeShirts’ kind of bites. They have the resources to promote across many more platforms like StumbleUpon and have more exposure than SogeShirts does.


Once again, I refer you to my disclaimer above. Taking a look from the other side, it is entirely possible that someone at Snorg came up with the design themselves because the source material is a well known saying, "When life gives you lemons." The gray area is that is it possible that two people could have come up with the same joke?  Yeah, it is.


In fact, that could have been a user submitted design as SnorgTees invites idea submissions. They may have not even checked to see if someone already had created a shirt using that joke.


Is it fair that the joke is on more than one shirt? Yes and no. Is it fair that a bigger name t-shirt site is selling that same joke? No. Not to me, not to SogeShirts and not to the little guys that are trying to make a name for themselves in the online retail business. But technically, it’s allowable, I guess.


I ran into the same thing, this past week, when Zazzle slashed and burned through all of the "unofficial" Jersey Shore designs. Because Jersey Shore and MTV have a store on Zazzle, they will claim ownership of the phrase "Gym Tan Laundry" Here’s their version and here was mine. I’m biased in thinking my design looked better but the fact of the matter is, their show introduced that phrase into pop culture and therefore, I’m SOL on GTL when it comes to PODs and MTV.



It just sucks all the way around for folks like Tim and SogeShirts and me and my GTL design. However, I will say if you look at those two designs for MELONS side by side, it’s clear to see who has the better delivery. That should count for something. So, I’m here to promote SogeShirts’ design because regardless if they were there first, they are there, best.

Host your own designs

Looking back at our scenario, we can now change how the interaction takes place.  I’ll spare you the goofy dialogue.

“Hey, I like your shirt.  Where did you get it?”

“Online”

“What’s the website?”

“www.[YourBrandName].com”

“Thanks, I’ll have to check that out.”

Now, the potential buyer is going right to your site with all of your work.  In case you’re worried about overhead and inventory and having to do a lot of extra work, fear not.  You can still use websites like Zazzle and CaféPress to host your products.  All you need to do is get a domain and you can build your store online using tools provided by Zazzle and CaféPress.  The checkout and actual buying is handled on their end.  You’re just providing a portal.  It adds a little to your bottom line, in terms of service provider and hosting costs, but you might be able to translate it into more sales. 

Use Social Media Tools Like Facebook, Blogs and Twitter

Wordpress is a pretty powerful tool but unless you use the web hosting end of it at Wordpress.com, you will need to set up some sort of hosting of your blog and other pages using WordPress.  If you are like me and would rather keep your costs low, you don’t want to pay for website hosting services.   Free is nice, but you get what you pay for.  If you go the free route, you’ll need to be more creative.  There are blogs that  can offer you a platform for showcasing your work without having to pay for a domain.  Blogger is free and rather easy to use.  What you are reading right now is an example.  I use this blog to promote designs, share tips, and just connect with an audience.    The creative part is how you go about presenting the information.   Anyone can start a blog and post links to shirts in their Print On Demand stores but that doesn’t mean people will go there.  You need to be able to write quality content and craft a message that draws people into your site.  Learn about SEO, back linking, research HTML and CSS, and just read other people’s blogs.  

Once you can create a good user experience and interactive environment, potential customers can click into your stores and possibly buy something.  The best part is that you still have a website address that directs people to your work with your branding somewhere in the URL. There’s a saying that people remember the first thing you tell them and the last thing you tell them and everything in between gets lost.   If the first thing they see is your brand and the last thing they see is your shirt at their door, hopefully, they’ll remember you more than the mailing address on the packaging.   Do understand that with the “free” route of promotion you still have a lot of the POD’s name and labeling on the finished product in the form of packaging, but hopefully your brand can stick out in their mind.

Facebook is a great tool with better “real time” results as you can see who likes your page, so you know who your audience is at that moment.   You also have insights built right into the page where you can see how things are working.   Here’s a great look at how insights on Facebook work from Tees In a Pod, complete with video.

For MAMS, I use a Facebook page to show off new designs, interact with people who might be interested in buying my designs and just generally try to have fun.  It’s also a great communication tool because when people like your work, they can share it and that can lead to new fans and new buyers.  Word of mouth, whether orally or electronically, is still a free and powerful tool for advertising.  Better yet, with Facebook, the message doesn’t degrade like our original scenario.  The link follows the conversation.  There’s no “What’s the website called?” and then the potential buyer has to sift through results to find you.   Here, they just share the link.

Twitter is another instant tool for getting your brand out there.  Once again, if your followers like what they see, they’ll retweet it to their followers and that link to your work stays attached to the message.  It can also get picked up by search engines like Google. 

You can set up outside applications to tweet, as you publish from any tool you already use, to your twitter account.   A really crafty way is to tie all three of those social media tools together and streamline the process to make more yourself more efficient.  This blog updates my Facebook page which in turn updates my Twitter feed.  I write the content once and three social media tools pass it along.  Granted, I use the other tools as standalone communication methods, but it’s nice to not have to do triple the work when you aren’t a full time designer and shopkeeper.  This is all done using Twitterfeed to create feeds draw from various tools and post them to twitter.

Be a part of the community

You can’t live in a bubble.  There is a huge community of t-shirt designers and t-shirt lovers out there and they are more than willing to help you grow as a business owner and will help promote your brand.  The old adage of treating people how you wish to be treated is very applicable here.   Join groups on Facebook, follow other bloggers and twitter accounts for designers and reach out into the community.   Comment on posts and interact with others.   This does two things.  One, it allows you to interact with other people and it adds the link to your website or brand.  It’s not spamming because usually, in form posting, you have the option of adding your website link which anchors your name to your website.  This helps in backlinking to your site for search engines.

Secondly, reach out to these subject matter experts for help.  There are some awesome people out there to get involved with in the business.   Tees In A Pod and The Tee Gazette are great ways to get brand awareness and build relationships.  Manz, from Tees In A Pod and GritFx tees also has a page for the supporting of shopkeepers.   These three places are great places to start. 

When I first started my shops I was pretty much out in the woods, all alone, with a hatchet and a dream of a log home.  That might be a poor analogy, but the point is that I had a hell of a lot of work to do to achieve my goals with no help and the most basic of tools.    But as I became more involved with the community of online designers I found myself being promoted by them and in turn I promote their sites.  I retweet giveaways and contests and designs from peers and they in turn spotlight my work or even offer to help out with promotions I’m running.   For instance,  I held a giveaway for Halloween and as soon as I mentioned the topic on Facebook, I got emails and messages, from some of my t-shirt brethren, offering to help get the word out.   That’s pretty awesome and I finally gave something away.  

Why are people, who are in somewhat direct competition with myself, helping me out?  That’s just the community nature of this business.  It’s a really great atmosphere and environment in which to work.  I’ve talked back and forth with Manz at GritFx and Tees In a Pod about the Halloween giveaway and she has been a great resource.  She’s had experience with the business and gave me a lot of pointers on how to engage people and get the most out of my message.  She even alerted Kelly at TeeGazette about the giveaway.  That’s class.   After talking with Kelly at TeeGazette she threw a post up on her site promoting the giveaway on mine. 

Of course, I am getting all of this help for a campaign that is offering to give away something.  There’s no sale occurring.  However, all of the drummed up awareness of my store and “brand” could go a long way on the backend to bring people to my galleries which could result in future sales.  I’m treating the customer how I want to be treated.  It’s all connected.

Here’s another example of being a part of the online community reaping benefits.  Back in July I received an email from Skreened asking to do an interview for their newsletter.  It was part of their Comedy Summer promotion and they felt I was funny.  So, I answered a few questions and they added a picture of my big ole melon to the top of the page and people screamed in horror, parents pulled their children off the Internet and there was general chaos.  I kid, but it really was a big picture.  LOL.   Anyway, immediately after it went online I saw a huge spike in sales on my Skreened site.  Were the two related?  Metrics will only tell me so much, but I firmly believe that at least some of the people who read the newsletter went on over to my site and purchased something.

Well, that’s all I have this time.  So, in closing, remember that you are part of a larger machine and you can easily get yourself into the mix without having to be an expert or spend a lot of money.  All it takes is having a little awareness and a lot of openness.   Take care and get noticed!

Stay tuned for more posts on branding and business models.

It's time to declare zombie film supramacy!  Which movie is the best?  Dawn of the Dead (Romero) or Shaun of the Dead (Pegg/Wright)?  Where do you go in a zombie outbreak, the mall or The Winchester?

Get on over to GritFx and vote your way to winning a Zombie themed t-shirt!  It's easy.  It's simple.  It's a great selection to choose from.  You have until October 15th to enter.

Personally, I went with Romero's movie.  I respect the classics and frankly, without Dawn of the Dead, Shaun of the Dead would not have had a title.