Hi! :) Here is the thinking behind my entry. I decided to carry the blitz theme beyond just lightning and featured a cartoon Zeus wearing a tshirt in a cloud, ready to strike down sweet daily designs! I limited the palette, thinking that you might print the inside neck tag (if not when you start up, perhaps down the road?)
Before switching my focus to logos and illustration, I used to do a lot of work for the daily tee shirt sites - Teefury, RIPT as well as other online and boutique online sites Threadless, etc. so I feel like I'm pretty in-tune with that community. I think this logo cold appeal to an both genders (although, I believe the pop icon tshirt market is more heavily skewed towards dudes)
I'd love to hear your thoughts. If you have any revisions / feedback, please just let me know. Thanks so much for your time & consideration. josh
Hi Josh. I really like #59 from the batch. I do like that you have the experience with the daily tee shirt side of things too. Have you done much with the actual t-shirt designs as well? The next step for me is to acquire some designs there as well but due to not having the userbase I'm afraid the $1 model won't work so well for me in the near term. Knowing that, I'm looking to buy a few designs outright (I think) and carry the risk up front with buying some blanks and print a batch until I can get the eyeballs needed.
cool - if there are any ways I can improve, just let me know :)
Sorry - yeah, that's what I meant. I've designed for all of those sites as well as a lot of other boutique stores and bands. I'd love to talk over the possibility of selling some art outright once the contest is over. I have original stuff as well as pop-culture based work.
Doesn't the $1 / shirt - artists keeps the rights model work well with avoiding risk? Or will you have some always available stuff too? Do you print the designs or is the printwork outsourced? Just curious. :)
Yeah in the $1 / shirt model the artist is carrying the risk but my concern would be why an artist would bother with a smaller site. That is, unless the bigger sites were already booked or recently ran something for them. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to start small and grow from there but I really didn't see the upside for an artist to sell through me without the sales of the bigger sites. Speaking of selling afterwards, I've noticed a lot of artists use redbubble.com for their shirts. Have you used that before too? Just curious if the artist's cut is too small there.
I've got experience with growing up the print broker business (mostly business forms and some shirts) but come from a the technical/software world personally. I have a guy locally here in California for the actual silk screen printing of the shirts.
I was initially headed towards the daily model just to not have to carry inventory but am willing to start slower by buying some designs to gain the userbase (and ideally mailing list) to transition to a primarily daily model.
If you can find the right artists, though - they can grow your viewership. The other benefit of the $1/shirt model is that the artists with a following have their own mailing lists - so they help with the marketing. At the end of the day, the artists get the rights back and are free to re-use elsewhere, so I don't think anyone really takes it as a loss - just some thoughts, not trying to be pushy or anything :)
cool - I can try for a younger face. My original thought was sort of a zeus / lightning god type of deal - but a younger guy more in line with thor / lightning guy is a good idea. I'll have something up this afternoon.
Hey Josh -- Thanks for the younger man. I'm not 100% sold on it though. Since we're down to the wire on the regular deadline I'd like to keep you in my top 5 regardless. Can you submit a fresh idea though? I'm also a little leary of too much height for a header on a site. Thanks!