I wanted to present this t-shirt that I have designed. Over Dose (0ver Do2e). This brand is all about hidden massages with in the designs. Right now our tee’s are at a very low cost and a very cheap shipping price. Thanks for your time. Andy: I don’t mean to offend you, but I feel you have a lot of work to do here. If you like the style of the graphic, that’s fine, but for me it looks like you’ve just put some generic text over the mouth of a lion, and that the text not only doesn’t add anything to the image but actually distracts me from the artwork. It would also really help you if you had a better product mockup as this type will do little to entice buyers to make a pre-order when they don’t know what it’s really going to look like. I don’t really understand where you’re going with the ’0ver Do2e’ branding when you have ‘Over Dose’ on your website, it would probably be in your best interest to stick with one kind of branding so early on in the game since people don’t know who you are yet. Why is the info you posted here not on your website too? It needs to be on the product page to explain the design. Speaking of the product page, listing the number of shirts you have in stock isn’t a great idea unless you just have one or two left, it doesn’t help generate demand. Also, product pages don’t need comment forms like you have, maybe re-style them to act as feedback/review forms as in the current state it just makes me think that you need to do more work editing your WordPress template. Last thing, HYA readers are a savvy bunch, they’re all well aware that a shirt with a one-colour print on it (and not a jumbo print either) is not ‘very cheap’ when being sold at $15.99. We all know that you need to make profit on a shirt, but to claim that your shirt is ‘very cheap’ suggests you’re either paying too much for your product, haven’t done enough market research, or think that I and the readers have no idea about t-shirts and how they should be priced. Like I say, I don’t mean to offend, but I can’t let a shirt like this pass without taking the opportunity to try and help you and also provide advice to others getting into the t-shirt industry. This post was submitted by Edwin. { 3 comments }![teeshirtFinal 480x584 Lion Roar Tee from Over Dose [Submitted These guys may hate me after reading this]](http://media.hideyourarms.com/wp-content/uploads/tdomf/44658/teeshirtFinal.png "teeshirtFinal.png")
![LionRoar Lion Roar Tee from Over Dose [Submitted These guys may hate me after reading this]](http://media.hideyourarms.com/wp-content/uploads/tdomf/44658/LionRoar.jpg "LionRoar.jpg")
Like this design of a lion with its open mouth. It stands for these young teens feeling like the king.
The “0ver Do2e” in the lions mouth stands what these teens that over dose feeling like “the king of the jungle”.
All our tee’s are up for pre-order.
Posts tagged as:
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If you’re in a band and you’re playing to crowds, then your chest can be seen as an advertising space, especially with the way teenagers view people in bands as borderline-deities that they want to emulate. Thus, bands want to get sponsored, they want to wear free t-shirts, and they want to give brands ‘exposure’. I received this e-mail recently (names and places altered to save them embarrassment):
My name is Cornelius, I’m the frontman for the band The Arm Hiders based out of Unknownville. We are in search of a company to work with to sponsor us on our upcoming tour this Summer. We came across your company on line and have check out your site and feel like we would love to rep your company on tour this summer. If you all endorse bands, we would love to help you all out and get your name out there on the road. Feel free to email us back if you would like to work out something with us. Thanks for your time, and we look forward to hearing back from you. Cheers.
That was it, that was the whole thing. Let’s leave aside for a second the fact that I don’t even really have a line (the HYA store doesn’t really count, does it?), because I wanted to look at what was wrong with that e-mail and how it would be a poor way to approach a clothing brand (or any other company) if you were looking to get yourself, your brand, or possibly your sports team sponsored.
1. The sender doesn’t say hello, or address me by name, a clear sign that it’s a copy pasted e-mail and that they are contacting several people with the same message. Take a second to find out someone’s name and you’ll be a lot more likely to receive a response.
2. There’s no link to the band’s website or music. I’ve never heard of The Arms Hiders (what a silly name!), but maybe if I heard their music I’d really like it and think it was worth sending them some t-shirts. The lack of a website also suggests that this band may be quite small and not yet have any web presence. Bands need to make it as easy as possible for a t-shirt company to hear the music, if that takes more than one click then it’s going to really reduce the response rate.
3. Your band is going on a tour this Summer, so what? Tell me when and where you will be (maybe I can meet you at one of your shows), how big the venues will be, if you are the headline act, what merchandise you sell, if you will be performing at any festivals, how Twitter followers and Facebook likes you have, if your tour will be advertised and if so, do the sponsors get exposure from that. Clearly, the e-mail sender recognises that there is value in terms of exposure for the t-shirt brand, but there’s not enough info to back that up. What the sender needs to do is give a t-shirt brand reason to stop and think if there is enough value for their brand to give the band free t-shirts to wear on the tour.
4. “If you all endorse bands” ignoring the strange wording, this is again another sign that the sender has sent a copy/paste e-mail, and also proves that they haven’t taken the time to look at your site properly. T-shirt brands that do sponsor bands will often like to showcase the bands in some way on their website. Sponsoring a band can be a mark of pride for a t-shirt company, it’s a good way for them to associate themselves with a style of music and also a lifestyle, which quickly gives potential customers and fans something to identify with. So bands should take a good look at each brand and make sure your music fits with their style, and if they do sponsor bands then you already know that it’s something they might be interested in with your band.
5. Copy/paste e-mails are the devil. It is easier to send a copy/paste e-mail, but it’s also easier for someone to delete one, they’re impersonal and almost always sound like adverts. If you want to get a reply from someone you talk to them like a person, create a connection and give them some respect, especially if you’re hoping for them to give you hundreds of dollars of clothing in return. It’s okay to have a general template of an e-mail, some bits of blurb will always be the same, but edit and personalise each e-mail to maximise the chance of getting a response from each brand. Oh, and t-shirt brands talk, so if you e-mail lots of similar brands, they’ll probably know about it.
6. Make sure your spelling and grammar are perfect, or at least the best you can do. There are a few errors in the e-mail I have shown above, and there are parts which aren’t just typos too, which suggests that it was rushed and not re-read to check for errors. If this e-mail is a bands first point of contact with a t-shirt company, what kind of impression does that give? Not a good one in my opinion. If English isn’t your strong point then get someone to write your general template for you and then you can add in the personal stuff that you’re comfortable with on a case-by-case basis, no one is expecting you to be Shakespeare, but brands want to know they’re dealing with professionals. If you are trying to contact someone in a non-native language, make that clear too.
7. If the t-shirt company responds, so do you, quick. Replying to e-mails quickly shows that a band is serious about the sponsorship opportunity, this isn’t a flirty text message with that girl from last night, you don’t need to wait 3 hours to respond. Think about what the t-shirt company wants, a band that will wear you stuff on stage when photos are being taken and tell people about the t-shirt brand, replying quickly to a response is the first step in proving that you’re conscientious and trustworthy. I sent a response to the person that sent me the e-mail above, two days later I haven’t heard from them and I doubt I ever will, potentially I could have been a fan of their brand and suggested them to t-shirt brands for sponsorship, as it stand they’ve lost both those opportunities by not replying to an e-mail.
If you have any suggestions or feedback please leave me a message in the comments, or on Twitter @hideyourarms. In a few weeks I will take a look at whether there really is value for brands sponsoring bands and if the exposure bands provide can help with getting a t-shirt company more fans and customers.
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An inspiring night requires an inspiring shirt design… The theme of this year’s Vinyl Thoughts event was Next Level. A retro video game tribute, so I had to create a shirt using one of my favorite games growing up, the classic Donkey Kong! With the help of Alexa Machine this shirt printing went perfect.
To line up a four color print on the press, you gotta tape one of the films to the pallet in the same spot you want all the prints. So you can line up all the screens in the press to that film, this is the basic registration of the print.
You will be able to see the film thru the negative space of the emulsified screen, and just gotta line them up perfectly and tighten the screws on the press…
Once all four screens are taped off on the back and loaded with the correct ink color, the printing begins!
This four station, six color manual press is perfect for two people to print at once. Just gotta print the colors in the correct order and communicate so no mistakes are made. Check out the final color printing
Then you get perfect prints like this! I wanted to design something with huge letters, so the levels of the Donkey Kong board were a perfect large surface area.
Hot off the press, I picked up the shirts and rushed over to the event where all the shirts sold out that night! I am reprinting some more shirts now, so they will be available on my Sleepy Dan web shop this week.
The two color back design showed off all the sponsors for this year’s event. The show was packed all night and has become such a hit for the up and coming Dallas vinyl arts culture.
I’m so proud to be part of this event and becoming a contributing vinyl designer. If you check out pics of the event and custom vinyls, I created a tribute to Mike Tyson’s Punch Out by creating two vinyl characters Bald Bull and King Hippo!
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Sleepy Dan hood sweaties released in December, I had to release one cut n sew project for the first year so you can be sure there will be some more customized designs for the upcoming years! I can not emphasize enough, process is the most important part of any project. The rugby style hoodie is a design just recently hitting trend so I had to make some comfortable enough to bear the Sleepy Dan brand! In my day job as an apparel designer, I have learned how to work with embroidery shops to create apparel patterns, but sometimes several of the finishing steps have to be done on your own to save on cost. That’s how I was able to make these hoodies so affordable.
Coming from the manufacturer, I had to make some custom modifications past adding the logo embroidery appliques and the new custom neck labels for outerwear… This hoodie has several exposed cover stitch seams, so you can easily see it’s custom made, but the excess seam fabric had to be trimmed up a little more to be finished.
After finishing, the logo embroidery appliques are hand stitched to the garment, then the size labels are machine stitched into the neck seam. What makes this hoodie so special is the herringbone cotton twill neck seam, rugby placket, and hood seam edge. The time invested to this project is longer than a t-shirt design, but the fan and blogger reviews of the hood sweatie are amazing for the first cut n sew design. Research and development are a key role in the process of a successful project, so don’t overlook your process at any stage! Hope you got one before they sold out…
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Can you imagine if you walked into a house and there were this many cats… it would be terrifying. $10 at TeeFury today.
I know what you’re thinking, this is just yet another t-shirt about imaginary Pinata companies, and when with this pinata meme die? Well, at least this one at Shirt.Woot is based on the 1986 film ‘Three Amigos’.
The Muppets meet Futurama with this Hypnokermit t-shirt at RIPT today.
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I realised that this TeeFury shirt was about Breaking Bad, but having only seen a couple of episodes the Los Pollos Hermanos aspect of this shirt is lost on me.
I think that this might be my favourite design that Shirt.Woot have released.
Goonies-inspired t-shirt from RIPT today.
“The Marvelous commute to Wonderland” is up at Qwertee.
It’s Back To The Future vs Bill and Ted at Shirt Punch today.
Here’s another 24tee shirt that goes over my head.
I know that Community isn’t for everyone, but the paintball episode was truly fantastic, so I’m glad to get the reminder from TeeRadiers.
Two new shirts from DBH today (including one that is fighting SOPA that will only be available for a couple more days).
BustedTees have some wrestling pandas for $13.99 instead of $20 this week.
Hey look, Tilteed are selling ‘The Eternal Struggle’ again.
This error greeted me when I visited TeeBlitz this morning.
Adam has some advice over at TeeJunction on creating a t-shirt brand.
Save up to 20% on your order at Wrongwroks, providing you spend quite a lot.
Raygun Robyn is aiming for global domination, and to do that she’s going to offer free shipping to the first person from countries that haven’t yet made an order in her store.
Johnny Cupcakes shares a little story of how he put a plastic skull into a random customer’s order for a hat to try and add some mystery and magic to the online shopping process. It might give other store owners ideas about how they can make their shopping experience more interesting.
Obscure Printing are going to start offering a complete fulfillment service for brands (printing, packing, shipping, and stock holding). They’re also collaborating with a company called Judda distribution which will make brands available to 3000+ stores across Europe, which could be a great opportunity for a lot of brands. It’ll be interesting to see where this goes.
Mila Kunis wore a vintage-styled Pepsi t-shirt, super-duper!
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