You Design It - Official Blog

Emptees – A Great T-Shirt Resource

Blake — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 23:00:12 +0000

It’s easy to use a resource everyday and take it for granted without ever mentioning to other people how helpful it really is. Very often I find myself searching through Emptees list of tees or designers to keep an eye out for trends, new talent, or just great designs.

Emptees is also a terrific place to showcase your designs and get a feel for how they will be received. The community based nature of the site means that feedback and support from other artists is very common and it’s a great way to get buzz for your new designs. They also have an awesome resources section where you can find links to helpful articles and tutorials. Whether you’re a seasoned designer or a novice…Emptees is a terrific, free resources that shouldn’t be ignored.

Stay tuned to You Design It because we have a little announcement pertaining to Emptees coming soon.

Shred Clothing’s Backwards Sale

Blake — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 00:20:01 +0000

This is a pretty clever sale that I had never seen before. Shred Clothing, run by Jonathan Kruse, is having a Christmas sale that lowers the discount each day closer to Christmas. Talk about needing to hurry to buy the goods. The sooner you buy, the more you save. This will really help those that procrastinate and worry about delivery at the last minute.

I guess it is safe to say that you can save more money and save yourself a headache by ordering early. Sounds like a win/win situation to me.

Raven SEO Tools Gets It Right!

Blake — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 21:55:23 +0000

As I am just getting settled back in from the Pubcon Conference in Vegas, one of the top priorities on my to-do list is to give credit to Raven Seo Tools. These guys and gals took the trade show t-shirt giveaway practice to a whole new level. They should be the text book example for going above and beyond the standard giveaway tee and knocking this one out of the park.

When you are giving away a t-shirt at a trade show, you want to accomplish two things. You want the traffic it brings to your booth and then you want the residual advertising of the shirt being worn/seen in the future. Raven nailed both.

Here are three things that Raven did that blew me away:

Printed on American Apparel (top notch shirt that costs more but people LOVE them)
They went for it with this one. The target audience at Pubcon knows a high quality shirt when they see American Apparel. It goes a long way with their prospective buyers.
Did a Design that Wasn’t Logo-Centric
A lot of companies can’t resist the urge to splash their logo all over a giveaway. Raven created a catchy design that the conference attendees couldn’t wait to wear. They unobtrusively included their logo on the sleeve and the branding has just as much effect.
Did Two Different Colored Shirts
It was Olive for Men and Plum for Women. What’s not to like about that?!?

View the images below from their blog to see what the shirts looked liked:

Here is a shot of the Raven team rockin’ their wears:

Heck of a job Raven!

Hide Your Arms Show You How to Recycle

Blake — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:03:28 +0000

In our industry, there is an overabundance of the used t-shirts. Whether they be misprints, stained shirts, or shirts with holes… there are too many wasted shirts sitting in every screen printing shop in America. Now there’s a solution for all those wasted or retired shirts with the list that Andy at Hide Your Arms recently created.

Yes, for those shirts that aren’t good enough to even be donated to Goodwill, there now is an answer. In fact, there are 50 answers. Click on the image below to follow through to the list of 50 Ways to Recycle Your Old T-Shirts:

Mr. Vector Is A Great Resource

Blake — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 14:25:01 +0000

Looking for some high quality vector artwork to add to your toolbox? One place that you may not know about that we’d like to suggest is Mr. Vector. It doesn’t take long browsing through the sample images of the vector packs to see how much value you’ll receive. The packs cover a variety of categories, including but not limited to, crosses, crowns, banners, backgrounds, etc..

Liz at Pop Culture Tees is behind the site and you know how good her sense of design is. Just look at the design of PCT and Mr. Vector and the content speaks for itself. Everything meshes perfectly together, adding to the credibility of these vector packs. We definitely suggest buying a pack or two, you won’t be disappointed.

Help Andy at HYA

Blake — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 17:24:58 +0000

A t-shirt blog that we are a big fan of here at You Design It needs your help. Andy, at Hide Your Arms, is offering a great deal on Threadless gift certificates. He has some $25 gets certificates to Threadless and he is selling them for $17 each. The guy needs a new computer, and quite frankly, we want him to make his goal. We don’t want to imagine the t-shirt blogosphere without Hide Your Arms. .

He is raising money to get a new laptop, because his current one is on its last leg. It is nice when someone is raising money and they are offering a heck of a deal, because too many times people just ask for handouts. This would be a great buy even if there wasn’t a good reason behind it. Good luck Andy, we hope this helps!