Making T Shirts, Merchandising

Merchandising

While I am already talking about my band Mink Valley, I thought I would talk about the ongoing quest to make band t-shirts. I’ve picked up some information along the way that will be helpful for others; whether you are making shirts for your band, team, family reunion, blog, whatever… 

DIY SCREENPRINTING

I decided to make our own shirts so I went out and bought a screen, the chemicals used to burn the image on to the screen, and the ink. I watched someone make a zillion shirts once when I was touring with a band over a decade ago, so I figured I was an expert (I was selling their merch at tables, not performing, sadly…). 

Just in case, I researched the process on the Internet and I was optimistic that I understood how it worked. I printed the art onto a transparency and then laid it on top of the screen (which I had treated with chemicals). Then I shone a bright light at the screen for several hours so the image could burn into the screen. The plan was that I would then spray water on the screen and part would rinse away, so that when I pressed paint through the screen the artwork would appear on the shirt.

I tried this three times and each time everything would rinse off, leaving me with a blank screen.

 

PROS and CONS of DIY Method

Pros: None

Cons: Expensive, Exposure to Scary Chemicals, Completely Futile

 

By this time our gig was in a few days and I was very annoyed. I gave up and my friend Barb and I came up with a new plan, thanks to a recent Craft Night that was based on craft I found at one of my favorite crafting sites, craftster.org. 

CRAFTY SHIRTS

This is how the art on the very first Mink Valley shirts came to be handcrafted. We bought old shirts at a local thrift store. We used modge podge, an embroidery hoop, and an old curtain to make the screen. We used the screen to print part of the image and  hand-painted the rest. 

PROS and CONS of Crafty Method               

Pros: Each shirt was truly unique, Inexpensive to produce, Fun (if you’re crafty)

Cons: Time consuming, Band Name was not very legible, I think I’ve only seen one person actually wear the shirt in public 

PROFESSIONALLY MADE SHIRTS - ONLINE RETAILER

The shirts we currently have for sale are professionally printed through Cafepress, an online retailer that will produce and ship your merchandise for you. Here’s how it works: Mink Valley has an online store at Cafepress. If someone purchases Mink Valley merchandise from Cafepress, they will make the item and ship it to them. We were considering a bulk order so that we would have a variety of merchandise to sell at our shows, so I tested it out recently when I ordered a Mink Valley shirt and a Team Craft shirt from them. 

PROS and CONS of Online Retailer Method

Pros: It’s free, Very fast to set up if you already have your graphics (still fast if you know how to create graphics), Great way to provide your merch to customers scattered all over the world, you can avoid having to set up your own online store, Reasonably priced for the customer if you don’t build in much of a profit margin, You can offer a wide variety of products (bumper sticker, shirts, tote bags, buttons, mugs) including organic shirts like the one pictured below, There is no minimum order or penalty if you never make a sale

 

Cons: I received the extra large men’s shirt and medium women’s shirt I ordered but they were much bigger than regular clothing of that size (something we will take into account if we place a bulk order), It’s not locally made, may not work for you if you are trying to make money through sales

 

 

 

Other Options:

PROFESSIONALLY MADE SHIRTS - LOCAL BUSINESS 

 

This will probably be our next step and I think it makes more sense if we are going to do a large run of shirts (maybe for our CD release or a tour). So far I have checked out  screen printing company will charge you a set up fee, and may have a minimum for each type of shirt you can order

 

OTHER ONLINE RETAILERS

There is also a company called bigcartel which looks interesting. They will provide you with an online store but you are responsible for the printing and fulfillment. I might check this out later so that we can sell stuff we print locally. 

 

Benefits of OnLine Stores

There are so many benefits of having some sort of online store set up. Once you have a store, make sure you spread the word. The company you use will probably offer you a variety of widgets that you can use on your website, blog, and myspace site. Cafepress has a Facebook application, too (I don’t think it’s working right now unfortunately).

Garageband.com has a spot where bands can create a store on their profile for free, which is pretty cool. You can set up a tip jar or enter links to your store elsewhere.

In a moment of entrepreneurial genius (okay, not really, more like sleep deprivation) I also offered to send 3 Mink Valley stickers and a personally written limerick to fans who would send me money through my paypal account. That’s about the most basic DIY way to set up an online store that I could think of. No ones taken me up on it yet, which is too bad because I was getting excited about writing some limericks! 

Comments, Advice and Question on this Topic Most Welcome