This article was originally written by Ray Masaki of Lowdtown (http://www.twitter.com/lowdtown) and posted on his blog: http://www.lowdtown.com/

This is a really good question, but the answer obviously depends on what you consider your demographic to be. But one thing that is definitely important regardless of your demographic is that the product should be unique and professional. Try to steer clear of bandwagon products. You might make a quick buck from making a fad product, but you don’t want your brand to look like every other brand that jumps on trends.

For example, for some reason a while back, people were really into those Livestrong style silicone wrist bands. I thought it was cool when Livestrong did it, because it was for a good cause and the first to do it, but when a shitload of bands and brands started doing it, it got super lame. Maybe it’s just me, but I find those things to be terribly ugly, and don’t work well as an accessory to your clothing. I know the intention of those bands aren’t to be a fashion accessory, but I personally feel like your brand loses class when you make people wear accessories that are obviously just advertising (ie. silicone bands that say “I [heart] Brand X”). Similarly, I find laser cut jewelry pretty tacky for the most part unless it’s done well. Good Wood makes really unique laser cut jewelry using good quality wood, and unique wooden chains. They were able to take a simple idea, and put their own unique spin on it, which is dope.

Similarly, I feel like a lot of people are jumping on the old school snap back bandwagon. If you’re going to make snap backs, do it right. I see people buying really shitty wholesale hats, and then doing really generic embroidered designs on them. My favorite snap back brand by far is Quintin. They just did a collaboration with sneaker genius, Ronnie Fieg, and it was one of the dopest caps I’ve seen a while. Quintin uses really unique fabrics, and the cut of the hat is custom as well. I don’t know if snap backs are just a running trend at the moment, but if you’re going to go for them, do it right!

Continuing on the idea of trying to make a professional look on a tight budget, try to think of cost effective ways to customize your product like hoodies and jackets. I think the standard embroidered label adds a bit of professionalism to your products, but try to think of ways you can it make it more unique. Penfield uses embossed leather as patches on their jackets. Getting patches produced is really not too expensive if you find the right sources, and it definitely makes your garments more unique. I think it’s pretty boring when someone just prints up their design on a stock AA hoodie and then leaves it at that. If you add your own label in place of the stock size tag, and add little accoutrements, the products turns out way more special and unique. To me, it adds to the brands value, because I no longer feel like I’m buying Brand X design printed on an American Apparel hoodie, I feel like I’m buying a Brand X product. There is some debate on the issue, because people like knowing what kind of fit to expect especially when it’s an online brand, but that’s something that I’m personally willing to risk. When a shirt is printed on American Apparel, most people have worn AA shirts and know what size to get, but I still prefer removing the tags and labeling it as my own unique product. Besides, if you include an accurate size chart, most people shouldn’t complain… unless they’re too lazy to measure themselves.

If you’re looking into making your company more of a “lifestyle” brand, think of products that can complement your brand’s image. Ugmonk is a brand that everyone should know by now that focuses on minimalism, and the owner, Jeff Sheldon, really has a great attention to detail. One product he released in 2011 was a leather notebook, which worked perfectly with the style of his brand. It was unique, minimal and professional, and all he really added was simple, well-done packaging and an embossed graphic to the leather cover.

Overall, the most important thing is to create unique and professional products that pair well with your brand’s vision. Don’t jump on bandwagons, and create things just to be popular and make quick money. Try to really find and acknowledge the aesthetic of your brand, and find other products besides t-shirts that blend well with your company’s look.

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What items can I sell besides t-shirts?

This article was originally written by Ray Masaki of Lowdtown (http://www.twitter.com/lowdtown) and posted on his blog: http://www.lowdtown.com/blog/

Custom packaging is one of those things that are icing on the cake. I think it’s awesome when I get a package that comes in an awesome box, or custom mailer, but it usually ends up in the trash regardless. The only thing I really care about in regards to packaging is that it’ll keep my purchase safe during shipping, and that it has my address on it. However, I do have some ideas on how to make packaging look good without breaking the bank.

I personally love stickers. I just like sticking them on stuff, and I think it makes boring things look awesome (eg. NY street signs, my sketchbook). People tend to underestimate the versatility and awesomeness of stickers. If you make a thousand of a sticker specifically for packaging, it’ll make your mailer or shipping box unique with barely any work. Plus getting a thousand stickers made is way cheaper than paying for a thousand pieces of custom packaging. Here’s one concept that I had thought of in the past that I didn’t end up using, but I thought it was a pretty cool idea. I was going to design a clear vinyl sticker to look like a wax seal, and stick it on the packaging as if it were mad official or something. I don’t know, maybe that’s a shitty example, but if you come up with a clever idea, use it! Or you can make a logo sticker, and stick that on your packaging, and still use it as a sticker to sell/giveaway as well.

The other thing that I think makes packaging way nicer is polybags. I don’t know why, but when a shirt comes in a sealed bag, it feels way more legit to me. I like seeing the t-shirt folded nicely inside, and opening the bag as if no one has touched it before. They are insanely cheap, and every person with a clothing business should know how to fold a shirt nicely, so it’s definitely an easy investment to make. Plus, it adds an added layer of protection for shipping.

Polymailers come in all sorts of different colors as well. There’s nothing wrong with receiving a white polymailer package in the mail, but paying a couple cents more per mailer and you could get a black, gold, silver colored mailer. It’s not anything too special, but it makes your package just a little bit more exciting to get in the mail. I love the feeling of knowing what the package is even before looking at the address; it makes opening it that much more fun.

Hang tags also add to the professionalism of your package, but in my opinion, are not necessary at all. Unless you’re trying to do retail, having a hang tag won’t really make a difference to me. However, sometimes when I get really custom hang tags, the brand usually leaves some sort of lasting impression on me. Some people use die-cut stickers as hang tags, which I think is pretty cool novel idea. Some shirts I’ve bought even come with hang tags that double as key chains, which is something I would definitely keep if it looks cool. Just one thing to keep in mind, if you’re going to use a tagging gun, be careful. I’ve gotten complaints about the tags leaving small holes, so I prefer not to use them anymore.

An example of an awesome hang tag via: Jordan Metcalf

Those are my tips. If you have the extra money to go crazy on packaging, then go for it. Just consider that your hard work and money may end up in someone’s trash because most people just don’t keep packaging lying around their houses. It definitely does make receiving a package in the mail feel special, but don’t add a couple bucks to your price to justify the packaging cost.

Post from: How to start a Clothing Company

Custom packaging that won’t break the bank

This is probably a topic that most, if not all, indie brands think about. I know most of you reading this and interested in starting a clothing brand have considered ways to spend less money while still looking professional. Unless you have some sort of substantial backing, chances are that you’re going to try to achieve that professional look by pinching every penny.

Being a well trained designer as well as the business owner cuts down a lot of cost, because you don’t have to rely on another person to do all the miscellaneous design work. Everything from stickers to business cards to hangtags needs to have a prepped design file. Those files are not necessarily difficult to design, but hiring someone to do simple tasks is not very cost efficient. Even if you don’t have the skills to create every t-shirt design yourself, knowing how to use the tools so that you can prep files and design simple things like business cards and flyers is really cost effective. But obviously, if you’re not the hottest designer, don’t pretend that you are. You’re going to end up spending a lot of time on some shitty designs just because it’ll save you money. The product always comes first, so if you’re not satisfied with your design skills, then don’t use them for professional products. Most of your money should be going into the products anyway, so don’t try to save money by hiring a cheaper, less experienced designer or designing it yourself, because you usually get what you pay for.

The same goes with silk screening your designs by yourself. I mentioned this in a previous article, but if you’re not a professional printer, you should leave the printing to the professionals. Sure it cuts down a lot of costs to have your own set up, but make sure you can get the consistency and quality with your prints that you’re looking for. It can also be dangerous if you don’t have the proper ventilation and facilities. Discharge inks, especially, should be used in a well ventilated space, as it creates harmful vapors and it can probably take years off your life if your set up is in your small apartment.

Another tip for creating a professional look in your e-commerce store is to have a more than one color option for your products. It usually doesn’t cost extra to print one design on multiple different colored shirts. Customers like to have options, so if your design looks good on another color as well, don’t limit yourself. However, a common mistake I’ve seen with smaller brands is that they over do the color options. I’ve seen brands release “10 new shirts” but it’s more like two designs with 5 colorways each. I don’t want to be going through your store, and see five shirts of the same design. Another mistake that smaller brands make in an effort to save money, is print a design that is intended for one certain colored shirt, but they print it on many different colors. For instance, if a design is a black print on white and has shading, it’ll look inverted and terrible if you print the same design as white on black.

You should also consider the affordable embellishments that make your brand just a little bit sweeter. Include business cards and stickers with your orders as a little bonus to the customers. Business cards, especially, are incredibly cheap to produce, and it’ll be worth the extra bit of money. I’ve also seen people use business cards as hangtags, which also adds to the professionalism. Folding your shirts nicely and placing it in a polybag, is probably one of the cheapest things you can do to add to your brand’s professionalism. When I receive a shirt in a polybag, it definitely feels much more substantial than just receiving the shirt in a mailer. Just consider what kind of embellishments are usually on a retail item. If your product can grab the attention from a guy in a store, that’s probably the kind of attention to detail you want to consider. Your hopes are probably to get your products eventually into some stores, so start branding your products to be high quality and professional, and people will remember you.

People also seem to respond well to embroidered labels. I think I’m getting a little bored of them now, because everyone seems to be doing it, but I can’t deny that it does make your brand a little more expensive looking without too much overhead cost. If you have any sewing skills, you can even sew the label on yourself which cuts down a lot of the cost. Like the colorways deal, just don’t over do it. I’ve seen some brands with some big-ass obnoxious labels on the bottom hem of their shirts, and it looked like a joke. I think the small and subtle ones are classy and look pretty fresh. A lot of people debate between getting the size tag printed inside the collar and getting an embroidered label sewn in. Even though the printed size tags are often more comfortable, I think embroidered labels just look more professional, so I usually opt for that option.

Again, as discussed in a earlier post, professional and consistent photography is something that is crucial to branding, and often overlooked. Make sure you’re not using your cheap point and shoot, and use a camera with a decent sensor and manual settings, and make sure the lighting is even and adequate. You can even rent a nice camera if necessary. One thing I would usually recommend is to not use mocked up images on your product pages. Sure it looks more consistent, but if someone is trying to buy your product, don’t try to deceive them with a photoshopped version of your t-shirt. It not only cheapens your brand, but it can also look different from the actual product, which will definitely generate some complaints. If you do choose to use mock-ups for your product shots, make sure that the size of the print and the print colors are extremely accurate and true to the actual shirt. If mock-ups are done correctly, it can turn out good, but more times than not, I find that it looks unprofessional.

There’s probably a lot more I can talk about, because I definitely had a tight budget when I first started. I’ll probably continue this series in a part two at a later date. Hopefully some of these suggestions have gotten you thinking a little bit. If you have any of your own tips for getting a professional look on a tight budget, leave a comment below. I’ll be sure to include it in the part two, and I’ll obviously give you credit with a link to your site; I’ll add my little bit of input as well.

Post from: How to start a Clothing Company

How to achieve a professional look on a tight budget

This article was originally written by Ray Masaki of Lowdtown (http://www.twitter.com/lowdtown) and posted on his blog: http://www.lowdtown.com/blog

This topic was suggested by my buddy and fellow New Yorker, Bryan of Doctor Hazmat, who I incidentally met after first talking to him via twitter. It’s certainly an interesting question, but unfortunately I probably hold a heavy lean towards the idea that technology has greatly helped the t-shirt community. But to be fair, I’ll try to look at both sides of the table.

I suppose when I first started looking into making t-shirts in high school (around ’06 or ’07), there weren’t as many online communities as there are now. I remember trying to find a printer for the first time through the local white pages. It wasn’t that there weren’t services online yet, I was just naive, so I only thought that crappy printing services like Cafepress and Spreadshirt existed. Of course, I was also very inexperienced at that time, so I didn’t realize that there were resources like t-shirtforums and it might have been a little bit before emptees started up.

However, as I learned more about design, and t-shirt design in particular, I became more and more involved in the online design communities, and religiously followed t-shirt design blogs. Technology, and the internet especially, make it easier than ever to market yourself. I can’t even imagine not having the internet as a resource, because I wouldn’t know where to start. I suppose I would try to find a local printer and try to get a better understanding of the processes or get an internship at a clothing brand, but with the computer, all of those resources are literally at your fingertips. With the addition of social media sites like facebook and twitter, as well as running blogs, it’s also easier than ever to market yourself.

To be honest, a way that technology has hurt the t-shirt community is that it almost made it too easy for people to make clothing brands. Any dumbass kid with a pirated version of Photoshop thinks that they can make a t-shirt and post it online nowadays. I wish it were a little bit harder, so that it would weed out all the shitty brands. But obviously, I stood in the position of a shitty inexperienced brand at one point, so I probably wouldn’t have been able to get off my feet without the help of online resources.

Another thing that I’ve been noticing lately is the homogenization of a lot of indie t-shirt blogs. I’m not saying that it’s necessarily a problem, but it seems like a lot of the t-shirt blogs cover any and everything about t-shirts. I wish there was a bit more of a filter rather than posting every new t-shirt that’s released. So now, even if you do get coverage on a popular t-shirt blog, not only will it be at the bottom of the site by the end of the day, but also people just don’t care as much about one specific release, if there are hundreds of new t-shirts being posted daily. For that reason, I rarely ever look at t-shirt blogs anymore, and get inspiration from other sources. Just looking at art and fashion in general is a far better resource than seeing what Clothing Brand X just released.

That’s why I find that the older brands like Stussy, Supreme, Staple, 10.Deep, LRG etc. are so amazing. They had to go through the straight up hustle of selling from their car’s trunk or selling at shows and just spreading their name by word of mouth. They didn’t have mintees to post their latest launch on, or youtube to post their hype videos. It’s like when I think about how shitty rap and hip-hop has gotten. I feel like technology has made people lazier. With the internet, it’s possible for jokes like Soulja Boy to get popular, because they didn’t have to go through the hustle of impressing people at open mics and really honing their skills. Obviously it’s not easy to make a name for yourself or your brand regardless of what you do, but technology has certainly made it easier and has made people definitely more lazy… myself included. Gotta step my game up!

Post from: How to start a Clothing Company

How has technology helped and hurt the t-shirt community?

This article was originally written by Ray Masaki of Lowdtown (http://www.twitter.com/lowdtown) and posted on his blog: http://www.lowdtown.com/blog/

This is somewhat related to my previous post of knowing when to not use a design for your line. I think an extremely important distinction is knowing when something is an awesome piece of artwork, and when something is an awesome t-shirt design. There are many designs that overlap the two areas, but there are others that absolutely do not; not all rectangles are squares. A graphic t-shirt is a form of expression and wearable art, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that if a piece of artwork looks great on paper or the computer, it’ll look equally as good on a t-shirt.

First thing is to consider the audience. Typically, I try to design for myself, so when I’m creating a collection. I have to honestly evaluate if someone like me would wear the t-shirt out in public. We all fall in love with our own labels, so it’s easy to say that you would wear your own stuff out of pride, but it’s important to be able to admit if you wouldn’t actually want to wear something. Again, if it’s something you’re not satisfied with, how can you sell it to your customers? Think about your target audience, and what kind of clothes they are into. Are they into big ass bold prints, or are they into minimal designs? Research is key! Look at other successful brands that inspire you, and see what they are doing correctly. I’m not saying that you should copy another brand, but using another successful brand as a point of comparison and reference is not a bad thing.

Another thing I often consider is the composition of a t-shirt. Not composition as in, what is the t-shirt made of, but imagine the t-shirt as a canvas and consider the composition of an image. As a designer or art director, you have to think about the placement and negative space that the design creates. A couple years ago, people were into oversized prints that nearly covered the entire shirt, but is that the case anymore? Print out the design on a piece of paper at its full-size and tape it on to a t-shirt as a mock-up. How does it look and fit? How does it fall on the shirt?

Considering where design elements compositionally fall on a t-shirt is important as well. Say you have a t-shirt design with a bicycle on it. You probably wouldn’t want the two wheels to accentuate the nipples of whoever is wearing it. Additionally, I find it awkward when prints are placed too low, and accentuate the stomach and torso of the person wearing it, rather than the chest. Obviously, if that’s your intention, then go for it, but generally, most people like having t-shirt designs on the upper portion of the shirt rather than the lower portion.

Also think about the scalability of the design. Unless you’re making multiple screens for multiple sizes, most brands will be creating one screen regardless of the size of the shirt. Ideally, you want the design to look just as good as it does on a small shirt as it does on an extra large. I find that a lot of people design to fit on a medium shirt, because that’s relatively neutral, but sometimes that makes the design look too big and bleed off the edges on a size small and the design looks too small on an extra large. Additionally, if you’re considering alternative placements of the design, rather than just a chest print, think of how the negative space is activated. If the design is placed on the lower portion of the shirt, it sends a different message. If you’re going to place something in the corner of a shirt, make sure it’s intentional, and not just to be different.

I think the best thing to do is get a lot of different opinions on your stuff from people that can be honest with you. Try to be as objective as you can when you look at your own brand, and don’t be offended if someone gives you harsh criticism. Building a brand is all about evolving; don’t be close-minded. I think my best advice on the subject of choosing t-shirt designs to print would be to not fall in love with anything, and have an open mind about editing, or even getting rid of designs that don’t work.

Post from: How to start a Clothing Company

When is it art, and when is it art for a t-shirt?

This article was originally written by Ray Masaki of Lowdtown and posted on his blog: http://www.lowdtown.com/blog/

I’ve hinted in previous posts that I have lost a lot of money from deciding not to use designs. In fact, I hired a couple designers to work on a collaboration that is going unused. This brings me to the point of knowing when to not use a design.

One of the hardest things to do when you own an independent t-shirt business is waste money. However, in my opinion, one of the most valuable skills as a clothing business owner is having a perceptive eye. For example, say you paid a designer $250 for a t-shirt design for your new line. Turns out that it’s an awesome illustration, but it doesn’t fit the rest of your line aesthetically and conceptually. As a clothing brand owner, you have to be able to evaluate if printing the shirt would be worth it. I try to picture my brand as a collection of clothing that work with one another rather than individual pieces. In my opinion, it’s the cohesiveness that makes a brand more memorable. If you’re able to look at a t-shirt and know what brand it is, they’re doing something right. Also consider how much it would cost to put the shirt into production. My thoughts are that it’s better to lose the $250 than hurting the value of your brand by creating a collection you’re not completely satisfied with. You can always recover the money that you spent on the design with other sales, but it’s hard to fix a tainted image. Consider how many brands just start over with a new name and a new brand. It’s because it’s easier to create something entirely new than to fix a tainted brand, because the image associated with it is hard to change.

In a lot of the newer brands, I find that there is simply a lack of good concepts. Calling your brand Donut Kings, and having a line full of donut inspired designs, to me, is not a concept (I apologize if there actually is a donut-themed clothing brand, I was playing Dilla and it was the first thing that came to mind). There’s a lot of people who collectively hopped on the Johnny Cupcakes train, and thought that if they use the same formula of making a whatever-themed clothing brand, they could reach the same success. Wrong! Seriously, come up with an original concept that you can envision creating a unique style. It might have worked for JC because he was one of the firsts to do it, but now that there have been hundreds of the same idea, it’s becoming played out and I guarantee that it probably won’t work for you. You can polish a turd all you want, but in the end it’ll always be a turd.

I’ve seen really polished clothing brands, that have nice designs, a nice site, nice logo, etc. but what was bored me was the concept. I consider clothing to be another form of story telling; what kind of story are you trying to tell?  It’s hard to connect to a brand, when there is no solid ethos driving it. And quit all the benevolent bullshit. If you don’t truly believe in the cause you’re trying to help, don’t do it at all. People jump on that bandwagon, because they believe that people are more likely to pay if it’s for a good cause. Though that might be true, it’s wrong to take advantage of it to profit from it. The first thing that comes to mind is the mind-boggling amount of brands that do disaster relief shirts. The intentions of a lot of these brands seem vacuous, and for the wrong reasons of trying to make adjunctive sales. If you really care about it, and want to support something charitable, you truly have to live it. Don’t manipulate people by saying that it’s for a good cause, when you’re really pocketing the majority of the profits. Don’t take me wrong, donating to charities and trying to help people out is a fantastic thing, and I have a lot of respect for brands that do if correctly; I just don’t like the mindset of trying to make a quick buck off of manipulation tactics.

Hopefully this article has gotten some of your wheels turning. I am by no means trying to dissuade people from creating charitable brands, or creating themed brands. I just want people to really consider if his or her brand actually has an original and unique concept that is memorable and not another boring rehash. I also realize that I was being a little hypocritical in terms of the part about changing your image. The new Lowdtown looks nothing like my old Lowdtown stuff, but at the same time, I’m willing to take on that challenge, and hopefully people won’t respond badly to the change. Thanks for all the support so far, and good luck to everyone who is trying to do something good.

Note from Jon Kruse:

Ray is totally right. Even if you pay for a design, if you don’t think it’s going to sell well don’t print it. Printing costs are more then design costs. Sometimes you have to just chalk it up as a loss.

Post from: How to start a Clothing Company

Building A Concept – Knowing When To Not Use A Design

This article was originally written by Ray Masaki of Lowdtown and posted on his blog: http://www.lowdtown.com/blog/

A lot of you guys curious in starting a clothing brand have probably read my “How To Start A Clothing Brand” series on howtostartaclothingcompany.com

Those series of blog entries have really taken off since I first wrote them, but I feel like I can talk way more on the subject now than I could back then, and I feel like it’s probably a good time to revisit them. Perhaps some of the old articles still stands true, but I’m going to try to give a fresh perspective on it, because I’ve been working a bit more intimately in the industry and I think I’m a bit wiser on the subject.

I’m not going to break it down into the “amateur, indie, and professional” categories, because they aren’t that relevant anymore. If you’re thinking about starting a serious clothing brand that has the potential to succeed, it only needs to be broken down a single way.

Ok so here it goes… starting a brand costs a lot of money! Fuck what you think about being like Nigo and selling at the club, because that doesn’t happen anymore. Unless you have really famous friends or know a shit load of important people, you’re going to need money if you want to be serious. The fact of the matter is that the indie t-shirt scene is incredibly saturated, more than you would even believe. Trust me, unless you do something really really special no one is going to give two shits about your “awesome” label. There are labels popping up every single day saying that they’re the next big thing, but unless you have the means to impress, no one is going to care.

Ok, so now that that’s out of the way, let’s try to think rationally about how much money you’re going to need. If you don’t have enough money to start a brick and mortar store, the most important thing you need is a website. Unless you’re a rockstar web designer yourself, getting a custom e-commerce site made costs a lot of money. Unlike blogs and other sites, it is essential for an e-commerce site to have excellent UX/UI because it has to be as easy as possible for someone to choose and buy your product. The site has to showcase your products well. If you’re selling something, you want the product to be the highlight, and not be distracted by the intense illustration in the background. The aesthetic of the website has to look professional and complement your brand. If I see a dope t-shirt, but it’s paired with a shitty website, I’m going to assume that the shirt’s probably bad quality too, regardless of the design. With a crazy nice website, you can even charge a premium for the same t-shirt, because people will think that the quality must be superior to Clothing Brand X with the shitty website.

However, this obviously does not come cheap. If you’re looking into getting a top of the line site that shows everyone else that you’re serious, you’re looking at a couple thousand. But if you’re willing to put down that amount and get the proper professional treatment, I guarantee you that you’re already better than 90% of the new brands out there, because it shows that you care. Nothing’s worse than a cookie-cutter default BigCartel or Storenvy site, because you’re automatically dropping yourself into a sea of the thousands of other mediocre brands. I’m not saying that BC and SE sites are always bad, I’m just commenting on the fact that if it’s not completely customized, you’re going to automatically be relegated into a list with all the other shitty brands.

The next thing that comes to mind, even before the actual products is the photography. I can’t believe how many brands overlook such an essential part of branding for your company. How are you going to create the sickest shirt of all time, and take a fucking cellphone picture of it? That’s just stupid! Instead, get your talented photographer friend, or hire a professional to take good quality photos of your products. Also, consistency is key. I cringe when I check out the shop page from a t-shirt website, and I see different proportions and sizes of the product photos. If you’re going to take a photo of your product one way, keep it that way, and if you’re going to switch it up, you better change it for all of them.

And finally, you’re obviously going to be dropping a dime on your products. Being a designer with an ego, I realize one of the hardest things to admit is when you’re not good at designing something. I know I’m not the best illustrator in the world, and it’s important to be able to hand over your design concept to a more suitable artist. Pay a professional designer to do a design that you know you couldn’t do yourself, because if you try to do it yourself, you’re going to end up with a half-assed design. Obviously you can art direct, and make it perfect, but if you’re not the best designer, acknowledge that and learn to step away from the reigns from time to time. Be willing to pay the premium when it comes to professional designers, because that’s what they are and do. If you hire Cheap Artist X from Myspace to design your shirt for $50, you’re going to get exactly what you paid for, a $50 design that looks like shit.

Another important lesson is to learn how to test the waters. Even if you think you’ve produced the most solid line on the planet, you don’t actually know that until you see the results. Instead of making 100 pieces of each design, try getting the minimum quantity, and once you’re selling them, see what’s actually popular and what’s not. I’ve learned this the hard way from having not enough of one design to having too many of another and not being able to sell out of them for a year.

Quality is important, which shouldn’t even have to be said. If you’re not making a quality product, why would you sell something that you’re not satisfied with? Spend money on quality, and don’t cut corners. If you’ve got your own printing set-up, and you can print just as good as the professionals, congrats to you. But if you’re not at that level, don’t pretend that you are; leave it to the professionals.

If you want your brand to be taken seriously, every bit of branding matters. Make professional stickers, hangtags, polybags, mailers, etc. You need to spend money to make money. It’s all about looking at your brand objectively. We all fall in love with our own products, but can you look at your own brand from the eye of the consumer? What looks unprofessional and poorly done, what could be improved on? Those are questions you have to ask yourself before presenting something as a finished product.

If you’ve managed to follow everything on this list, I’m hoping that you’re in the top 5% of new indie clothing brands out there. Summarizing everything we just looked at, I hope you understand the weight of starting a serious clothing brand. We’re talking about: $1500+ for a professional website; $1000+ for professional branding and logo design; several hundred for photography; $1000+ for designs; however much you’re spending on your products; and money for mailers and stickers. In total, I’d look to have at least five grand, if you want some decent capital to start with. Obviously these are just my thoughts on the subject, and there have been brands that have cut corners and succeeded, but not everyone would be able to do that. If you’re starting up your brand as just a hobby and for shits and giggles, that’s fine by me, but if you’re seriously saying that you’re going to be the “next big thing,” you better be backing your words up with the quality. Good luck!

This article was originally posted by Ray at Lowdtown

Note from Jon Kruse:

Ray knows his shit and I agree with everything except the money it takes. You don’t want to cut corners but at the same time running a successful clothing company isn’t just about having an awesome site, great designs, and your final product. It’s a business and with any new business you need to learn how to run it and manage it. If you gave me 5 grand when I started I probably would have foolishly spent money on things that weren’t necessary. No matter how much money you gave me I still wouldn’t know how to sell shirts, you just have to learn. I have a good article called Fail Fast, which I would suggest any people new to the t-shirt world to read.

If you are a veteran though, by all means go all out. You know how to do it.

Post from: How to start a Clothing Company

Costs Of Starting A Clothing Brand (Revisited)

Ray from Lowdtown wrote another good article about setting up your artwork for screen printing. I put in two comments below.

What I’m real confused about is the printing method. I’m just about to have a real small launch and I don’t do ANY designs. I’ve hired an artist to do my designs, but if I’m not mistaken he has to do them a certain way for it to be able to be printed. So my first question is, What exactly are the guidelines I need to give to my artist.

My second question is once I get the artwork, What are the steps I have to take with my printer for setting up artwork for screen printing? Do I have to buy the brand of shirts I want myself and tell them the colors to print the shirts on? And should I go with a local printer or have it done online?

Thanks Ray for the info,
Jenny K. The Up-and-Comer : )

Setting up artwork for screen printing: File Type

Hey, glad you like my brand. Here is my advice; it probably varies from printer to printer, but from the 3-4 printers I’ve worked with in the past, this is the method I’ve used that usually works.

First of all, it depends if you’re working in Photoshop (raster) or Illustrator (vector). Vector’s are scalable to any size, so in the case of vector images, all you really have to do is specify the color and the size of the print on the shirt. I’ve learned that it’s always a good idea to show a mock-up image of a t-shirt so that the printer has a pretty good idea of how large the print should be.

In the case that it’s a raster image (ie. done in Photoshop), you would need to have the file of at least the size of your print (ie. 16″ x 24″ or whatever) and have it at 300dpi. The dpi is very important because if you don’t have it at 300, it’ll most likely come out blurry. 300dpi is usually for print and 72dpi is usually for web, so if you receive a file at 72dpi, tell your artist that it’s wrong!

Setting up artwork for screen printing: Preparing the file for Print

If you have an experienced artist, he or she should probably separate the colors for you, but if it’s not separated, your printer should be able to handle it. In terms of colors, the best way to get the most accurate colors is by using a pantone color book. A pantone color book is a special book that most, if not all printers use that have the same exact color swatches. That way, even if the design’s colors may look different from monitor to monitor, if you have it properly labelled with the pantone number, there should be no mess ups.

Note from Jon Kruse:

Many printers don’t want the files separated. Good printers will know the best way to separate the files and many designers don’t have the training to do this. Contact your printer! I would suggest Storenvy, tell em Jon Kruse sent you and they’ll hook you up.

It also varies from printer to printer if you need to buy the blank shirts or not, but I personally like buying the shirts myself. That way, you can buy samples to see which blank is the best for your brand. Also, some printers tend to mark up the price of the blank to get a cut of profit off of that, so you should be careful about that.

Local versus outsourcing is always a debate as well. I currently work with a local printer and I love it, because I get to see samples and stuff in person, and it cuts out the shipping cost as well. However, I’m pretty fortunate that I have a great printer nearby, but there may not be good local printers in your area. In the case of that, outsourcing to well accredited places would be ideal.

Note from Jon Kruse:

From my experience a lot of local printers are just that, local printers. They print shirts for schools and churchs but when it comes to doing a 9 color print on black and making it super soft it would be fairly difficult to find a local printer that can do this. I haven’t had very many problems getting my shirts printed in another state. I try and get all my designers to send in pantones but even when an artist doesn’t do this I have enough faith in my printer that they will chose colors that go with the design.

Hope that helps, thanks for your questions.

Post from: How to start a Clothing Company

how to set up artwork for screen printing

My Name is Ray, I am currently a college design student at Parsons School of Design in New York City. I run, designs, and own Lowdtown Friends & Freaks, and writes articles for the Lowdtown Blog.

Intro – The Marketing Misconception:

So probably the greatest misconception when it comes to marketing is that advertising makes a brand successful. That statement is completely FALSE! It’s not the advertising that makes a brand famous; it’s the products and branding. Of course, you may have heard a few cases where people got lucky because someone saw Justin Timberlake wearing their shirt, but more times than not, advertising is used for different means. Advertising and marketing a brand is what maintains a brand’s success, it never creates it. Advertising and marketing should be used to supplement your brand. So before reading this article, remove that from your head. Without a great product you’ll never be truly successful regardless of your marketing.

I’m assuming that most of you indie brands out there don’t have your own brick and mortar shop, so I’m mostly going to be covering online advertising.

Online Advertising Techniques

I think a good practice in terms of web branding is to have your own domain and website. So even if you have a bigcartel which would probably be something like i.e. lowdtown.bigcartel.com; you should still have a main site called i.e. www.lowdtown.com for the sake of marketing. Hosting and domain names are so cheap nowadays, that it’s stupid not to have a website. And even if you don’t plan to get a website just yet, you should at least buy the domain name and park it. That way, no one can steal your perfect little domain name. I think GoDaddy has deals for like $10.00/year (and they have some damn good advertising).

Your website is going to be your main engine for marketing, so you have to consider many things.

The most important aspect is probably it’s SEO ranking. SEO, which stands for Search Engine Optimization, is a whole science on its own but here are a few tips to help get you started.

Good SEO means to be easily searchable through sites like Google and Yahoo and such, so if you have a high pagerank, you will be more likely to be listed favorably, so when someone searches for “graphic t-shirts shop” or something like that, it is more that someone will click on your store’s link.

SEO tips:

1. Have descriptive titles.
a. Often times sites like Google will index your website based on your websites title. So if someone is searching for Lowdtown, my website lowdtown.com is much more likely to show up if the title is “Lowdtown Friends & Freaks Shop” rather than something vague like “Homepage.”

2. Make your site easily crawlable (aka Have a clear navigation)
a. So basically what all these search websites do is use these little virtual robots that go through all the websites over the net and crawl through all your pages. If your navigation is clear and goes where they need to go, you won’t really have a problem.
b. One thing to note is that the robots cannot crawl through flash-based navigations (yet?), so try to steer clear of that. If your pages cannot be crawled, your pages will not be indexed.

3. Have a lot of updating content.
a. The search engine robots will keep returning to your website if you have a lot of updated content. That’s why blogs are so fantastic. If you have a lot of well-written relevant content, the search engines will love you. Ultimately, search engine’s really just want to display good content, so don’t worry too much about keywords and update your site with good relavant content.
b. One thing to note about keywords is not to overload your content with keywords. Don’t be stupid with sentences like: “Hi, I own Lowdtown clothing, and I love clothing, and clothing, is awesome clothing.” Search engine robots know when you’re trying to cheat the system; they’re smarter than that! (Shit, I shouldn’t have done that, haha.)

4. Have good links.
a. So when it comes to your search engine ranking, having good links to your site are really important. For example, if my blog was linked by a very popular and important t-shirt website, my page rank would go up.
b. Conversely, if I were linked by twenty of my friends’ blogs, my page rank wouldn’t really be affected. Unless of course, one of my good buddies was Pharell and he linked me to his Billionaire Boys Club blog, haha.

5. Don’t freak out over metadata.
a. There’s been some debate over this, but most professionals say that your meta keywords and meta descriptions don’t really affect too much in terms of page rank.
b. It never hurts to add them just in case though. Some professionals also say that other search engines, with the exception of Google, do use the keywords, so you might bring in traffic from other search engines that you’ve never even heard of!

So after you’ve optimized your website, don’t forget to actually submit your websites to the actual search engines. There are plenty of free services out there, but I don’t really want to name names. Just look up “free search engine submission” on Google or something. Just keep in mind that a lot of these search engine submissions will send you a lot of spam and stuff, so be wary of that.

More tips:

- Another good tip is to submit your website to t-shirt directories. I haven’t really seen a major flow of traffic from any of these sites, but it’s still a good idea to do so. Sites like T-shirt Countdown has shown pretty good traffic though. Also, PleaseDressMe is getting quite the following and it may be worth your time to submit your t-shirts.

- This won’t necessarily increase your visitors, but an extremely good practice is to sign up with Google Analytics and track your visitors. Google Analytics is a really powerful tool, and you can see where your visitors came from, what pages they viewed, and even how long they stay on the site. Google Analytics will give you a good idea of how strong or weak your pages are.

- Another great tool from Google is Google Webmaster Tools. If you sign up for this (free) tool you can track what people are searching to get to your site. For example, I learned that in February 2009, I was position 87 on Google for the keywords “shat bricks”. Haha, sweet! I’m finally reaching the “shat bricks” community!

- Try to upload and consistently update your sitemap. The sitemaps are basically a clue to the search engines that you’ve updated your website, so if you have constantly updating sitemaps, more pages will be indexed. Lucky for this blog, which runs on WordPress, there’s a handy little plug-in that automatically updates its XML sitemap.

- To try to get relative visitors to your website, try to submit to relevant forums. For example, if you have a punk clothing company, maybe go on punk music forums. But don’t rub your clothing company in their faces, just be subtle, maybe put it in your forum signature or something.

- On the same note, if there’s some blogs you like try contacting them and see if they can review you. You might strike a better audience when you contact a different kind of blog, not just t-shirt blogs. Going back to the same example, if you follow a popular punk rock blog, and get featured on it, you might receive better exposure and returns than you would on the t-shirt blogs that are already filled with tons of other t-shirt designs.

- However, if you do want to get reviewed by a blog, the best way besides asking them nicely is usually to actually send them your product. People are a lot more generous when you’re generous to them.

Some other ways to market your brand:

I have never personally worked with any print or television media, but it might be something that interests you. Note that it is far more expensive than most web-based advertising, so if you’re planning on these mediums, you have to have the money to do so.

- If you live in a friendly neighborhood, a fun idea for some attention may be to contact the local newspaper to try to get an article about your brand. I mean, people have a lot of pride in their community, so it might be exciting to hear that little Ray Masaki is starting a clothing company with some potential. The plus side is that it’s free and there’s no harm in trying. If you don’t get the article, big deal, it’s not like you lost anything.

- More risky ventures include: television ads, magazine ads, billboards, etc. These are most likely not very appropriate for little indie brands like you and me, but hey, if you have the money it may be worth it. Unfortunately, I have no experience whatsoever in these fields, so I have no idea what kind of returns you get for these kind of advertisements. If you want to take the plunge, just do your research. The unfortunate thing about print and television advertisements is that you can’t really track where your visitors are coming from unlike web advertisements. However, if you see a sudden peak in your visitors after you started your print campaign, you can infer that it was the advertisement.

Well I think that’s pretty much it for today, I hope that helped! I am certainly no master of SEO or marketing, but this should at least get you on your way. The thing is, there are so many great books out there that teach you how to properly brand and market your company, so go to your local library or something. Seriously, I went through a binge of books on internet marketing a week before the launch. It really gets quite addicting, and it’s always a good thing to learn things on your own!

Just a quick note; this may or may not be the last Starting A Clothing Company article. If you want more, leave a comment and tell me what you want me to cover. I think I covered a pretty good breadth, so I wouldn’t mind ending with this one. Let me know!

Other news:

On a completely irrelevant note, I just wanted to mention that I became a television star yesterday! Talk about TV advertising, I became a sensation yesterday. I went to the taping of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, and I was on there for a total of TWO SECONDS. Woo! And I was wearing my shirt too, yes!

Check out the pics below, I’m so proud. Haha, I got to high five Jimmy Fallon and I shook Justin Timberlake’s hand! If I were a girl I would’ve fainted! Haha, have a good one guys!

*Sorry for the crappy screenshots off of Hulu

Look Back:

Strange Look of Confusion:

Post High Five with Jimmy Fallon:

Post from: How to start a Clothing Company

How to advertise and market your clothing line

My Name is Ray, I am currently a college design student at Parsons School of Design in New York City. I run, designs, and own Lowdtown Friends & Freaks, and writes articles for the Lowdtown Blog.

Man, this “Starting a Clothing Company” series is really picking up. Thanks for all the support guys! Well as promised, here’s part three.

Today I’m going to be covering the branding of a launch. I know everyone has their own theories, but here are just my two cents.

So why is the launch so important?

Well, that really shouldn’t be a question, because EVERYONE knows that your launch is maybe the single most important release for your clothing company. So let’s cover what we’ve learned so far… You now understand how much money you’ll need to run and start your company, and you now have a kickass website. So what’s next? You need to have some badass products for your release. Of course, this whole preparation would take several weeks or maybe months, so let’s pretend that the process has been sped up, and you’ve already done said things.

Normally, you would have a pretty good understanding of the branding of your company. If you haven’t read my article on branding and coming up with the perfect name (link), I recommend you do.

So here are a few things you should already know about your company before thinking about the launch:

1. What is the name of your brand?

- Simple enough, a name is very important to a brand, obviously. Coming up with the perfect name takes a lot of thought and time. Check out the article I linked to above to help you get started.

2. What type of clothing company are you?

- Are you a streetwear brand? Are you a brand that focuses on simplicity? Do you sell products with zombies and gore on them? Either way, you have to have a clear idea of what category of people you’re catering to. Honestly, it’s difficult to start a brand that has too many focuses.

3. What is your target demographic?

- It’s kind of hard to have an exact idea, but you should at least have a certain audience in mind. For example, my target demographic is quite broad (around ages 15-30, mostly male), but the point is that you have an idea of what kind of people would wear your clothes. If you think that anyone can wear you’re clothes, you’re probably wrong. Try imagining Grandma Josephine wearing your punky-graphic shirt, and you probably would think twice.

4. What is your price range?

- It’s a good idea to know what the price ranges of your t-shirts are. If you want to be a “high-end” brand, you have to price your shirts accordingly. If you want to be a very exclusive brand, and want to have high prices, it’s a little bit more of a dilemma. With exclusive brands, you want to have a following before you have high prices. People probably won’t buy your $70 shirts unless they’ve been following you from day one, so keep that in mind. I want to be kind of exclusive with my brand, but I understand that I won’t get a following unless it’s more affordable at first.

So now that you have those questions answered, let’s get into the nitty gritty. I realize that I didn’t really answer the first question, so let me ask it again?

Why is the launch so important?

Well, to put it bluntly, the launch is pretty much your single most important release of products. If you make a good impression on people with your awesome products, people will become loyal to your brand, and you’ll have repeat customers. Also, if your launch is weak, people will get a weak impression about your brand. So basically, unless you have a strong launch, people will not immediately feel attached to your brand. Think of your launch as your chance to make your first impression on the new super hot girl (or guy) in high school. Unless you make that great first impression, you might ruin your chances of getting to know her in the future.

So now let’s get into what you want in a perfect launch.

Products at Price-ranges:

The first subject we will cover are obviously and most importantly the products.

I’m probably not the best example of “the perfect launch”, but a great launch consists of many products at many price points. Ideally, you want to make sales no matter what it is. The idea is to make customers, not so much to make money. The money can come later, but right now you want a fanbase and a following. So I’ll set a few examples; so here you are with your brand spanking new t-shirt brand, but it’s not a good idea to just have t-shirts. You want to be a brand with variety and diversity in your product range because you plan to expand in the future. So you have 3 groups of products at different price price points.

1. Badges, Stickers: this is for the people who don’t have too much money, but still want to buy something.

2. Posters: this is for people who don’t have quite enough money for shirts, but still want to buy something memorable.

3. T-shirts: this is the main product you want to move.

So as you can see, there’s sort of a hierarchy of products. The badges and stickers are for anyone with the least bit of money. Posters (or whatever comes midrange) are for the people in between. T-shirts are for the serious spenders who came to your website with a purchase in mind. And of course, there should and can be a group with a higher price range for maybe hoodies or something. One thing that I think is clever if you don’t have the extra dough to buy a high price range item is to set up bundles. For example, you can sell two shirts for a discount (save $5 if you buy two shirts), that way you make it more enticing to buy more than one product. It’s just food for thought, folks.

Is timing important?

There’s a little bit of debate about this part, but is timing of your launch important? Some people think no, other people think yes, I’m kind of on the fence about this sort of thing. I guess, if you get lucky and you’re around a holiday season (mainly Christmas), you can sell more shirts at your launch than you normally would, but I really don’t think it matters. What does matter, however, is how often you release your shirts.

There’s pretty much two ways you can release new products.

1. You can release new product(s) every set amount of time. For example, you could release something new once a month, which is what I’m planning to do. And for bigger companies like Threadless, they have the funding to release new products every week. The benefit of this is that people will know when new products are coming out, and this will quickly create repeat customers. However, this is also a double-edged sword, because unless you’re very good at managing your time, you can lose your customers’ trust. So if you end up releasing a week late for your monthly release, you might end up hurting your own brand.

2. The other way you can release products is by season. This is the more typical and traditional approach. This way, you can release a whole bunch of products at one time. Ultimately this is also a great way because you can build a lot of hype for your new releases. However, the disadvantage to this way is that you have to live up to the expectation. If you build up a lot of hype and you only release one mediocre shirt, I’m sure your fans wouldn’t be that thrilled. But this way is also much more flexible with time, so you don’t have the time restraints like the first way. You can pretty much release new things as long as you let people know. It’s also a good idea to keep the seasons in mind, since you only have a set amount of releases per year, you should have products that maybe relate to the season. For example, if you’re releasing towards Christmas, you can maybe add a holiday-themed shirt into the mix.

Your theme

So at this point, I’m assuming you’ve already thought about the products you’re going to release for your launch. If you’ve thought-through your branding, make sure that your launch has a cohesive theme. For example, my theme is Lowdtown, a quirky and fun town where all these creatures live. For my launch tees, I decided that I wanted to have two shirts (Chuck the Rock and Townster) that were based on the theme, and one shirt that was more for branding (LTFF Logo Tee). Make sure that people understand your theme from the get-go. I can’t stress this enough, but this is your chance to make a good first impression on your customers, so make sure your launch really represents your company.

Conclusion

So that’s pretty much my thoughts on making a good launch. Just remember that you want to make a good impression. Don’t care too much about making money; because the important thing is that you want customers. If people email you telling you about how much they like your brand, be sure to respond with nice, thoughtful emails. Don’t sound like a robot, at this point, it’s important to create a relationship with your customers. You can get more business-minded in the future, but for now think about making a good impression. Good luck!

Post from: How to start a Clothing Company

How to launch your clothing line