Sometimes when you are having a mental block when trying to come up with your next t-shirt design you can help yourself by choosing a niche. Focus on a niche that seems to be popular and start brainstorming ideas. Design a shirt, no matter how stupid it is or how much you hate it, just design one. This will get the creative juices flowing and you may design two or three more that are equally as bad, but perhaps that fourth one will be a gem! Sometimes we can think too much about a design. Just start doodling around, fooling around with your software program you use, or even sketching on paper. Designers block is a serious problem, but you can defeat it.
So how do you find a niche? Just think about things popular in the news today, or even things that never go out of style, like pets. You could come up with a niche focused on pets. Perhaps some clever pet drawings or captions could bring you an entire new client base. Maybe a few political designs based on current events in that arena could spark your creativity. There certainly isn't a lack of niche's to be covered and there are always customers looking for your new shirt. All you need sometimes is a little inspiration to know how to make a shirt that sells. Happy Designing!
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Friday, June 3, 2011
Designing A Seller
So you brought those few good ideas to the table with you when you started your t-shirt company and they aren't exactly flying off the website, right? It's very common for a newcomer to put up a few clever or cool designs and just expect that everyone wants one or two, but unfortunately that isn't always the case. I got lucky fairly early in my stores life cycle and made a quick sale. I thought I was on a gravy train with biscuit wheels at that point, but it's amazing how quickly that train can derail. How many times a day do you go to your website to see if you made a sale? It's almost like trying to watch a pot of water boil, isn't it?
Don't let a lack of sales up front hurt your enthusiasm, or a rush of sales make you overly confident. The best thing you can do is to stop watching the pot of water and start filling up more pots! Yes, go back to designing! The more designs you can put up that are top quality the more success you will have. So what makes a design top quality? Well, in the end the customer is the ultimate judge of that. If a design sells then it is at least a decent shirt. I'm sure you are not the kind that settles for decent, however, so it's time to take your designs to another level.
How do you do that? Ask the internet of course! You have a great resource available to you online. Look at other shops online that are similar in theme or style to your own and see how they have their layouts. If you find the site by clicking on the first page of Google search then they are most assuredly getting great traffic and making sales. Study the way they have their designs created and how professional they look. Compare them with your own and see where your designs could use some improvement.
If you are using CafePress for your print on demand company I recommend putting good descriptions with each design. Simply labeling a t-shirt "dog t-shirt" isn't going to turn up a ton of targeted search traffic in the marketplace or on search engines for you. Try to narrow down what your t-shirt actually is. Perhaps "running poodle t-shirt" describes your design in more detail. If you get someone typing that in to a search engine or in to the CafePress marketplace search then they are pretty specific about what they are looking for and more likely a buyer. Keep researching and designing and you'll find yourself seeing that water boil dollar signs! Happy Designing!
Don't let a lack of sales up front hurt your enthusiasm, or a rush of sales make you overly confident. The best thing you can do is to stop watching the pot of water and start filling up more pots! Yes, go back to designing! The more designs you can put up that are top quality the more success you will have. So what makes a design top quality? Well, in the end the customer is the ultimate judge of that. If a design sells then it is at least a decent shirt. I'm sure you are not the kind that settles for decent, however, so it's time to take your designs to another level.
How do you do that? Ask the internet of course! You have a great resource available to you online. Look at other shops online that are similar in theme or style to your own and see how they have their layouts. If you find the site by clicking on the first page of Google search then they are most assuredly getting great traffic and making sales. Study the way they have their designs created and how professional they look. Compare them with your own and see where your designs could use some improvement.
If you are using CafePress for your print on demand company I recommend putting good descriptions with each design. Simply labeling a t-shirt "dog t-shirt" isn't going to turn up a ton of targeted search traffic in the marketplace or on search engines for you. Try to narrow down what your t-shirt actually is. Perhaps "running poodle t-shirt" describes your design in more detail. If you get someone typing that in to a search engine or in to the CafePress marketplace search then they are pretty specific about what they are looking for and more likely a buyer. Keep researching and designing and you'll find yourself seeing that water boil dollar signs! Happy Designing!
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