Designing a T-Shirt for Solid Gold Texas Boutique

When I met Katie, the owner of the beautiful Solid Gold boutique in Austin, Texas, I mentioned I did custom design & she asked about a tee for her shop. I was on board immediately.

When I'm designing for a band or a brand, I spend a good amount of time thinking about the feel of what they're putting out.  If it's a band, I'll listen to their latest album over & over.  In this case, I'd been to Katie's shop a few times and had taken in the overall feel of it and the items she carries.  It's super stylish but not overly trendy, cutting edge but not avant garde, high-end but approachable.  

I strive to design tees that people would want to wear regardless of whether they know or like the band or brand (yet).

Her customers are very stylish, and I pictured a tee that would look good alone or as a layering piece under jackets; as its own accessory or popping off with gold jewelry.  Gold foil came to mind, as I had designed a Featherweight tee in gold foil in the past.  I thought about what kind of tee a stylish girl with a big wardrobe would want, and I knew it could be nicer than your average tee but it would also have to be able to be styled with different looks.  (Or LEWKS).

I made some custom tags for her with special washing instructions.

This design popped in to my head and I instantly knew I'd want to wear it.  I wasn't sure how the gold foil would behave with thick lines though.  Gold foil is a delicate specialty ink and it will decay fairly quickly. It's normally not used for large solid coverage, but why not try it?  I mentioned to Katie that it was a bit risky because the gold will flake.  She was on board with the ephemeral nature of it, making the astute point that it'll look even better as it breaks down (she's got great style). Katie wanted a muscle tee silhouette so we worked together to find the best option, and then she chose to go with black and white versions.  The design will work well with any color, and is flexible enough to work on other products in the future (totes, long sleeved tees, etc.)  

This tee feels premium and cool, and instantly makes me think of outfits I want to build around it.  I'm excited to wear it.  This was a fantastic collaboration & I'm so grateful to get to design with such creative, open-minded clients.

These tees will be available at Solid Gold (1601 E. 5th Street) in Austin soon & in the meantime I'll be wearing mine in California proudly. 

BAND MERCH DESIGN: Success for Dead Rock West

My friends in the band Dead Rock West recently asked me to design a T-shirt for them.  They have a new record coming out on July 19th called "It's Everly Time!" (it's an album of Everly Brothers covers).  I love how Cindy and Frank honored the songs by staying mostly trew to them, but they also added in their own signature harmonies.  I also love how the production is all sunny, glamorous, vintage California yet with a modern polish.  Fantastic record.

Usually I give anywhere from one to four sketch ideas to start, and I gave Cindy four sketches to choose from.  She loved two of them, and I was able to quickly produce one of the designs in time for them to sell at their April 30th show at Hotel Cafe in Los Angeles.  

The popular Dead Rock West baseball tee

The Hotel Cafe only holds about 150 people, so it was an intimate show.  Over the years I've been to hundreds of live shows, and I know that sometimes at a very small show the band might only sell a couple of T-shirts, or even none at all, so my expectations weren't too high.  I was just glad to get one of their designs to them in time for the gig.

Cindy called me the next day, saying the shirts were a success:

Transcript:  "Your shirts are such a hit, I've been having a barrage of emails all day of 'Where can I get those sent to me?'...To the point where if I even send them...they'll just be sold out!  I've never had this happen before with a T-shirt. (laffs)  It's amazing. They're really awesome and they were just a superb hit.  I just thought I'd tell you that...thanks to you the merch was a swimming success."

When I called Cindy back and talked to her, I asked how many people called or emailed or commented on Facebook about the shirts.  Five?  Ten? She told me she must have heard from 30 people.  I think she's exaggerating, though she swears she's not, so I'll take it.

They've already re-ordered the baseball tee design, after a single show.  It's a win for me, a win for the band, and a win for their fans.  I love it.

Breaking in a New Screen Printer

I'm beginning to work with a new screen printer today, organizing a reprint of T-shirts for some upcoming John Doe shows.  Last year I intentionally created a perennial design for JD that wasn't tied to a certain album or tour, so that he could sell them anytime.  My strategy has worked, since he's been using the same design with different T-shirts & ink colors for about a year.

The design was based on his tattoos.

Here are a few things I need to suss out when beginning to work with a new screen printer: 

• Communication style - is phone better? email? how quickly do they respond?
• Vibe - friendly? just-the-facts? accommodating? fussy?
• Pricing
• Turnaround time - especially important for band merchandise
• Specialized techniques - this time around I needed discharge ink, tag printing & had customer supplied goods
• Location - for timely pickup, and in this case dropping off customer supplied goods

So far, so good.  I feel lucky to live in the East Bay where there are so many screen printers to choose from.