T shirt designs

Yea Like dude said, I'm trying to get the opinions of my target audience. I thinks that's important. I like those designs SC, but I'm pretty sure you can't use those images for commercial use. I get your point though.
 
Listen nothing personal but I just feel that this is another case of street wear startup laziness. Graphic t-shirts aren't real articles of clothing.

You wanna start a brand? Focus on the materials, the fit, the design language. Who do you want to wear this clothing? Right now I feel like I'm looking at some off-brand Karmaloop bargain bin stuff.
 
De La MONEY said:
shirts look rather wide....
Click to expand...
Shirts are just templates, those wont be the actual sizes of the shirts. 

I decided to take a whole different direction. Here is what I came up with. These are not final designs, just Ideas. Name has been changed to Hill & Sage.
 
SneakerHeathen said:
Listen nothing personal but I just feel that this is another case of street wear startup laziness. Graphic t-shirts aren't real articles of clothing.

You wanna start a brand? Focus on the materials, the fit, the design language. Who do you want to wear this clothing? Right now I feel like I'm looking at some off-brand Karmaloop bargain bin stuff.
Click to expand...
Thats good advice, and of course all that is being worked on. This thread is just about the Tshirt designs. We are at the start of the process, im asking advice on just the designs on the Tshirts. Your point is extremely valid though.
 
If you know how to draw, I'd tell you to lose the digital typefaces and go for hand-drawn type. I'm so sick of seeing Impact and Arial on t-shirts. God forbid, Mistral. Anyway, hand-drawn type always stands out due to it's uniqueness. You can turn your drawings into vectors with software like Illustrator. If you are going to incorporate a lot of colors, I'd favor full-color photographic stuff done in 4 color process or intricate hand-drawn designs. Maybe I'm too old school for this "streetwear" stuff. It comes off as lazy design much of the time.

Hand-drawn type

Full-color (as opposed to posterized) photographic

Not the best examples, but you get my point.
 
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Patt said:
If you know how to draw, I'd tell you to lose the digital typefaces and go for hand-drawn type. I'm so sick of seeing Impact and Arial on t-shirts. God forbid, Mistral. Anyway, hand-drawn type always stands out due to it's uniqueness. You can turn your drawings into vectors with software like Illustrator. Also, keep the color palette to a minimum so they're more adaptable to a wider range of outfits. If you are going to go full color, I tend to like full-color photographic stuff in 4 color CMYK silkscreen process.
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I really appreciate that advice, that exactly why I posted here. Some of you guys really know your ****. Im not sure if your talking about the first designs I posted, or the second ones I posted on the bottom of page 1. The second groups type face is digital, but its script so it has a more natural feel. I did also use illustrator for all the designs, so everything is vectors. When you say keep the color palette to minimum, I totally feel that. I tried to do that with the second group of designs. Do you still feel that palette is too varied? 
 
Does anyone remember a t-shirt posted a long time ago with a drawing of a guy shooting his head, and birds flew out the other side?  I thought it was dope but could never find it again.
 
Slow day, so hell let me try and help.

First off, let me ask you (or your friend) a question. is creating a brand your passion? you really need to be truthful with your self when answering that question too.

Secondly, if you never make a cent from this project, will that be ok?

If you have answered yes to both of those first questions then its time to take it serious.


First things first get some formal training, or find someone that has already been through either formal training or has taught their self to the point where they know what the hell they are doing. I realize you have said that all posted images are just rough drafts but lets say you worked for me and turned that stuff in, i can honestly say there isn't anything in that batch I'd really be all that interested in developing.

Now, dont let NT tell you what you can or cant do, Im sure the average user in General knows a thing or two about consumerism so definitely listen to everything said but NT will be quick to tell you (just like they have) that its not a clothing line if its just graphic tee shirts. The truth of the matter is if done well there can be a lot of money made from printing and selling tee shirts. The problem is the t shirt business is over saturated, and coming up with something that you can sell enough times to actually make money can prove to be quite difficult.


Brainstorm. Brainstorm. Brainstorm.


Most ideas that are worth something come from constant brainstorming. Sure sometimes people hit one out of the park on a whim, but the majority of the time good ideas are the product of a lot of other ideas that either wernt that good or maybe taking pieces of other ideas and fusing them together.


The best piece of advice i can give to you is find and utilize help! Thats one that I personally have a hard time with but it makes all the difference in the world. The saying "Teamwork makes the dreamwork" is much more then a saying and rings true again and again.


You are going to need tough skin and you are most likely going to want to quit hundreds of times, its important to remember that most successful business owners were first unsuccessful business owners.


A couple other small pieces of personal advice would be to start small. It might be wise to start this as a side project meaning dont quit your day job. If you have a source of income right now keep that, if your side project gains enough momentum to become your full time gig then thats great but if not at least you didnt break yourself in the process. If you create something you think is cool, thats great but at the end of the day unless people are spending their cash on it you will just be taking on a very expensive hobby printing up tee shirts. You guys think a sneaker collection is expensive, try printing up a couple seasons of tees, sheesh!

Also try to identify your target audience, a lot of people follow Nick from Diamond on Instagram or twitter or whatever and look at his life and want that. Well for every Nick there are dozens of guys on the opposite side of the spectrum. I guess what i mean is I know you specified "Streetwear" brand but really do your research, their are plenty of people out their making their money off tee's and apparel who are not under the "streetwear" umbrella. As you will find the streetwear consumer can be a very finicky creature and maybe what you come up with would be better suited in a different marketplace.

Best of luck and hopefully something in that rambling of a post makes sense.
 
To follow on from that post ^ if you are serious about this, you should check out the Random Objects thread on here and hit the dude up for advice. I think his SN is hardaway33.

He came correct in his 1st post, had the merch ready to go. Had a brand vision and statement thought out. Knew what he wanted to do and how to achieve it, and his designs were hot as well. Just a few of the major reasons why NT chose to support him and he gained traction in the community here.

We're wise to people trying to "cash in" on this community and for some reason all of these "t-shirt" clothing lines come here and post in General off the bat. I've seen Malishus with the jizz shirt, the utter trash that was Politics As Usual, the dude that tried to exploit graffiti to sell his "friend's" tees with the ugly octopus face thing on them and countless others that were so bad I couldn't even remember them all crash and burn horribly here. General is hostile to trash like that and everyone will call it how they see it. You're not getting trashed because you're designs are whack, (which they are, don't get me wrong), you're getting trashed because you have a handful of posts, you have no real direction for your brand, your identity, your overall vision. You've already changed the name and style of the shirts within like a week of posting them. How can we have faith in you, if you don't have faith in yourself?

Don't just come up with a few designs in Illustrator and Photoshop them onto a shirt. Actually get the shirt made. Show us how it looks on a model, how the design works in a real setting. How it relates to your company's vision and aesthetic. Etc.

If you come correct, we'll react accordingly. If your brands trash, we'll react accordingly.
 
FeelMode said:
Slow day, so hell let me try and help.

First off, let me ask you (or your friend) a question. is creating a brand your passion? you really need to be truthful with your self when answering that question too.

Secondly, if you never make a cent from this project, will that be ok?

If you have answered yes to both of those first questions then its time to take it serious.


First things first get some formal training, or find someone that has already been through either formal training or has taught their self to the point where they know what the hell they are doing. I realize you have said that all posted images are just rough drafts but lets say you worked for me and turned that stuff in, i can honestly say there isn't anything in that batch I'd really be all that interested in developing.

Now, dont let NT tell you what you can or cant do, Im sure the average user in General knows a thing or two about consumerism so definitely listen to everything said but NT will be quick to tell you (just like they have) that its not a clothing line if its just graphic tee shirts. The truth of the matter is if done well there can be a lot of money made from printing and selling tee shirts. The problem is the t shirt business is over saturated, and coming up with something that you can sell enough times to actually make money can prove to be quite difficult.


Brainstorm. Brainstorm. Brainstorm.


Most ideas that are worth something come from constant brainstorming. Sure sometimes people hit one out of the park on a whim, but the majority of the time good ideas are the product of a lot of other ideas that either wernt that good or maybe taking pieces of other ideas and fusing them together.


The best piece of advice i can give to you is find and utilize help! Thats one that I personally have a hard time with but it makes all the difference in the world. The saying "Teamwork makes the dreamwork" is much more then a saying and rings true again and again.


You are going to need tough skin and you are most likely going to want to quit hundreds of times, its important to remember that most successful business owners were first unsuccessful business owners.


A couple other small pieces of personal advice would be to start small. It might be wise to start this as a side project meaning dont quit your day job. If you have a source of income right now keep that, if your side project gains enough momentum to become your full time gig then thats great but if not at least you didnt break yourself in the process. If you create something you think is cool, thats great but at the end of the day unless people are spending their cash on it you will just be taking on a very expensive hobby printing up tee shirts. You guys think a sneaker collection is expensive, try printing up a couple seasons of tees, sheesh!

Also try to identify your target audience, a lot of people follow Nick from Diamond on Instagram or twitter or whatever and look at his life and want that. Well for every Nick there are dozens of guys on the opposite side of the spectrum. I guess what i mean is I know you specified "Streetwear" brand but really do your research, their are plenty of people out their making their money off tee's and apparel who are not under the "streetwear" umbrella. As you will find the streetwear consumer can be a very finicky creature and maybe what you come up with would be better suited in a different marketplace.

Best of luck and hopefully something in that rambling of a post makes sense.
Click to expand...
Prolly some of the best and honest advice I have got. I am currently a business student, and I own a small landscaping business that I started by myself, and I will not be quitting either unless this takes off. This is definitely a passion of mine, and always has been. Money has never been the object, I just enjoy doing it. 

I totally understand what you mean by streetwear, and have since strayed from that definition. I also totally agree with you about brainstorming, and that is basically what this is, brainstorming. The goal is to start a clothing line, but like you said, we are starting small with Tshirt designs. We are working on other stuff as well, but the main focus is Tshirts, and thats what im asking for advice on. 

As far as the designs, I posted one batch on the top of page 1 and another totally different batch on the bottom of page 1. I would like to get some opinions on which batch is going in a better direction. I personally really like some of the designs in the batch on the bottom of page 1. I have also got feedback from other people, they also seem to really like the "hill&sage" designs and not so much the 5rebels designs. NT is only one of the places I have gotten feedback and advice from, but Ive got a lot of feedback from other places and people. Ive always had thick skin, so that is certainly not a problem. Honest and constructive criticism is always better than false praise.  
 
Mitchellicious said:
To follow on from that post ^ if you are serious about this, you should check out the Random Objects thread on here and hit the dude up for advice. I think his SN is hardaway33.

He came correct in his 1st post, had the merch ready to go. Had a brand vision and statement thought out. Knew what he wanted to do and how to achieve it, and his designs were hot as well. Just a few of the major reasons why NT chose to support him and he gained traction in the community here.

We're wise to people trying to "cash in" on this community and for some reason all of these "t-shirt" clothing lines come here and post in General off the bat. I've seen Malishus with the jizz shirt, the utter trash that was Politics As Usual, the dude that tried to exploit graffiti to sell his "friend's" tees with the ugly octopus face thing on them and countless others that were so bad I couldn't even remember them all crash and burn horribly here. General is hostile to trash like that and everyone will call it how they see it. You're not getting trashed because you're designs are whack, (which they are, don't get me wrong), you're getting trashed because you have a handful of posts, you have no real direction for your brand, your identity, your overall vision. You've already changed the name and style of the shirts within like a week of posting them. How can we have faith in you, if you don't have faith in yourself?

Don't just come up with a few designs in Illustrator and Photoshop them onto a shirt. Actually get the shirt made. Show us how it looks on a model, how the design works in a real setting. How it relates to your company's vision and aesthetic. Etc.

If you come correct, we'll react accordingly. If your brands trash, we'll react accordingly.
Click to expand...
Again good advice, but you gotta understand that Im in a different spot in the process than im sure he was. Im not asking for opinions on a final product, im asking for help with the brainstorming process. I will def check that thread though. 

Also, saying a design is trash isnt helpful, saying WHY it is trash is helpful. I posted two groups of designs and knowing what direction to take would be great. Its all about keeping at it until you have something that works. I have faith in myself, but again I am at the VERY beginning of the process, so Im trying a lot of things to see what I like, and what works. Im not trying to "cash in" on NT, I just saw it as a good resource for information. I joined NT because of kicks, not clothing. I wasnt even thinking of selling the shirts to NTers, we know people who own clothing stores and our products will go to them first. If NTers wanted shirts, great, but that wasnt my intention by starting this thread. 

I really appreciate all the advice, and want to stress that this is the VERY BEGINNING of the brainstorming process. If designs change, its because we felt they werent working. Like pros and cons guy said, brainstorm, brainstorm, brainstorm. Many things can change in that process. 
 
this is a different world we are living in with social networking and such, and i dont think im in a position to say one way or another on what is or would be more successful but usually (or at least how I did it) the brainstorming goes on behind the scenes if you will and not really in a public forum such as this.

its hard to say, ive now witnessed completely organic movements start on social media so like i said i cant say which way is really better then the other but that could be part of the reason for the less then warm welcome from the crowd.


for example i spent a couple years coming up with what i ended up going with, and it wasnt until then that i went public with it. now some say i missed the boat or that i didnt strike when the iron way at its hottest, which is probably true but i had great confidence in what i was trying to create and really wanted to create something cohesive prior to releasing it. timing is a lot of it though, and some of the designs that ended up being our best selling pieces i had the artwork sitting finished for quite sometime before they saw the light of day, and looking back if released sooner (before the market crash) would have probably put us in a better position but it is what it is.


anyways, good to see you have other stuff you are working on and a solid education in business will take you a long way no matter what, even if it just provides you the information you need to decide that maybe its best to put your time into other efforts.

at the end of the day if this is something you really want to accomplish im sure you will do what you need to give your self every opportunity at succeeding.
 
This is definitely something I want to do. I am a very stubborn and thick skinned person, but at the same time I am very open to constructive criticism. Like you said, it took you years to come up with a final product, and im fine with that if thats the case. Maybe your right about brainstorming being "behind the scenes", but honestly, I have got some great advice from people on here so far. I might have to wade through the hate, but in the end advice is very valuable, even if it comes with criticism. I dont give up easily, and this isnt the acception. 
 
FrankWhite said:
This is definitely something I want to do. I am a very stubborn and thick skinned person, but at the same time I am very open to constructive criticism. Like you said, it took you years to come up with a final product, and im fine with that if thats the case. Maybe your right about brainstorming being "behind the scenes", but honestly, I have got some great advice from people on here so far. I might have to wade through the hate, but in the end advice is very valuable, even if it comes with criticism. I dont give up easily, and this isnt the acception. 
Click to expand...


its never going to be a final product. the process is ongoing but i guess what i meant is it took me years to get to a "starting point"

i've been at this for a while now, my son was born and is now in the first grade already and every day this project ive devoted the last 6 + years of my life too is brand new to someone.


anyways, cant believe i forgot to add this earlier but invest in some design books. even if you just check them out from the library, its important to see what other have deemed to be strong design and or logo design.

again best of luck.
 
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