Archive for the ‘T-Shirts’ Category
10 Things You Didn’t Know About T-Shirts
You Design It just put together a pretty interesting list of the “10 Things You Didn’t Know About T-Shirts”. For instance, did you know that it takes six miles of yarn to make one t-shirt?
Peep the full list here.
1.) Cotton has been grown for over 6,000 years.
2.) The word “t-shirt” first appeared in the Merriam-Webster dictionary in the 1920′s. Two other best-selling books during the same time period were Farewell To Arms and The Great Gatsby.
3.) That’s a lot of dough for some t-shirts!
4.) In 1939 the first promotional t-shirt was printed for the movie “The Wizard of Oz”.
5.) “Absorbent” cotton will retain 24-27 times its own weight in water and is stronger wet than when dry. Get you some of that polyester!
6.) There are 35,000 cotton farms in the U.S. and 98% percent of cotton is grown in Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.
7.) T-Shirts made from recycled cotton prevent over five billion tons of textile waste from entering landfills each year.
8.) Top 5 Cotton Producing Countries (2009)
- – China: 32 Million Bales
- – India: 23.5 Million Bales
- – United States: 12.4 Million Bales
- – Pakistan: 9.8 Million Bales
- – Brazil: 5.5 Million Bales
9.)Annual Dollars Generated by Industry
- – Cotton: $25Billion
- – Candy: $17Billion
- – Jewelry: $7Billion
- – Music: $3Billion
10.) It takes six miles of yarn to make one t-shirt.
Half A Year Of Thoughts
It’s been just over six months since Katie & I shipped out the first Scared Panda t-shirt. Since that first tamale t-shirt went out the door we’ve created two more rounds of tees, shipped shirts to Austria and Australia (and all over the US), met some really awesome people and learned more about t-shirts than I ever thought possible. The first six months gave us the time and experience we needed to see what was working and what wasn’t.
What Works
- Get off line. The internet is a great place to communicate and find people, but we found that nothing beats solid face time with customers and potential customers. Getting out to festivals and art fairs has been an effective way for us to meet customers, artists and to generally pimp the Scared Panda brand.
- Limited prints. I never want a t-shirt that I know a million other people have and I’m guessing I’m not the only one who feels this way. Therefore we decided to make each Scared Panda t-shirt part of a limited collection. We are only printing 100 t-shirts of each design. Once that design sells out, its done and you now own a collectors item.
- Pandas. The Scared Panda logo tee is one of our most popular t-shirts. In fact, it’s so popular, we only have one left. The next generation of our Scared Panda will be more artistic and will reflect our brand more accurately. Since this is a new design, we will print another batch of logo tees.
- Social networking. Facebook, Twitter and Flickr have been great tools for us to spread the panda love and communicate with customers. Through these sites and applications, I’ve been able to meet and talk with different people from all over the world about our company, what we are about and what they think about our product.
- Women’s shirts: Our yoga t-shirt did really well and we’ve learned that a lot of ladies like our Scared Panda shirt as well. In the future we’ll print each design in both men and women’s t-shirts.
What Doesn’t Work
- Online advertising. Google Ad Words, Facebook and miscellaneous ad time online have led to very little page views from our target market.
- Assuming people know what I’m talking about. I do this all the time, I start talking about something and assume the person I’m talking to sees exactly what I do and they will automatically understand and just ‘get’ what I’m saying. When working with designers and printers its important to lay out every aspect of the design, t-shirt and process that I am thinking about and to double check to make sure the person on the other end is making out what I’m saying clearly.
- Expecting people to just show up and buy stuff. I have a kick ass product and just need to put it out on the web and people will start buying it up. Yeah, that never happens. Running a business takes time, dedication and lots of hours promoting and pimping the product, in this case, getting t-shirts in front of people want them. Part of this includes becoming friends with other t-shirt vendors and t-shirt review sites. Over the past six months we have become very close to some great t-shirt reviewers, bloggers and general fans through out the world and each have helped significantly in helping us promote Scared Panda.
A New Direction
With the popularity of the Scared Panda logo tee, we decided to create a more centralized theme for our t-shirts. The new theme will still involve Chicago, but we are expanding to incorporate other cities as well. In addition, each of our designs will incorporate the Scared Panda somehow – sometimes it’ll be obvious, sometimes it won’t. A few ideas we’ve been floating around: a Scared Panda climbing the Empire State Building, a Scared Panda conducting an out-of–control el train and a Scared Panda matador (Scared Espanda). The new t-shirts will be inspired by my travel experiences and from stories that I hear from friends, family and other random people I meet along the way.
We’re excited about these changes and hope you are too. Have any travel stories to tell that would make a great t-shirt? Drop a comment below and tell us about it!
Tall Bike Love Photos!
Last Saturday Kate and I met up with our new friend and tall bike aficionado Dan Korn. In exchange for a free Tall Bike Love T-Shirt, Dan was more than happy to show off his tall bike as well as let me take some pictures of the two of them together. It was a real pleasure meeting up with Dan and I’m happy we were able to hook up and talk about bikes and riding ’round Chicago. Here are just a couple pictures from Saturday, you check out the rest in the Flickr set.
Win a Free Shirt!
I recently had some time to get to know another local entrepreneur, Jess of Jess LC. I’ve been admiring her jewelry and reading her blog, Make Under My Life (try the Throw Out 50 Things Challenge!) for awhile now and have learned a lot about starting a new business, living life with intention and finding joy in everything you do. We decided to do a three-month ad run on her blog and part of that package is a t-shirt giveaway. Head over to her site, check out the interview I did and throw your name in the hat for a free t-shirt.
- Kate
Soccer T-Shirts By Studs Up Football Club
Right now the biggest sporting event in the world is going on all over South Africa. No matter what you do or who you are, it’s difficult to ignore the World Cup for the next month. So, if you can’t be on the pitch or in the stands with a vuvuzela, don’t worry because Studs Up Football Club has got ya covered with some great football, or soccer if you prefer, t-shirts. My favorites are the more colorful & animated Whimsy collection.
Hold The Ketchup T-Shirt on Hide Your Arms
On Tuesday Andy of Hide Your Arms was his super awesome self and posted about our Hold The Ketchup T-Shirt by Kristen Wenke on his site. If you’re not familiar with HYA or Andy, well, let me tell you about them using their own words:
Hide Your Arms blog aims to cover (pun!) all aspects of the independent clothing industry, bringing you news and point out items of clothing, with a focus on long-sleeved goods like hoodies, track jackets and sweatshirts.
And he had this to say about the t-shirt;
You know how hot dogs are regarded as being made with the bits of the pig (and other animals) that you generally wouldn’t want to eat? Is there anyone out there that makes Hot Dogs with quality meat, or would they just not taste ‘right’? I ask because in America there are lots of famous hot dogs (such as the Chicago-style hot dog pictured), but it seems to be that they’re famous because of everything but the dog, or am I missing something here?
Being that he is over in the UK, they don’t have the same passion for the hot dog as we do here in the states. But none the less, Andy liked the t-shirt and give us some love, so what else can you ask for, right? So, thanks to Andy and HYA!
Check out the full post here and buy the Hold The Ketchup T-Shirt here.
How many t-shirts on my kitchen table? Somebody knows!
The time has come to announce the winner of our “how many t-shirts are sitting on our kitchen table?” contest. We had lots of guesses that were all over the place; some were way high, some were way low and some were just one or two off. However, only one person knew her way around a pile of t-shirts and said…twenty five! Yes, twenty five t-shirts on the table. This lucky guesser is Marsha Spaniel. Congrats Marsha. Please take a tour through our extensive t-shirt collection and pick out one shirt that you like.
Marsha’s not a stranger to arts and crafts in Chicago either. You can find her this Sunday (6/6) at the Constructor Craft Fair in Berwyn as well as other places on like like Etsy and Twitter. So check her out and hopefully you will catch her wearing her new Scared Panda t-shirt.
Thanks to everyone who submitted a guess!
Peace out,
- Clint
Contest: How many t-shirts on the kitchen table?
Can you guess how many t-shirts are in this pile? If you can, we’re gonna give you a free t-shirt. We took an armful of t-shirts from our inventory and piled them up on our kitchen table. The person who either guesses the exact amount of t-shirts or whomever comes closest will win a free t-shirt.
This is how the contest will work:
- Guess how many t-shirts are piled on our kitchen table.
- Send your guess via Twitter, Facebook, email or leave them in the comments section to be eligible.
- On Saturday, June 5th Friday, June 4th the person who picks a number closest to the number of t-shirts on the table wins!
- The winner gets their pick of a authentic Scared Panda Tee.
It’s simple! Good luck and tell your friends!
Update: ‘Voting’ is closed and we’ve found a winner! Click here to find out if you won.
True Chicago Style Hot Dog
Hold The Ketchup
Before moving to Chicago, I never had a true Chicago style hot dog. So, one day I decided it was about time that I did and popped into Murphy’s Red Hots on Belmont to order up my first char dog. Everything started off cool, I ordered my dog, the guy behind the counter grilled one up for me and we made small talk. When he was done grilling he kindly asked which condiments to add. I told him straight up – celery salt, pickle, relish,tomato, mustard and…ketchup. Yeah, ketchup. I’ll admit it, I used to be a ketchup on my hot dog type of guy, but that was before I knew any better. Once the word ketchup left my mouth I felt like something bad was about to happen. He stopped in his tracks, paused and asked me “Are you sure you want ketchup?” Of course I was sure, why wouldn’t I be? I always put ketchup on my hot dogs. Enter one of the many life lessons I’ve since learned since moving to Chicago.
Smiling and still holding my hot dog, the guy working at Murphy’s pegged me for an out-of-towner, sat me down and gave me the scoop. He simply said, “you never put ketchup on a hot dog, that’s what the tomato is for.” I learned that the ketchup overpowers the hot dog, thus actually ruining the taste instead of complimenting it. After learning this, I agreed with him and took my hot dog (sans ketchup) and have never looked back. I’m now a firm believer in never putting ketchup on a hot dog; ketchup does overpower the taste of the dog and all the other ingredients are shoved aside and might as well not even be there. To me, ketchup is an attention whore and should be left off our hot dogs.
To commemorate this and to show the world that ketchup really doesn’t belong on a hot dog, we’ve created the Hold The Ketchup T-Shirt. The t-shirt is all about the hot dog and it’s love for tomato, pickle, relish and mustard…especially the mustard.
If you want to get into the topic of no ketchup, I’ve compiled a short list of resources for you to check out. There is even a book called “Never put ketchup on a hot dog” written by Bob Schwartz available on Amazon for 20 bucks.
- How to Make a Chicago Hot Dog
Thanks and here’s to putting ketchup behind us!
Finding A Great Printer In Chicago
Hey everybody,
After printing three rounds of t-shirts I’ve been through three different printers and learned quite a bit about print process. When I first started Scared Panda, I had no idea just how much effort was needed when choosing a printer, not to mention getting the product that you expect from said printer.
When we contacted our first printer back in November I expected them to just “get it”. Ya know? I thought, “Take my image and print it using the best print technology that you have and make this an awesome t-shirt”. Right? I thought that sort of thing is assumed…oh how I was wrong.