Would you still sell a t-shirt with a slogan that's already out there?
Here's my dilemma.
I'm trying to come up with NEW and clever slogans to put on maternity tees. I have a few that I'm certain are original, but I have a couple others that I had to really search to eventually find them online.
Would you still produce shirts like these? Would you change the wording slightly? Would you only sell those with slogans that are exclusively original?
Re: Would you still sell a t-shirt with a slogan that's already out there?
you have to watch and make sure the slogan is not trademarked/copyright .. just because you see it everywhere does not make public domain..so I guess you should only use original or those that are in the public domain and royalty free.
Like the 'get 'er done' from Larry the cable guy...can't use that legally...
Re: Would you still sell a t-shirt with a slogan that's already out there?
I wouldn't copy other sites, I'd consider how often it has been used (is it stale?), and I'd check anything I came up with against the trademark database, but yes - I would still sell a t-shirt with a slogan that's already out there.
Re: Would you still sell a t-shirt with a slogan that's already out there?
I would absolutely NOT do this. I am in the maternity business and we've had to send cease and desist letters to protect our trademark. You can get into legal trouble and it's not worth it to lose out on stock you've printed. Besides that, the maternity industry is fairly oversaturated with some of the same slogans and the tees most likely wouldn't sell anyway.
Re: Would you still sell a t-shirt with a slogan that's already out there?
I think it is a judgment call here Nancy and you have to decide if your "artistic" interpretation of the slogan is actually marketable and if you are legally allowed to sell the shirt (trademark, etc...)
That said, I think in some cases it is easy to say there is a market for certain slogans, regardless of the amount of "Oversaturation"... if you create a cool looking "War is not the answer" tee... regardless of how many other folks have a similar tee... it will still sell as it is topical, relevant, and you put together a better looking product than others are selling... whereas if you create a simple non-descript text only tee with a mass marketd slogan you may not move anything at all... as another benefit, having a few items with common slogans may attract a bit of incremental search traffic as people likely Google common slogans more often that your innovative and original ideas... and if you have a nice mix of original and common work it can add product to the site without having to come up with 50-100 original ideas on your own when you start...
So put in the due diligence, check the trademarks, and if you are going to do something "common" make sure you do it different or better than what is out there...
Re: Would you still sell a t-shirt with a slogan that's already out there?
The majority of the shirts I intend to sell (site operational within weeks, hopefully!) are slogan/picture combos. If you're using just the slogan/catchphrase alone, sometimes they can get stale after seeing them at various sites. For example, "McLovin" - I've seen about 10 online shops selling that on a shirt. Each one has a funky font, or tails or leaders or whatever else they whack on there to differentiate from other sites. Some sites choose to do this, to ride the trend wave and cash in on the latest jokes. There's nothing wrong with it, it's just their style. McLovin was from a movie, so none of the tshirt designers can claim it as their own design, but who needs to when the sales are rolling in.
Another example is a shirt that I saw years ago, "Support the finer arts" or "Support the performing arts" or something to this effect, with a silhouetted stripped on a pole. Then, a year or so after first seeing that shirt, I saw another sites interpretation, "I support single moms" again with a silhouetted stripper, and then another, and another, and another. I eventually figured out that TShirtHells version of the shirt appeared in Reno 911 movie, and that's where all the other shirt sites saw it and got the idea from.
It happens, whether you like it to or not. That's just the nature of the funny shirt industry. Just set yours apart from everyone else's, you know? I liked a shirt that one of my friends made, it just said "wiitarded" on it. He said he got the idea from another shirt he saw. I really don't like to copy the exact design without adding my own touch to it, so I now make a shirt that says "Wiitard" on it with a picture of Mario looking goofy that I drew into photoshop.
So, I guess, yes - if I have a design and I see a _similar idea_ on another shirt, I'll continue to sell it. The exact phrase? No way.
This is a discussion about Would you still sell a t-shirt with a slogan that's already out there? that was posted in the General T-Shirt Selling Discussion section of the forums.
Would you still sell a t-shirt with a slogan that's already out there? 
