djs13

I'm thinking about starting a clothing line as a summer business project (I'm a business major) but I need some help with the technical aspects of creating my t-shirts. Here are my questions:

1.) Is it easier to buy wholesale t’s and get them printed by two different compnaies, or buy from somewhere that sells t's and will screenprint them for you? Where can I find a list/review of these companies?

2.) I downloaded Inkscape, but how can I learn to be be better at designing? I have all the ideas in my head, and I'm not looking to make insanely difficult designs, but is there any way I can learn more about the program?

3.) Have you ever hired a designer? How much do they cost?

Thank you!

 

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wake22max

Quote: Originally Posted by djs13 3.) Have you ever hired a designer? How much do they cost

Designers usually charge $200-$500 per shirt design depending on how complex the work is.

 

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blago

hi,

I'm new here as well and I don't have direct experience selling a clothing line but I have been researching it for my own design company and have some experience with vendors and outsourcing shirts,labels, and printing for our clients.

1) there's an old saying you can have it fast, cheap, or good pick any two. i first saw this on some IT guys wall a long time ago and it is a good standard for any service. here is a more detailed description if you are interested Fast, Good or Cheap. Pick two. I would try to find a single vendor that will use the brand and quality of t-shirts you want and have them screen printed for the best product. negotiate with them to get the price down if you can give them a good initial order or promise some consistent buying every month. Before you try to pinch pennies make sure to research the lowest wholesale prices for the t-shirts and have an idea how much it actually costs to do a multi color screened shirt.

if you only have a few shirts and will sell direct find a good template and setup you site and use paypal to handle payments. I do a lot of e-commerce and paypal is easy to setup and has a relatively low fee base and has good name recognition. When you start making money move on to a real merchant account from authorize.net or similar and setup a real shopping cart site to get the lowest possible per transaction fee and have more control over your sales and refunds without the paypal babysitting.

2) unless you have some real talent in design I would just try to make a good pencil / paper sketch and find a good designer who will work with you to make it a finished design.

3) yes and my company has designers our fee is $90hr or a flat fee based on project. your best bet is to use a crowd sourcing site for graphic design that has a bunch of people trying to "win" your bid. if it works out on the first job try to maintain the relationship and see if you get a better price for multiple jobs. there are a lot of "crowd source design contests" sites, just do a search.

hope this was somewhat useful info. good luck.

 

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h2opromedia

from my experience on the design side of things, most screenprinters prefer a vector image. I would recommend CorelDraw as being a powerful tool and fairly easy to learn. Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator is the most powerful design tools but they are quite a bit harder to learn how to use.

Try Corel, most can figure it out fairly quickly.

Good luck on your venture

 

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Solmu

Quote: Originally Posted by djs13 1.) Is it easier to buy wholesale t’s and get them printed by two different compnaies, or buy from somewhere that sells t's and will screenprint them for you?

All printers can provide shirts, so if you're talking easier there's no doubt it's easier to use the one company for both.

Quote: Originally Posted by djs13 Where can I find a list/review of these companies?

There isn't really a list/review, but there's this section of the forums:
http://www.t-shirtforums.com/referrals-recommendations/

Quote: Originally Posted by djs13 2.) I downloaded Inkscape, but how can I learn to be be better at designing?

Does your school happen to have a summer design class you could take? Because that would be by far the best way. Next best thing would be a good book or DVD tutorial. Third option is there are lots of free tutes on the internet.

Quote: Originally Posted by djs13 3.) Have you ever hired a designer? How much do they cost?

Cost varies: one common recommendation is to exploit a desperate student. Not a fan of the practice myself, but I'm told it works well. It's pretty much a "What do you want to pay?" market though; to a large extent you get what you pay for, but thanks to freelance bidding sites you can nominate a budget and receive whatever the free market has deemed that buys you.

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Solmu

Quote: Originally Posted by blago promise some consistent buying every month

Any printer who falls for that is an idiot and a newbie, and you probably don't want to actually get your printing done by an idiot and a newbie. "We only want X now, but we'll be doing Y later." is probably the number one client cliché in the business.

Maybe if you were willing to sign a legally binding contract guaranteeing those further orders it would be a different matter. Even then I say maybe, because printers are often savvy enough to understand the difference between a promise and reality.

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muneca

Welcome to the site. Thanks for the designer pricing info guys.

 

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