Discuss the fun task of marketing a t-shirt shop. Where to advertise, local marketing tips, word of mouth, press releases, search engine marketing, keyword advertising, magazines, etc.
Do you feel it is necessary to include your business name, abbreviation, or logo along with the graphic printed on your t-shirt?
In trying to build a brand it would help as much as possible to spread the name of your business, so if someone thought your design was cool they could see the name of the company on the outside of the shirt.
I feel this takes away from the original graphic and almost looks out of place for floating text in a strict font, next to a loose line image.
Anyone have any stories or examples to help with this decision?
i would just suggest somehow incorporating your name or logo in the graphic itself. or have your name on the sleeve or something like that. it could only be beneficial for them to know who made it and who they can get one from.
Seems to take some of the value out of art to incorporate a company name into it... such branding techniques are used by the big boys.
are they out of reach for us little guys?
perhaps you can make art that makes the subject matter of the design your logo, ala AE, Nike, J Cupcakes and others. Not always appropriate though, is it?
I think it's OK as long as it is subtle. Work it into the graphic somehow so it can be seen but not so bold that it draws your eyes away from the graphic. I won't buy anything that has the brand name boldly displayed unless it's on a decal that can be removed. I'm all for brand promotion, but I also have no desire to be a walking billboard. Would you buy a car and let the dealer paint his logo on the door? It's bad enough they put a sticker on the trunk.
id look at johnny cupcakes or even volcom. you see cupcakes and you immediately think of johnny cupcakes. you see the diamond design you think of volcom. they dont need to necessarily say the brand name, but if you have a design that goes with the brand name, you dont need to have your brand name all over the place. i dont know if this makes sense
I don't like logo gear, but I do place mine on my t-shirts :-) But it is small, part of the graphics, and subtle. So I don't feel bad about it...
I do think you need to build a brand, and if no one knows who made the t-shirt, what help is it for people to see the t-shirt?
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Exactly. You do have to try your best to build a brand, but keep it subtle. There's no reason you should have to plaster your name in big block letters across the chest, but you shoudl work the name into the design in a creative, and fun way.
My friend almost has me convinced to just stick with the graphic and no logo. To him, he breaks it down as being logo-focused or logo-exclusive. For comparison we took Polo vs. Guess. Polo uses their logo visible on everything where as guess rarely has this displayed.
Since Im trying to create an extremely high-end fashion garment, I think it might be smarter to avoid the logo display altogether, reason being I dont want my customers to be advertisements, but obviously I want them to be brand loyal. I also want to take every opportunity to market my name.
I find this decision very hard to make at the beginning of my company and feel like the only way to really know is create two batches and see which sells better. Costly market research.
Does anyone have experience with one strategy compared to the other? Creating a recognizable logo to establish brand recognition or instead concentrating on clean artwork and depending on consumer loyalty because it is clean?
Maybe you should create a small logo that you can trade mark and put it on a sleeve. If lacoste, nike, adidas, Valentino, Hugo Boss,and a score of other Italian designers do it why not you.
Name recognition with printed graphic 
