Getting Started

73 Views 3 Replies 2 Participants Last post by joepa, Aug 10, 2010

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Discussion Starter · Aug 8, 2010

Hi, I thought I should introduce myself on the forum. I have already started an online T-Shirt shop. I set it up through CafePress & another 3rd party script and I have it using my own domain name so it works similar to like having my own ecommerce site but I don't do any printing or sending orders etc. It took me around 2 years though to get it like I wanted to. Of course it didn't take me that long to make, it took that long for me to get everything started and running.

Later if the site becomes popular and I start selling a few t-shirts I would probably run my own ecommerce site and have the shirts printed myself but there is not much point doing that until I have a customer base or interest. Of course I need designs too.....

Now I have it up and online I really have to get to work on some designs. That will be the part I enjoy the most, to me the hard work was setting the site up but I realize that coming up with good designs is not a breeze in the park either. The good thing is I have moments of creative ideas and that will be the time when I will get some ideas down on paper.

So I would like to ask how others come up with their ideas for the designs they publish? Maybe there is some threads where I can read about that subject?

thanks Gary

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joepa

· #2 · Aug 8, 2010 (Edited)

Hi Gary. Do you have a large niche such as general humor mugs/shirts/hoodies/everything? Or do you have a tighter focus such as cartoon cat humor t-shirts?

I'm going to go for a broad historical/movie inspired/retro style humor so the ideas for me are fairly easy to come by. For example, I'll just look through a stack of cowboy western books, some 1950's advertising books, pop in a DVD, and in no time I have a couple sheets of sketches of ideas. Then I visit my favorite t-shirt websites and I look for the styles and colors I want to use for my ideas. From there, it helps to have some art and/or computer skills, but I don't think you have to be DaVinci. That's how I'm doing it anyway. There's a whole related section on this forum and I'm sure there must be some gems in there on how to come up with designs. (I'm fairly new to this site as well) Good luck to you.

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Discussion Starter · #3 · Aug 9, 2010

Hi joepa,
My niche or market is quite broad at this stage, at least for my first website like this. It TShirts only (as the term TShirts is part of the domain name) but the other key word in the domain suits designs with a shock factor to them. But I won't be designing Horror type shirts so the designs will just be quite general in subject but I will try to focus on a WOW factor so they look cool and impressive.

I'm a little envious that you have a more targeted niche. It must make it a lot easier to focus on what you want. They sound like great ideas to come up with your designs and thanks for the tips etc.

I do have quite good graphic design skills and experience so that will help.

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joepa

· #4 · Aug 10, 2010

Well definitely don't be envious of me ha ha. I still don't have a business model, marketing plan, production company, or website. I just don't know which direction I want to go. My biggest fear is that I'm going to dilute my efforts doing all of these things and never get off the ground. I've done this before with other online ventures and I don't want to fall into the same trap. I'm just slowly making designs and trying to learn and plan as much as I can before I pull the trigger on anything. Good luck to us both Gary.

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