[ElectricEarthCL]

Hey

I have recently just launched and it would be great to get your opinion on the work and the website and whether or not you guys think i have things right.

Link

www.electricearthclothing.com

Dominic

creator and developer

 

[ill6031]

Personally I think it looks pretty good. Good luck with it!!

Hey

I have recently just launched and it would be great to get your opinion on the work and the website and whether or not you guys think i have things right.

Link

Electric Earth Clothing

Dominic

creator and developer

 

[ryan barker]

'All of those particular points fgure within Red, White and Blue.' from the red, white and blue shirt description. 'fgure'? i happened upon that typo by chance, so perhaps go back through it with a fine tooth comb for these little errors. 'We, hope, however,...' is another from the greenspace page.

dunno, not that big of a fan when it comes to knowing why you came up with a particular design and explaining the design itself. for example:

'Trying to carry on the theme of exploring graphic variants of natural structures and also exploring current social themes, with 3D elements so strong within design and also our media I felt now would be the perfect time to try and incorporate a graphic method that would alow [sic] for you to feel as though the design is dragging you in but then also jumping right at you.' ~ too wordy for my tastes, bordering on pretentious. i rather feel berated with social consciousness, ya know? maybe that's just me....

along those same lines, and containing many more spelling and a few syntax errors:

'Due to the ever increasing population of our world our demand for all naturall resources has increased exponentially. This need has led to world wide shortages in many areas especially fuel, with ever increasing prices as well as demange to our environment.

'Our consumption of oil has usually been one of those concerns that rank highly amongst any environmentalist or even those who are simply concerned with surging prices or current shortages. To try and grasp such an idea in a design solution that at least had the quality we wanted known for became far more challenging than coming up with the idea, thankfully though we feel we have the right blend of both design and idea.' ~ i guess i just don't like feeling as if i'm being preached to (made worse by errors). clearly the attempt of the business is to be socially aware and express those ideals, but i think those who are inclined to buy the shirts already get it, therefore don't need a lecture, and those of us who are just looking for a cool shirt don't necessarily need a lesson in current events (trust me, some of us are quite capable of forming our own opinions). all that is to say that you can encapsulate your philosophy far more easily in an 'about us' (at the top, not at the bottom) and leave out the rest.



i would add a 'home' button at the top that's easy to click on instead of the logo.



as far as the designs go, they're good. i think your demographic will like it. reminds me somewhat of ugmonk, but maybe that's just the overall vibe i'm feeling. the photography is good. standard kind of background, but at least it's real.


in all, a pretty good site in terms of looks, imo. you need a lot of work on the text, especially if you feel the need to pontificate and explain each shirt for a couple of paragraphs. i give it a thumbs up, caveats applicable.

 

[epicdelusion]

Ryan,

that's a pretty good critique of the guys' site, I thought it looked decent, but then again I'm just some guy that started out too... maybe when you get a chance sometime you can take a look at ours? My girlfriend tells me everything looks SO GREAT all the time but I'm starting to feel placated and patronized. jus need a straight answer from somebody who isn't partial.


cheers ,

 

[ElectricEarthCL]

'All of those particular points fgure within Red, White and Blue.' from the red, white and blue shirt description. 'fgure'? i happened upon that typo by chance, so perhaps go back through it with a fine tooth comb for these little errors. 'We, hope, however,...' is another from the greenspace page.

dunno, not that big of a fan when it comes to knowing why you came up with a particular design and explaining the design itself. for example:

'Trying to carry on the theme of exploring graphic variants of natural structures and also exploring current social themes, with 3D elements so strong within design and also our media I felt now would be the perfect time to try and incorporate a graphic method that would alow [sic] for you to feel as though the design is dragging you in but then also jumping right at you.' ~ too wordy for my tastes, bordering on pretentious. i rather feel berated with social consciousness, ya know? maybe that's just me....

along those same lines, and containing many more spelling and a few syntax errors:

'Due to the ever increasing population of our world our demand for all naturall resources has increased exponentially. This need has led to world wide shortages in many areas especially fuel, with ever increasing prices as well as demange to our environment.

'Our consumption of oil has usually been one of those concerns that rank highly amongst any environmentalist or even those who are simply concerned with surging prices or current shortages. To try and grasp such an idea in a design solution that at least had the quality we wanted known for became far more challenging than coming up with the idea, thankfully though we feel we have the right blend of both design and idea.' ~ i guess i just don't like feeling as if i'm being preached to (made worse by errors). clearly the attempt of the business is to be socially aware and express those ideals, but i think those who are inclined to buy the shirts already get it, therefore don't need a lecture, and those of us who are just looking for a cool shirt don't necessarily need a lesson in current events (trust me, some of us are quite capable of forming our own opinions). all that is to say that you can encapsulate your philosophy far more easily in an 'about us' (at the top, not at the bottom) and leave out the rest.



i would add a 'home' button at the top that's easy to click on instead of the logo.



as far as the designs go, they're good. i think your demographic will like it. reminds me somewhat of ugmonk, but maybe that's just the overall vibe i'm feeling. the photography is good. standard kind of background, but at least it's real.


in all, a pretty good site in terms of looks, imo. you need a lot of work on the text, especially if you feel the need to pontificate and explain each shirt for a couple of paragraphs. i give it a thumbs up, caveats applicable.

First thanks Ryan for an honest critique that is very appreciated.

For the most part i do agree with you regarding the info of the design, first the spelling and grammar areas really shouldn't be there as i had previously asked someone (who isn't dyslexic like myself) to go through all of text as i knew there could be errors, obviously there is quite a few so all i can do is apologise for that as it is very unprofessional.

Did you feel the About text really superseded the design work and general hierarchy of objects within the page, such as the basket etc?. As i tried to just make it part of the background and make it as inconspicuous as possible but if that isn't the case then maybe that needs revising.

Overall it was something that i did um over and i really didn't know it was the right decision to have them or not. I was more convinced by my programmer rather than anything.

My main concern has always been the quality of the work and if they are just generally good enough, but hopefully that is the case and that shouldn't be so much of a concern.

Thanks.

 

[ryan barker]

i like the product page because it offers a couple extra photos. not a fan of the text, or at least not as it generally stands, but other than that i like it. i'm not necessarily opposed to text, i plan on having a sentence or two when/if i get around to getting to where you're at with a brand, rather the content. i think it was the swirl design (which i believe is why i thought of ugmonk and that ampersand they use) where it seemed to me that you were giving a bit too much information away.

it probably says somewhere what the shirts are made of and i just missed it. typically, people put that info on the product page. i think everyone assumes shirts are screen printed unless otherwise noted, so if you use a different process you should definitely mention that. for example, since the swirl design is so large you may someday want to put in an additive that makes the hand a lot softer, and you would want to mention that. anything that makes the shirt special is something that i would remind the customer of.

i more or less like the designs. one thing you might consider, and it's by no means mandatory, is putting your logo on the shirt. in your case, probably the back.

i'd get a couple more opinions and see where that takes ya.

 

[ryan barker]

epic, i think your site is appropriate for what you sell, which is inexpensive and humourous shirts you would find in a beach shop-style place. my main qualm would be it's hard for me to see the text on some of the wordier shirts without clicking on it. because the humour is something i've seen in many variations (e.g., beer pong champ), i doubt it warrants the *need* for your logo printed on it.

i usually find funny shirt sites that have scores of designs on there, if not hundreds, so i thought it looked a little sparse. then again, it's not very practical to have a couple hundred screens laying about, so i'm guessing most of the larger sites either use dtg or plastisol transfers, not exactly sure. i've wondered about this in passing a couple of times, as i, too, would have more designs/sayings than i have screens for (i'm also noting the shirt templates, which is common, and that means to me that the screens don't necessarily exist until a shirt is ordered. but, since you ship out next business day, i'm guessing the screens are already made).

i found your site pretty easy to navigate and it loaded quickly, which is huge to me when you have umpteen designs.

overall i would say good job.

heh heh, one thing i came up with today you may like. it says 'warning! hula-hooping too fast may be fatal!' and there's a silhouette of a girl who was just cut in half, the flying hula-hoop taking out the top of her friend's head. pretty bad, huh? just the mood i was in, lol. (the favourite thing i did today was 'macho cheese' with a chunk of swiss cheese wearing a mustache.) oddly, i don't come up with much beer stuff like you mostly have, and what little i do have is a little more design oriented. i guess if i sat down and had to bang some out it would be along the lines of 'them's beer drinking words!' or 'it's beer-drinkin' weather' or 'am i still here yet?'

 

[epicdelusion]

epic, i think your site is appropriate for what you sell, which is inexpensive and humourous shirts you would find in a beach shop-style place. my main qualm would be it's hard for me to see the text on some of the wordier shirts without clicking on it. because the humour is something i've seen in many variations (e.g., beer pong champ), i doubt it warrants the *need* for your logo printed on it. ...

Thanks for your time, Ryan, I appreciate the review. We started back in March of this year so a lot of the designs were hasty.. you can find similar shirts ad infinitum. I generally get a negative feeling about what we've done so far.. majority of it had to do with our level of screen printing skills (took us a while to learn registration, etc for multi color shirts). In retrospect I feel like this is all error, not that they're terrible but I can actually design original artwork, I just have a hard time getting it on screens and looking right on shirts.

I think my next move is going to be to gradually phase out the graphic tees beach-shop type prints and concentrate on an actual clothing line that I like.

Cheers buddy, thanks again for the feedback!

 

[ryan barker]

i suck as an artist, but i can think of worse things to do than making someone chuckle because of some dumb thing i printed on a shirt. i attempt a little different style of humour, sometimes along the lines of 'the far side.' i was sitting at the desk a few minutes ago, bored, and decided to see what i could do for a tee titled 'the man shirt.' it doesn't exactly have that philosophical depth i strive for, but, hey, they can't all be winners, can they? lol. besides, it's always the ones you think suck that are the most popular. go figure.

the kind of site you should have needs to fit with your merchandise, of course. ee's lifestyle tees demand a site like he's got. your beer tees in his site's style would just look goofy.

 

[epicdelusion]

i suck as an artist, but i can think of worse things to do than making someone chuckle because of some dumb thing i printed on a shirt. i attempt a little different style of humour, sometimes along the lines of 'the far side.' i was sitting at the desk a few minutes ago, bored, and decided to see what i could do for a tee titled 'the man shirt.' it doesn't exactly have that philosophical depth i strive for, but, hey, they can't all be winners, can they? lol. besides, it's always the ones you think suck that are the most popular. go figure.

the kind of site you should have needs to fit with your merchandise, of course. ee's lifestyle tees demand a site like he's got. your beer tees in his site's style would just look goofy.

Do you have a site? I'd like to check it out. I made three prototypes for brand shirts today, put one up on our facebook fanpage. Probably not going to be as popular as "I love beer", but feel more comfortable doing original designs that I would wear myself. The way EE has designs would look cool with logo on all the sleeves. I'd still do graphic tees, but all original art, with logos.

One problem I've had with doing graphic tees that are so general is that other bands and performers we work with want to sell them too... they want 5 or 10 from me for $5 a piece to sell at their merchant booths. Just doing a beer pong champ for them doesn't do anything for me but take away potential sales. If they bought a bunch of my brand shirts, I wouldn't make as much, but at least it's exposure. What you think?

 

[ryan barker]

being far from a marketing guru of any stripe, i can't tell anyone what's a right or wrong way of getting their name and wares out there, but, to me, if i'm starting out and can get exposure without losing any money, that's a hard thing to say no to (given that you're target market are the ones seeing it ~ selling ee's shirts at a car show would be a bad idea). in the early stages of the game it's hard to know what exactly to do and where and how to do it. it's even difficult to rely on other people's experience b/c you can't know what other factors went into their success or failure. for example, one person may go to a high school football game in the mid-season and sell-out, while someone else went to homecoming and the first game and couldn't give them away. what you may not know is the guy that sold all his shirts had an incredible product while the other guy, who did all the 'right' things, had a generic product he over-priced. if the only example you're given advice on is the guy with the generic product, you'd think never to try selling at high school football games.

how likely is it that those shirts you're selling on-site and mostly for someone else's benefit would result in a sale from your website? i would say it's not terribly likely that you're losing out on tons of sales, but the idea is that they would hopefully visit your site as a result. i assume that the cost to the customer is the same, so as far as they're concerned it makes no difference where they buy it.

you've come across the same problem every single screen printer has had or will have, being approached by someone (typically a band) that wants you to make something for them that they can resell. and invariably they want a deal so they can make a couple of bucks and want you do be some kind of 'partner' or have a 'relationship,' all of which is another way of saying, 'hey, man, can you cut us a break?' i swear, if i specialized in nothing more than making shirts for bands for cheap, i would probably corner the market, lol.

ee's logo would look great on the sleeve, too, i agree. i love stuff on the sleeve. it makes me feel like i'm a captain in the peruvian air force. still, i think it's another one of those 'what's appropriate' kind of deals, and my instinct is to put the logo on the back when it comes to this type of shirt. of course, i could be wrong, and the nice thing is you can put your logo anywhere you want. when/if i do my own brand, the logo will just be anywhere i want and in a variety of styles, sometimes incorporated into the design itself. indeed, the logo would change so often that i'm not sure if i would bother with trademarking anything other than the 'official' logo i would use for the inside tag.

no, i don't have a site. that's something the wife and i have bandied about for a long time and a passing snippet of an argument. our priority for a site would be to have a trophy and awards site, which is our bread and butter. shirts are meant to be a natural supplement to that part of our business. as i write this, she's in columbus taking some classes at the ISS show, and she's learning a lot of stuff that is really exciting her, hopefully to the point where she'll be more open to looking at my designs. as it stands, we're not on the same page with screen printing, unfortunately. while i'm totally cool with us doing simple work-to-order stuff for concrete companies and churches, i want to also design things with some creativity. the issue stems with her not liking my designs... until someone mentions 'that's cool, i want one when you make it!' i say all that because it's hard to have a spouse involved in what you want to do when it comes to unproven creativity. if they don't have the faith in you and your designs, they can make you hesitant to try new things. so, if your wife is on board with what you're doing and is supportive of it, consider yourself very lucky that she's offering praise and encouragement even if you feel she's just saying it to make you feel good. some of us should be so lucky, lol.

anyway, were it me, i would probably weigh the costs of going on-site. if i felt reasonably sure i wouldn't lose my shirt (no pun intended), i might consider it. if nothing else, it would be fun. and you might get some great feedback and honest marketing research out of it.

that people get this far with their dream is impressive to me, probably because i know what goes into it. a customer, however, could care less, which is why we have to be so hard on our product and our sites as it has to stand up to brutal, bare-fisted punishment. when i do my site, i know it'll be a disaster at first... and it'll be revenge time for some people, lol. and that's something i want. while it feels good to be placated by friends and family, someone needs to be around to burst some balloons lest we put out a terrible product like 'star wars: the phantom menace.' *shivers*

 

[Fbomb]

I was gonna say you should include a graphic of the shirt design in your gallery...Then I saw the "Close Up" and "Size Chart"...Those two tabs are pretty hidden and the font is spaced too close. I would do something to make them more visible, maybe red tabs with a black outline(?). Other than that, looks pretty good!

...Maybe speed up your home page slideshow a bit.