[wearelove]

Hi guys,

I've spent a good several months of my spare time designing and building the new We Are Love website. I've plowed all my knowledge of things that I have learnt from the digital/marketing agency I work for into redoing it and trying to make my message clear. Now I'm coming to you guys to see if I hit the nail on the head or have missed the mark anywhere...

So please have a look, and let me know your honest thoughts.

https://www.we-are-love.com/

Regards,
Jason S

 

[GHEENEE1]

I think you could make the Tee's for charity a larger font, maybe a more contrasting color for the Tee's for charity. I didn't look at it long. Is that the clear you meant?

 

[wearelove]

@GHEENEE1 - thanks for the feedback! Yes, that is one part in it. There are obviously a few messages the homepage tries to cover but that is one of them so thank you

 

[tcrowder]

All in all I like the website. Easy to navigate, nice and simple(meaning not too much junk to sift through).

I don't care at all for the charity angle though. Most people would rather pay less for the shirt and donate to whom ever THEY wish to donate to. It always looks as though you are "using" the "charity" to boost sales.

 

[wearelove]

@tcrowder - Thank you for your feedback. I'm very interested in your comments about the charity side of things. It would be very easy for me to take the donations out of the price, then I could also take shipping out of the price and bam, there you have a $21 tee, much more affordable and in line with what people in the US are paying. I would probably sell a stack more t-shirts and as the profit margin hasn't changed I could make the same amount of money.

However, I would NEVER EVER do that for 1 simple reason. The whole purpose of the brand is to raise funds for charity. That's why it's called We Are Love, not We Are Another Tshirt Company... It's why the brand exists. For people that know me they are aware I haven't poured all the money into the company in the hope of making a stack of money back, it's purely and simply about giving to charity and encouraging others to give as well. I founded the company after my friend with bi-polar almost ended her own life. I couldn't fathem why such a happy person would want to do such a thing. If a simple illness like bi-polar could end your life for no reason, I wanted to do something about it and help create awareness for the severity of the illness.

Your feedback is interesting though as maybe I need to get that message across a bit more, so thank you!

Regards,
Jason S

 

[tcrowder]

Jason,

I understand why you are doing what you do. My point was simply, most people don't care about the things that you and I feel are important. I support our military members and families with a lot of the proceeds from my web sales. If you didn't have my views as far as supporting our military, it might very well put you off from buying from my site. Most people unless they know you and your situation could be put off by the charity slant. I never would say you were doing it to make more profits and if it came across that way, I apologize.

I wish you the very best of success with your venture.

 

[Hegemone]

You will need to spend a lot of time documenting your out reach activities. Otherwise I fear that tcrowder is very correct. Move your blog from tumbler and on to your domain. Install Wordpress on your host with a subdominant of something like blog.we-are-love.com. Not a fan of the animation but over all looks sharp. I would hire a graphic designer to make you some more complex or interesting designs. The ones you have are sharp but basic and a little dull unless you know what the cause is. You need to shoot actual products, mock-ups make you seem less legit and more fly by nite. Again you will benefit from being active in the community and documenting it. You need personal testimonials and lots of cheer leading.

My two cents toss them in a well and make a wish.

 

[wearelove]

@tcrowder - Appreciate the feedback. We do support 5 charities all for different causes and people have the option to choose one of the 5 and we will be introducing more causes in the future. So in that respect we do have a wide spread. However I do get your point, and it's interesting to get that kind of feedback. A recent pop up brand has had huge success in this market, check them out, they called sevenly. There is a market for it, it's just about finding them and reaching them I have a lot of work to get to where sevenly is, but the model can work.

@Hegemone - Thank for the feedback. I've started spending a lot of time on social media in the last week or so to push our charitability. I have thought similar about the blog, the tumblr needs updating regardless of what's happening as I haven't touched it for a year and it has the old branding, and hasn't been presenting the right messages. I will get to that though...
In terms of the tees, we keep them very deliberately simple, that's our style, it's not for everyone, but in my opinion there is not enough simple designs out there. Everyone is trying to do complex tee designs, and we really don't want to go down that path. The shots on the site are of the actual products too, we photographed them on a green screen then deep etched them.
Thanks again for your feedback, some very valid points in there!

Regards,
Jason S

 

[GHEENEE1]

I couldn't place it yesterday. The We Are with the swoosh, reminds me of the Capital One credit card logo.

 

[Hegemone]

That explains the look. Green screen never looks correct to me for some reason. I can pretty much always find the examples. I totally understand you drive for simplicity but there is a big difference between minimalist and simple. In your designs all I see is a Sanserif font and a heart. There is nothing that draws the eye in or demonstrates the uniqueness of your brand. I don't like the uber complex swirly **** shirts either. They are all over the department stores and look cheap. All things said and done you are building a brand and until you flood the market with your brand and find a way to gain name recognition your shirts are 1 in a million. You don't do yourself any favors by not finding a way to incorporate that mission into the graphic some how. Most merchandising efforts begin with an established effort that is well publicized with the merchandise coming after.

Your final hurdle is that you are not a documented non-profit so you have a long way to go to get people who question your legitimacy and motives. These are all very difficult problems above and beyond the everyday difficulty of marketing. I wish you the best of luck and lookforward to seeing how this all works out for your brand.

 

[wearelove]

@GHEENEE1 - Haha, that particular tee was designed as part of a competition we ran last year where we got designers from around the world to design a new t-shirt to be printed as part of this collection. People then voted on which tee they wanted to see printed, and that was it. We sold many tees by running that competion.

@Hegemone - Thank you for this. The designs will evolve over time naturally, our key designs have all received great feedback thus far (that's the side tee and the disc tee). All of this is no easy feet as you mention. There is a lot of trial and error in terms of marketing and finding what people want and a lot of issues when you involve charities. I'm working hard to find the right mix, so when I find it, the rest shall follow.