IDEA #18 – Custom Music/Sports T-Shirts

By Steve Poland • February 14, 2007

If you’re into music or concerts (particularly hard rock), you’ve been to Hot Topic. They sell tons of band “swag” (fancy term for shirts, etc). But how many of those shirts do I want? None this past weekend — but I’m sure kids are buying them, because they have no other choice if they want to show their love (by way of a t-shirt) for a band. But the massive explosion of MySpace shows us that individuality is key — kids want to personalize their web space (and themselves). They want unique — and that’s what the bands and sports teams should provide them.

Bands/Artists/Sports Teams would provide an inventory of logos, artwork, photos, fonts, and a web-based tool that users could use to then create custom t-shirts. The printer, band, and user would all receive revenues from the sales — or maybe the user doesn’t get money, but rather they receive perks from the band (free concert tickets, their designed shirt, etc., based on sales goals). Heck, prior to an artist’s tour — do this, have kids create shirts, find the best ones, and then have THOSE printed and sold at your concerts (or sports events).

Provide the kiddies with widget embeds that they can post in their MySpace pages and let them promote the heck out of their creation — give a grand prize to the fan that sells the most. Maybe this embed also promotes the artist’s latest CD and latest concert tour dates.

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Comments

7 Responses to “IDEA #18 – Custom Music/Sports T-Shirts”

rulepark on February 14th, 2007 11:22 pm (perm link)

SOCIAL METACAFE style?
Craig on February 15th, 2007 6:24 am (perm link)

Love it – in fact, we’re already on it. I run a “design your own” tshirt service in the UK and we’re currently working on a widget so users can publicise their designs on other websites and get a commission if a purchase is made. Be good to hook into bands/sports teams though to give users a library of artwork to use.. we’ll need to explore this!
Stuart on February 15th, 2007 6:48 am (perm link)

Goodstorm recently launched one of these – article was on Tech Crunch a couple of weeks ago…
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/01/29/goodstorm-launches-a-flash-tshirt-maker/
Steve Whitlam on February 15th, 2007 8:58 am (perm link)

TShirts are dear to my heart, I love em. I’d play with this tool if it was ‘Wii easy’. That is, I don’t have to learn how to do it. I just build it like building a WiiMee by dropping things onto the blank shirt and playing around.

Essentially the technical side of this would be as easy as providing a bunch of high res print friendly clip art for your band. It would be the licencing that would be a killer. That said, I could see myself becoming VERY poor following a brief addiction to this kind of site.
Steve Poland on February 15th, 2007 10:10 am (perm link)

Yeah, Goodstorm should look to partner with bands/sports teams.
The Man on February 15th, 2007 3:13 pm (perm link)

Isnt that a service that http://www.cafepress.com could provide? as well as Goodstorm and others.
Hoodie Clothing on August 23rd, 2009 6:42 pm (perm link)

If I could get this tool I will definitely integrate for my own use. T shirt business is a growing market