Printerview with Amorphia Apparel on SpreadShirt
This is the first of a series of "printerviews" -- a way to get to know the ins and outs of one of the many print-to-order services first-hand from the people who have tried it out. Since a lot of us Wooters are pretty new at this, I'm starting this series with an interview with a pro -- Jeremy Kalgreen of
Amorphia-Apparel and
WearScience. You might have seen his shop as a side deal on Woot or seen some of his designs featured in many shops and blogs. Here's some questions and answers about him, his site, and
SpreadShirt.
Printer Stats (cheapest shirt / cheapest dark shirt / shipping prices)
$8.90 (
$5.90 +
$3) / $11.90 ($5.90 + $6 for dark shirts) /
$4.99. Prices are for Direct-To-Garment printing. Plot printing starts at the $8.90 price for a single color and goes up from there.
How'd you get into t-shirt designing?
Quite by accident. Once upon a time, for reasons I don’t clearly remember, I decided I didn't want to wear any clothing with any messages on it that I didn't put there myself. I’m not one of those zealous ‘Adbusters’ anti-capitalist types, it just seemed like a fun project. So for giggles I started printing single copy silk-screened shirts for my own personal use. Well, despite the fact I found it fun, I was bloody terrible at it and eventually decided to try out one of these on-line custom shirt websites I had been hearing about. Originally the plan was just to upload some images and make a single copy of each shirt for myself then forget about it, so I just took some of my existing silkscreen designs and vectorized and uploaded them.
A few days before placing my order I ended up having some car problems that left me unwilling to blow any cash splurging on custom shirts. Since I had already put the effort into uploading my designs it seemed like a shame to abandon the project altogether, so I set my shop to public. In the back of my head I figured I might sell a shirt every once in a blue moon and that would be totally flattering in itself. I couldn't imagine selling more then one or two a month, and I certainly didn't imagine it would become a real source of income. As it turns out even before I made a ‘real’ shop front there seemed to be a bit of interest in my designs, so I decided “What the hell, I might as well try and make it look like a real store” but I still didn't think I’d get more then $20-30 a month.
Well I was wrong, and now between direct sales through the website and my licensing deals, t-shirts are my primary source of income.
Have you done any t-shirt competitions?
Actually I did once, in the Spreadshirt Derby I submitted my "I Regret Nothing" design. I don't think I got the most votes, but someone at the top of the food chain liked the design enough that I got the cash and the design made it to the printers anyways. It was right when I was starting out, and it certainly felt good to get such positive feedback (and the extra cash!) early on. However in the future I'll be a lot more careful about what I'd enter into a contest like that. I'm a lot less willing to sign away any rights on my designs since there is so much potential money in licensing your stuff out to a third party. In this particular case I've had a number of offers from people wanting to license "I Regret Nothing" but have had to turn them down, since I gave exclusive rights to Spreadshirt as a part of the contest. That's not to say I'd never do another, I'd just be careful about what I'm willing to swap for some fast cash.
How long have you had your shop?
I opened
Amorphia-Apparel February 2006. And then my new baby
WearScience just went live in late October if I recall correctly.
Could you give me a ball-park number of how many shirts you sell?
I sell somewhere around 1,600 a month, but the bulk of that comes from my third party licensing. So only a fraction of those are direct sales through my websites. On the other hand I make significantly more per shirt direct, so it's still an important source of income.
How did you arrange third party licensing? Did people contact you when they saw your shirts or did you do something to shop them around?
I actually just received an e-mail out of the blue from a representative of Chaser Merchandise asking if I'd be interested in making a deal. I honestly have no idea how he happened across my website in the first place, and naturally I assumed it was just someone blowing smoke, but I after hearing that the offer was non-exclusive and allowed me to retain the rights on my work I figured I really had nothing to lose.
Is there an example of where else your shirts could be bought or seen to see what that looks like?
Well the big seller, Moon Militia, is only in the brick and mortar Urban Outfitter stores. But here an example of one they have at
Nordstrom's that is available on-line.
How long did it take for things to start to take off after you started the shop?
I'd say a good two months after I opened before I started getting picked up by various blogs and the word began to spread. It started a sort of domino effect and things just sort of played out on their own since then.
Any advice to people opening up print-to-order shops?
Well my goal was to try and make a shirt shop I felt proud of, and that I felt represented my personal tastes. So I say forget about trying to pander to your audience, trying to jump onto whatever bandwagon seems like a sure way to make a quick buck. Instead make shirts you personally would wear, and then the rest is just trying to find more people like you. So basically you don't need to reinvent the wheel, but at least develop your own style instead of looking at what other people have been successful at and trying to ape that.
Any comments on print quality?
I think in the print-on-demand world nothing matches the quality of plot printing. I have shirts I've washed over 50 times, and the design still looks as good as the day I got it in the mail. I just can't say the same about the other POD printing methods I've experimented with. Of course the trade off is that you have to design around the size and color limitations of the format, but that is a deal I'm willing to make.
Any other kudos or complaints about SpreadShirt?
I think Spreadshirt is wonderful. It was actually quite shocking to me, especially at first, to find out that there really was a company like this online that wasn't trying to screw you over. They are totally on the level, no tricks, no fine print, wonderful flexibility, great service -- the whole bag.
