1. Business T-shirt
2. Inspirational T-shirt
3. Music T-shirt
4. Techno Life T-shirt

A survey conducted revealed that more than 90% Americans have a ‘favorite T shirt’ which may be funny tshirts, or graphic tees or one from any number of different kinds of tee shirt design. The color white is apparently the most favored color of T shirt, closely followed by blue and black.

A majority of Americans own more than 10 t shirts each, making that over one and a half billion tees! Apparently if you line them up, they would circle the globe 34 times! It isn’t just the younger people who have lots of t shirts, older people also like t shirts almost as much, with the number one reason for loving their tees cited by people as being Comfort.

T shirts have always been a way of making a statement or a protest. The Hippie movement relied on the t shirt to make a statement thru their distinctive tie and dye, batik and psychedelic tees. Message tees have been popular since the 1970s when Americans were looking to make a protest statement against the Vietnam War.

Among celebrities who have looked to making a sartorial statement through their tees, Britney Spears and her screen printed tees immediately come to mind. She has been seen sporting a tee saying “Soon to be Mrs. Federline” and “I am the American Dream.” Then with ex, Justin Timberlake, dating Cameron Diaz, she appeared with a tee saying “Dump Him”! At the premiere of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory a pregnant Ms Spears was spotted with a custom tank top that said “I have the Golden Ticket” with and arrow pointing down to her belly.

Tees are also a way for celebrities to sway political opinion among people, with A-listers often sporting t shirts that declare their allegiance to one or other candidate and even encouraging people to vote with the words “Vote or Die” emblazoned on t shirts of celebrities such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Jay-Z, Paris Hilton, and Ashton Kutcher.

The untailored trend is a popular one among tees, with Lindsay Lohan, Hillary Duff, and other teen icons setting t-shirt trends by wearing tees that have the collar missing or the bottom shortened or with the designer distressed or frayed look. Couture tees from Adam Saaks are considered works of art and favored by celebrities such as Pink, Jennifer Lopez and Lil’ Kim.

This high visibility of the stars with their customized tees makes people more inclined to wear their own custom t-shirts which they can design themselves or customize as per their own tastes and requirements. For this reason, sites offering people the options of designing or customizing their own t shirts or holding tshirt design contests are gaining tremendous popularity.

Participate in a tshirt design contest and win cash prizes. Design t shirts and submit to InkFruit. If your design wins, it will be mass produced by us with your name on the tag. Companies can also order corporate t shirts for events.

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In addition to that, having a custom t-shirt business on the internet is more cost-effective and easier to do. However, you still have to do your homework when it comes to setting up one, even if it is online.

You still have to include planning and market research for your custom t-shirts. It does not matter if it’s a short plan or a lengthy plan. Having a plan is better that not having one at all. You need to know which direction you will be taking your business.

With your internet custom t-shirt business, you must determine how much you will charge for your custom made t-shirts. You’ll have to do some comparison pricing on other custom t-shirt websites to see how theirs are priced. That doesn’t mean you have to price yours the same.

There are other things you have to consider, such as, are you in the same market as they are with your custom t-shirts? They might be doing something different. There may be strong demand and people are willing to pay those prices.

It may be custom made t-shirts that are unique and can’t be found anywhere else but that online custom t-shirt retailer. Unique clothing also attracts a strong demand from customers.

Conduct surveys and look through trade publications to see what the market wants right now. It may not be the right time for the custom t-shirt that you want to sell. Just because you have an idea it doesn’t always mean it’s going to fly.

As you refine your business plan, you must continue to do some research on your competitors. Who are they? What kind of designs to they have? What can I do to make my custom t-shirts stand out? What kind of marketing strategies are they using?

Those are the questions you should try to answer for yourself. Using the internet, use the search engines to do your research on different custom t-shirt websites. You may want to do family reunion t-shirts.

Then you would type in family reunion t-shirts and see what the results are. How many other websites do you see that are into this line of custom t-shirts, a few hundred, a few thousand? Find out what kind of internet traffic they’re getting.

After looking at the results, you feel that you have a shot, then you’ll have to find some way to make your custom t-shirt business unique. The key word here is unique. If you don’t try to do something on a different style than your competitors, you’ll probably lose out and lose your business too.

You will also determine how much inventory you will start off with. You don’t need to have an overload that will just sit in your bedroom somewhere. Start off with a certain amount, see how sales go and take it from there. If you’re having brisk sales, then you can probably add an extra batch to your order of t-shirts.

One important thing to remember: just because your sales are good, does not give you the license to spend everything. Some of that money will have to be reinvested in purchasing more t-shirts and other accessories needed for the business. So, you may want to wait a while before you purchase your first real designer bag or coat.

About John K. Vincent
John K. Vincent is an award-winning writer, including by not limited to, the topic of Custom T Shirts, and has provided useful information to hundreds of content driven websites. * For more information on custom shirts, please visit: http://www.sonicshack.com

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The next question that might come to your mind can be how to make my own T-shirt? Well don’t worry and just read on. The following points will surely help you in designing your own T-shirt.

1. There are various ways you can make a normal T-shirt into your exclusive T-shirt. The first one can be to buy a normal plain T-shirt of any color you want to and then write on it a personal message. There are various colors that will serve the purpose of writing it permanently without being washed off while washing. If you want to personalize each and every part of it then read the next point.

2. If you are good at designing then it will be quite easy for you. Design the layout of your T-shirt and contact the local tailor. Provide him with the material and ask him to stitch it of your measurement. Then think of a tag line which you want on your T-shirt and get it printed on the T-shirt by ordering it to a local printer. This can be one of the most effective ways.

3. If you are lacking with ideas for your T-shirt then you can find thousands of websites which are ready to give you some ideas. They will provide you with whole lot of ideas for designing a T-shirt.
4. If you are not able to find any printer in your area which will serve your purpose, then you can find help from the internet in this case as well.

Designing your own T-shirt will be the best option if you cannot afford those branded expensive stuff but still wish to wear something exclusive.

Fashion Couture : http://www.dscouture.com

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You can set up an account at a print on demand T-shirt website for free. You then set up “stores” or “galleries” at that site. Printfection and Zazzle let you open stores for free. An equivalent, “premium” store at CafePress costs about $60 a year, pretty much pocket change, a month’s coffee money.

To create your designs, you need an image editor. The GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) is available free and has as much power as you would ever need.

Your image editor may have a steep learning curve. A powerful enough image editor — powerful enough for you to grow with — is complex enough so that you might get lost in its intricacies when you’re just starting out. At this point you may find it worthwhile to pay for a book on how to use it, another couple of weeks’ coffee money.

You don’t need to be artistic — some text-only designs sell well. You don’t need to be clever with words – some false, blunt, unwitty slogans sell. You need only express the feelings and attitudes of your customers.

You need to attract people to your Web T-shirt shop. You need to know what keywords they are searching for and how many pages are competing to attract them with those keywords. You want the most people searching and the fewest pages competing. This information is available free through Google’s keyword tool and the Google search page. At WordTracker, you can pay $60 per month to save time and effort, or $27.50 per month if you buy their service by the year.

You’ll want to advertise your site, but you had better be careful. The markup on any T-shirt, the amount you get when one is sold, is in the $1-$3 range, and most customers buy only one. You cannot afford to pay very much for any customer you attract your site. Fortunately there are places to advertise for free on the Web.

What you most want though, is for your site to end up on page one of the search engine results for the search terms your customers are using. For that you need quality back links, that is links pointing to your website from other quality websites. The best way to get quality back links is to post useful information online containing links back to your shop. There are several ways that you can give away information on the net: through your blog or ezine, posting comments at blogs and forums, writing articles (such as this) for ezines, putting up pages at Squidoo and HubPages…

Nothing that is required to set up a print-on-demand T-shirt shop costs much. You can do it all for free, if you know how to. Tee shirt shops require mostly time and knowing what to do.

If you think you might want to set up shop, you’re invited to get more information on how to sell shirts online. Get a free copy of the Overview Chapter of a new book by Thomas Christopher. Prof. Christopher resigned tenure to write books and lecture on topics from computer languages to human word play. He loves word-play on T-shirts.

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As styles come and go – only to become reinvented by designers once again, loads of styles and designs of t-shirts these days are actually inspired by pasty styles especially from the ’80s and ’90s. While the ’90s influence can be clearly seen through the minimalist and grunge look, the ‘80 inspired t-shirt styles can be clearly seen on the cropped t-shirts, oversized shirts, and neon/graffiti designed shirts that seemed to become a very popular style even with high street brands.

Given that people have become more fashion savvy these, even men, designers and clothing brands have certainly become more creative with churning out cutting-edge t-shirt designs that will catch the attention of consumers especially given the stiff competition going on right now when it comes to being the best in fashion.

If you want to get truly creative with designing your own t-shirts, there are now loads of ways for you to be able to get your designs onto your shirts. Freehand drawings can now be converted into stencils that can be printed onto t-shirts while some artists prefer to sew on sequins, beads and other unique decorations that easily glam up a simple shirt. Believe it or not, t-shirts with sparkly and bold designs are actually very popular right now – not only are these very fashionable and trendy but t-shirt lovers can easily mix and match these with other garments in their closets that can make use of t-shirts for both daytime and nighttime looks. It’s actually a very “in” thing to do especially with celebrities and models sporting the cool t-shirt look every chance they get. In fact, some celebrities have also started to come out with their own designs and t-shirt lines which have mostly proven to become a big hit among fans and fashion stalwarts alike.

T-shirt designs these days have definitely come a long way from the very casual tops that have been popularized years back as the ultimate clothing of choice for casual dressing. If in case the current styles and designs of t-shirts that are currently available still fails to impress your personal style preference, then you can do your own designs yourself. Remember, the only limit here is your creativity. Craft stores are chuck-full of various items that you can use to design your shirts plus deconstruction is actually very popular among the stylish lot as well. This is a popular practice when it comes to styling boring plain tees and oversized band shirts. The trick here is just let your imagination run free and don’t limit yourself to what others will think as stylish but more on what you would actually like to wear.

Are you looking for the best t-shirt designs at a very low price? Visit http://www.tshirts-gifts.com today and find anything and everything you are looking for!

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The T-shirt industry came into existence during WWI, as the returning American troops introduced the lightweight cotton undershirt worn at the time only by European soldiers. In comparison to the wool uniforms the US Navy and Army soldiers had to wear, this piece of garment allowed the skin to breathe and provided a cooling sensation when worn; especially in hot summer days and nights. Due to its simple, button-less, collar-less and pocket-less design, the shirt introduced by the US Navy in 1913, quickly became known as the “T-shirt,” since it covered most of a person’s torso. By 1920, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary included the word T-shirt in its English language version and during WWII it has become a standard undergarment for US and European soldiers.

But the tremendous appeal of this piece of clothing and the actual boom of the T-shirt industry is mainly attributed to the movies. Worn by the big screen movie stars of the 50s, the masses were accustomed to the idea of wearing such a lightweight garment above their bare skin without another shirt on top. Actors like John Wayne, Marlon Brando and James Dean wore T-shirts on movies as well as on national syndicated television. Although shocked at first, the US public quickly endorsed this clothing item and as sales skyrocketed it was apparent that the T-shirt had become one major success-story of the twentieth century fashion history. In fact, T-shirts made their way through the political landscape of the time when in 1948 Thomas E. Dewey and in 1952 Dwight D. Eisenhower used them in their promotional campaigns with the printed logos “Dew It for Dewey” and “I Like Ike” respectively.

The youthful, anti-establishment attitude of James Dean in “Rebel Without a Cause,” took an unexpected twist when T-shirts were reintroduced in the 1960s and 1970s as a symbol of youth and rebellion during women’s sexual revolution. Later, T-shirts became personal billboards, carrying names, logos, phrases, famous quotes, anecdotes, wishes and all kinds of printed messages. Due to its inexpensive and stylish nature, the T-shirt created a multibillion dollars industry, expanding from Rock and Roll bands to athletes and construction workers. In fact, the T-shirt became a commodity item in the apparel industry marking generations, attitudes and personal lifestyles.

Comfortable, casual, and always in style, the T-shirt has now entered cyberspace and is created, bought and sold via online stores all across the globe. As the new millennium brought information age one step closer to the masses, T-shirt varieties will continue to be produced and worn in different occasions carrying diverse themes anywhere in the world. From war protestors to busy family men the jersey stitch of cotton and/or polyester fibers of contemporary T-shirt is here to stay.

John Gibb is the owner of T-shirt resources For more information on T-Shirts check out http://www.t-shirt-info-and-guides.info

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There are some fantastic shops online which allow you to pick from a selection of t-shirts designs. Pictures of your favourite cartoon characters, celebrities or a name of a favourite movie can be displayed on the front of your t shirt. It has become extremely fashionable in the last few years to create your own T-shirts.

You can design your own t shirt through online websites. Many offer this facility and guide you through a simple process. You can choose to have a picture uploaded or have a message printed on your t shirt, you can customize it in anyway you like.

T-shirts can be used to show your support for a particular campaign. Marc Jacobs designed a t shirt to show his support and raise awareness against skin cancer. He asked seven celebrities to pose naked for these T-shirts, with the slogan “Protect the Skin You’re In”. There are T-shirts to raise awareness of Autism, one slogan reads, “Support, Educate, Advocate, Love, Autism”. There are lots of campaigns for which we can purchase a t shirt to show our support.

T-shirts can also be used as a promotional tool. For example, companies wishing to become better known can have T-shirts printed with a company name and logo to advertise their business. Companies can give these T-shirts away with products, which will help to raise awareness of the company, hopefully generating future earnings.

T-shirts are a staple item of clothing for men, women and children.

Visit my site to see the latest T-shirts and clothing for women, men and children from various online retailers.

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CafePress has 6.5 million members who each have their own online storefront – a webpage – where people can buy their stuff.

CafePress is popular because there are no upfront fees or manufacturing costs and basic membership is free.

Each member uploads their own customized design and then selects some, or all, of the stock merchandise for it to be made available on.

There is a very wide range of items that you put your design on, from hats, t-shirts and hoodies, tank tops, kids’ clothes, clothing for pets, cards, mugs and more. Browse the site’s catalogue for ideas and to preview a design on any product.

While their wholesale prices may be higher than other t-shirt printing companies, they do use American Apparel brand clothing. The key benefit is that there is no minimum product order – you can order fifty t-shirts on behalf of a group, or just one for yourself.

Because there is no minimum product order or membership fee, you can upload and offer for sale as many designs as you like without any financial risk. For a small monthly fee you can go beyond a basic shop and build a large virtual store fully stocked with your creations and branded with your colors and design.

The wholesale prices for each item are set and you determine the retail price, keeping the difference from every sale. All sales are transacted securely on CafePress’ servers, and customers pay reasonable shipping costs.

Making Money

As with launching any other business, you need to determine how you will generate sales. Bulk orders offer higher profit margins and can be lucrative, especially if the shirts have been pre-sold to a group or company. Many people have developed profitable businesses selling corporate promotional items made by print-on-demand companies.

While CafePress does have a searchable online catalogue of all products in its database, there is no guarantee that many people will discover your designs this way.

How will you drive traffic to your site? Publicity and word of mouth are the fastest options, provided people know where to find your designs. Viral marketing (which is basically word of mouth online) is great for online sales because if people like what they see, they can immediately place their order with just a few clicks.

If you anticipate the majority of your sales occurring online, you might want to buy a domain name (for about $10) and then redirect it to your store’s CafePress webpage. We recommend the redirect because then you can use a short, catchy www address that will be easier to publicize and remember.

If it’s appropriate, we recommend letting people know where the shirt came from by incorporating a website address into the graphic. This can help your business gain momentum as more and more people comment on the shirts, some of whom will then visit your online store. Choosing good descriptive keywords for your descriptions will help the major search engines find your webpage.

CafePress also offers help, tips, and even an online community to help you learn how to more effectively design and sell your products.

Bryan Pickell
Knowledge is profitable!
Learn how to make money doing what you love.
http://www.how-to-sell-information-online.com

Do you know the top 9 reasons to become an infopreneur?
Find out here:  http://www.how-to-sell-information-online.com/infopreneur-benefits.html

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But web surfers are a massive market and it is possible to tap into them if you cut through the waffle and understand some simple concepts. Traditional business models require a process which acts roughly like this: Manufacturer-Wholesaler-Retailer-Customer, meaning there are three levels looking for a profit margin. If you can amalgamate the manufacturer/wholsaler/retailer role into one you can increase profit levels by decreasing product price or by increasing customer numbers. The joy is that you don’t have to spend anything, unless you want to, thus reducing your expenditure and increasing your profits. This is where the internet really comes into its own, because it provides not only a source of customers, but also the means to identify customers and enormous amounts of help in producing digital product.

This article looks at a product you can successfully sell on the internet – t-shirt transfer designs, but don’t worry, you don’t have to be a brilliant artist to create this product.

First and foremost – use the internet. Search engines will tell you what people are buying, auction sites will tell you who the customers are, where they live and their buying patterns.

As I said earlier, you don’t have to Leonardo Da Vinci to get into this business. One of my best friends is a talented artist and graphic designers who runs a successful company and laughs at my efforts in the field. But t-shirt designs are rarely about great art. They are about impact and making a statement. and here’s the proof. Open a word processor and type FRANKIE SAYS RELAX in a bold, san serif type. Centre the text and increase the font size till it fills the page. That’s it, you’ve created a t-shirt design, ready to be printed onto transfer paper and ironed onto a t-shirt.

Don’t believe me? Frankie Says Relax is one of the biggest selling t-shirt transfer designs on eBay (at least in the UK) and that’s a design from the 80s, so you don’t even have to be original or creative. I know this for a fact because I’ve sold this design on that site.

With selling transfer designs you have three options – sell the design digitally, sell the design printed on transfer paper, or sell the design ironed onto a shirt. I chose the second option as my main focus because I want the least amount of hassle and eBay doesn’t allow the selling of digital products. When I started I printed and sold physical shirts at a local market but this involved me in capital expenditure to buy the blank shirts, transfer paper and printer ink, and in time expenditure in printing the shirts, ironing them and standing at a market stall. Not my best business decision.

But ebay aren’t the only game in town. Punch ‘auction websites’ into a search engine and you’ll find many more. Not as popular maybe, but they’re there and many of them allow you to sell digital products. Some even specialise in it.

When you go beyond simple text-based designs there are many freeware programs available to download for free which, with a little imagination, allow you to create perfectly acceptable designs. Even a simple one-liner joke done in an an attractive colour and font (freely downloadable, use search engine) is perfectly acceptable as a design. As you gain experience you can experiment with backgrounds and design elements, but don’t go overboard, the best designs are remarkably simple. Free graphics software is available to download. Use that search engine! Check what other people are doing, and what’s selling, but don’t copy others’ content, just take inspiration from it. Try to create designs for the whole market – old/young, male/female etc. even if it concerns things you aren’t really interested in. Again, let the search engines tell you what’s popular.

But to maximise the profit from your design you should make it available in as many forms as possible. Here’s how I do it-

(a) Digitally. As part of a designs collection in pdf format. To do this insert several designs into one document and convert to pdf via one of the many free pdf conversion programs available. Sell through tradebit.com Joining is free and you get a royalty of 75% of retail. You could also use lulu.com

(b) Printed transfer. Through eBay and my own website. This costs to set up obviously, especially the website. On a daily basis you’ll be paying for transfer paper, printer ink, envelopes, postage and eBay fees. But it makes a profit and I regard it more as a method of advertising than anything else.

(c) Printed shirt. Through zazzle. Again, free to join, and the designer can define what royalty they want from designs they have submitted.

This business method is never going to make you fabulously rich, but it can give you a long term cash feed. Especially with digital product, which is likely to be there till hell freezes over and give you a passive income when you’re old and grey, which in my case is next week. The more designs you create, the more you can make. This is a simple numbers game. Matching your brilliant design to the discerning customer who wants to buy it isn’t easy, so the more designs you have out there the better chance you have. It doesn’t take long to create a design (I can easily manage 5 a day) so aim for hundreds if not thousands.

The trick of this business is to minimise expenditure and maximise exposure and the internet, God bless its digital soul, allows you to do that. Use it.

For examples of Gurmeet Mattu’s t-shirt designs please visit his website at http://www.scriptschool.co.uk

From the site you can also access a service which allows you to sell digital content such as t-shirt transfer designs. It is free to join and gives you a 75% royalty on your sales. Please have a project ready to upload (text or graphics, usually as a pdf) when you register. I would suggest this is an alternative or addition to selling printed designs on auction sites.

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