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For a lot of people, T-shirts are a form of communication and what you wear can be as effective in expressing your lifestyle as your conversation, the places you visit and the music you like.
But the value of the printed T-shirt goes much further than that. In Australia, a young man who had been unemployed as a graphic designer for over a year was hired after the CEO of a design company saw him wearing a T-shirt he’d designed himself, on the street. There are many ways of promoting yourself, your business or your belief system through printed clothing and it can be as effective as taking out an advert in your local paper!
If you or one of your friends is a talented artist but struggles to get exhibitions or commissions, a short run of their most attractive or striking design, printed on a T-shirt, can draw public attention as well as validating their talent and making them feel that they are valued. If you are the artist, why not try to get half a dozen of your paintings, sculptures, photographs etc printed on T-shirts, and wear them to public events – many people find it difficult to promote themselves but if you’re wearing your art on your chest, it can be much easier to find a way to open the conversation about your work and maybe even make a sale or win a commission.
T-shirt printing is a cost-effective way to test the waters if you want to move into the creative industries. You don’t have to rent a shop and hire staff so the risk can be reduced. You can simply set up a cottage business selling your T-shirts on etsy or Folksy to build up a following. If you’re a naturally artistic person you’ll probably find it easy to choose the right images and T-shirt blanks to give the best impression, but it’s still worth listening to your T-shirt printer because they often have long experience in what actually works on fabric, and what doesn’t
Bands and musicians in particular benefit from having a teeshirt that promotes their name and music and allows their fans to show their loyalty to the next chart-topper.
Athletes can also show their aims and successes on teeshirts. If you’re running the London marathon or aiming to sail round the world, get some T-shirts printed with strong attractive images and a short text on the back of the tee, or underneath, saying what you are going to do – it’s a great way to pick up support and funding.
Every business owner wants his or her staff to think and act like a team player – today’s weather is a case in point: top teams have either made it to work, or where that hasn’t been possible, they’ve found ways to work at home, despite the snow, because they are committed to the company and its profitability. How do you create a team that turns up and does the job whenever possible?
Successful teams share a common characteristic – every person in the team knows their own role and understands how it fits together with the role of other team members. You can encourage this understanding by giving your team a clear and accurate job description and ensuring that it is reviewed annually. At Innocent, all team members define their own job title, such as Chief Squeezer, Happy Health Supervisor etc. While that may be too whacky for many teams, you can pick out the key skills of each staff member had have them embroidered or silk-screened onto polo or T-shirts. If one team member makes great coffee, give them a Coffee Maestro top, if another is your punctuation person, give her a Grammar Wizard polo shirt to show that her key skills is appreciated. People really shine when they know they are being recognised.
Competitive teams are a fantastic way to encourage your people to work better together. Simply divide them into two teams, one with red T-shirts one with black tees. Tell them that at the end of the quarter, the highest producing team will get a reward. At the end of three months, shift team members around, perhaps having a green team and a yellow team in polo shirts this time, making sure you mix the old teams up well and tell them that the team that saves the most money or comes up with the best recycling plan at the end of the quarter, will be the winner. Making teams on this basis allows your staff to get to know each other and think about how they can work better together.
When it comes to those rewards, think about team events such as a party, a big dinner or picnic, or other similar events that encourage the team-building behaviour to continue. Use the event to give your staff a thank you T-shirt or polo shirt that they can wear to work with a message that recognises their achievement.
Knowing what’s happening in the marketplace, and what can be expected to appear over the horizon, is key to keep your business successful. Events that can help those in the T-shirt, Corporate Clothing and Promotional Wear industries to master the future include:
January 7th – 9th 2009
PSI Düsseldorf
http://www.psionline.de/
Location: Düsseldorf Germany
28 – 29 January 2009
Trade Only National Show – Coventry
Location: Ricoh Stadium, Coventry, UK
17 – 18 February 2009
International PROMOTA Show – Birmingham
Location: NEC, Birmingham, UK
01 – 03 March 2009
Printwear & Promotion 2009 – Birmingham
Location: NEC, Birmingham, UK
http://www.printwearandpromotion.co.uk
24 – 26 March 2009
Promotional Marketing Exhibition 2009 – London
Location: Royal Horticultural Halls, London, UK
http://www.promotionalmarketingexhibition.co.uk
1-2 April 2009
Workwear & Corporate
Clothing Show & Conference
Hall 10 NEC Birmingham,UK
http://www.workwearshow.co.uk
15th – 17th September 2009
PSI Paris
http://www.psi-paris.com
Trade show image courtesy of jasonebaines at flickr under a creative commons licence
is the UK’s largest online clothing wholesaler* and we are looking for partners around the world.
If you are a clothing distributor holding stocks of polo shirts, t-shirts, sweatshirts and other clothing products, you could be the perfect partner for us. We’re seeking companies to work with in France, Italy, Spain, Germany and the USA.
We offer:
The opportunity to dramatically increase your online sales
We sell your product ranges on line through our web sites
We pass the orders to you for fulfilment.
What’s the catch?
We collect payments online, deduct our commission and pass the orders to you – it’s as simple as that. There really is no catch, we are online specialist and we have customers all over the world who want to buy the products we sell, but import taxes and transport charges means that it is not economically worthwhile to supply from our UK distribution centre.
What’s your commitment?
Supply us with pictures of your product range and product description
Fulfil orders as they arrive
Answer any customer enquiries.
If you are interested in this opportunity, please email: partners@polo-shirts.co.uk today!
* – based on statistics from Hitwise.co.uk
Software developers Worldweaver Ltd have a competition for the best game demo made using the DX Studio platform. It’s an ideal contest for the well-dressed geek, or perhaps the geek who would like to be well dressed! You have to unleash your inner gamer and come up with a complete demo by 20th December and the prizes are impressive: the winner gets £1,000 cash, a Commercial Pro DX Studio license (whatever that means) and a limited edition DX Studio Polo Shirt and USB key. Runners up will receive a Non-commercial Pro DX Studio license, Polo-Shirt and USB key. Winners will be announced on 22nd December. More details at www.dxstudio.com
And a Hawaiian shirt company has broken its own world record. Hilo Hattie made the world’s largest Aloha shirt in 1999 and this year they have repeated the challenge, making a sixteen foot tall shirt to celebrate the University of Hawaii – exactly why the university should be celebrated this year isn’t clear, but the shirt big and bright and definitely not the kind of thing you should wear in the workplace if you’re hoping for promotion!
Stand bookings for the 2009 Workwear & Corporate Clothing Show organised by are gaining momentum. Compared to last September, stand bookings are up by over 60% and 80% more net space has been sold, showing that this area of British manufacture, trade and retail is on the up.
The 2009 show takes place at
The associated 2009 Conference will address one of the most important issues facing workwear and corporate garment manufacturers, suppliers, distributors and buyers today: sustainability. It starts on 2nd April and will bring together ten inspiring speakers to present on the three key areas of sustainability: environment, social and economy
Regular readers will notice that over the past few weeks we’ve been giving the www.polo-shirts.co.uk website an update and makeover. We’ve decided on an excellent new look – going from this:
To this:
But the real reason for our new appearance is that we’ve been working hard to please our customers. Now you’ll find it even easier to locate what you’re looking for and to place your orders with the minimum of fuss. We’d love to hear your comments on our new look!
Hitwise has announced that www.polo-shirts.co.uk was a Hitwise Top 10 Award winner for the quarter April – June 2008.
During this period, www.polo-shirts.co.uk ranked in the top ten based on market share of visits among all United Kingdom websites in the Hitwise Shopping and Classifieds – Wholesale and Relationship Sales industry. The Hitwise Top 10 Award recognises websites from over 160 industries that are leaders in their industry. To learn more about Hitwise and the Top 10 awards visit http://www.hitwise.co.uk/contact-us/top-ten-awards.php
The hutongs (alleys to you and me) of Beijing have a new police force – of sorts. They are called ‘Public Security Volunteers’ and there are more than 400,000 of them – arranged into neighbourhood groups that are serving the Olympic security forces which include a mixture of police, over 100,000 ‘counter-terror troops’ and more than 300,000 CCTV cameras. The PSVs patrol litter-dropping, inappropriate clothing and spitting in the street – but by the locals, not the expected foreign visitors! Despite the attempt to distinguish the new PSVs from the old ‘neighbourhood committee’ by giving the new volunteers a snazzy red and white striped polo-shirt to wear when ‘on duty’, there’s a lot of concern in the populace – the former committees were a mixture of spies and party members who reported on the irregular activities of their neighbours, and caused many a midnight arrest or disappearance for ‘re-education’.
The PSV polo-shirts are a big sign of changing China – they are sponsored by the Yanjing beer company, which would have been unthinkable a decade ago, and while every volunteer has been given one, less than half actually wear them. The other half have been put on the black market, still in their original wrappings, as part of the
Beijing street cleaners in new uniforms
Auctions come and auctions go, but this auction featured a polo shirt that has taken its former owner to the stars. Bidding for the pink polo shirt once owned by NASA astronaut Eileen Collins opened on 1 April at just $10. A week later and more than a day before its auction was set to close, collectors had pushed its price up to $300 and the final winning bid was $520.
“I can’t say it was easy for me to donate such an important part of my past,” Collins said. She wore the shirt while training for her four space shuttle missions and her career was a glittering one indeed. In 1995 she was the first female U.S. astronaut to pilot a spacecraft and just four years later, she was the first woman to command a space shuttle mission. Most recently, and humblingly, it was Collins who led the shuttle fleet’s 2005 return to flight after the loss of Columbia and its crew in 2003.
This shirt was important to her because Collins has only a few mementos from her time in space. “Astronauts can keep very little. [I have] only the personal items, such as my wedding ring, old toothbrushes, and some shirts!” she said. She donated the shirt, which is embroidered with her name and her astronaut class’ nickname, “The Hairballs,” on its front to be part of an annual auction run by the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation (ASF). Founded by the Mercury astronauts in 1984, the ASF supports college students who are excelling in their pursuit of science and engineering degrees to give them the best chance of doing what Collins did – saying The Sky’s The Limit.
Polo-shirt image courtesy of austronaut scholarship foundation
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