teespring times 04 APR 2016
In this issue
04 03 TRUST + SAFETY IP OVERVIEW
What is Intellectual Property? Why does it matter? Learn about how improving quality improves sales.
11 CATEGORIES STATE BY STATE
Become a master of US niches - check out our breakdown of popular tags by state!
21
YOUR BIGGEST COMPETITOR Glyn Williams, monthly contributor, on dealing with the ups and downs of the advertising business
07 UPDATE TS CREATIVES
It's time to get Creative. Check out our new ad tool that will ad some photographic finesse to your next ad set.
17 LET’S GET DISTRESSED
Want that vintage, worn away, grungy look, and don’t know how to get there? Darren Kane shows you how!
05 SKRILLA MONTHLY
Ryan Roland, Teespring VP of Finance, shares his outlook on the future of fulfillment.
13 MERCH TREND SEASON OVERVIEW
What sells best when? Brief overview of top selling items in a convenient seasonal breakdown.
27
PAVING THE PATH SELLER SUCCESS Find out why if you're not selling on Teespring you're leaving money on the table.
09 TEE CON 2016 ANNOUNCEMENT
Teespring travels to Barcelona! We hope to see you this coming June for TeeCon EU in 2016.
19 DEAR RONNIE AND SUHAIL
Brand new to the Teespring Times: a Springer's spin on the classic "Dear Abby" column!
Hello all, For those of you I may not have already met, my name is Brian Marcus and I am the VP of Seller Growth at Teespring. My team is responsible for paving the path to Seller success throughout the Seller’s journey, from the newest Seller “dabbling” on our platform to the elite entrepreneur, building a stand-alone business on and off Teespring.com. A big part of my job: actively listening to our customers and rallying our teams to deliver on big goals. I love it. And I’m honored to work with a community of such smart, savvy Sellers. In the eight short months I have been on board, it’s become clear that there are three key reasons you come to and stick with Teespring: Making more money… with the least amount of effort... worry-free! As we kicked off 2016, our team rallied around this promise. As we enter Q2 and beyond, we will work hard to earn your confidence that we’re delivering on this promise. Bottom line, we want to support your efforts to build the business of your dreams. Whether you use Teespring.com or our Teespring Shopify App, we deliver unique value. Teespring is the only global e-commerce platform to empower anyone, anywhere, to bring their ideas to market. Your idea. Our infrastructure and expertise. No hassles. Zero risk. Real money. The way we see it… If you are not on the Teespring platform, you are leaving money on the table! So what makes Teespring stand out? Let me break it down for you… (continue reading on page 5) Brian Marcus VP Seller Growth MULTIPURPOSEMGZ | 3
YOUR BIGGEST COMPETITOR / GLYN WILLIAMS
Your Biggest Competitor Glyn Williams comes from the UK and is an ‘advanced skills’ coach for many successful ‘springers’. He’s also one of the most consistent sellers we have and sold over $2.5million of product in 2015 alone. So you decided to become a shirt seller. How do you class that? What do you say when people ask you what you do? For me I tell them that I’m in sales. Sometimes if I’m in company and I feel like impressing them I tell them I’m a Fashion Designer, that always starts a good conversation. Some call themselves ‘Internet Marketers’ – in fact you’re not. The truth of the matter is that we are all sales people. We sell goods to the public – so we are in retail sales. The fact we advertise using the internet means nothing apart from the fact we have a large potential audience. Think about that; someone selling clothes in a shop that used leaflets to drum up business would not call themselves a ‘leaflet marketer’ would they? I’ve been in the sales game for decades, both in real ‘bricks and mortar’ businesses and on this
03 | TEESPRINGTIMES
digital highway too. I’ve knocked on doors selling cockroach killer to housing agencies, gone door to door selling utility contracts and have sold lots more including
Sales has always been and will remain a world of ‘Feast & Famine’ fresh air! (Radio Advertising) In more than 20 years I’ve learned a lot about sales. And the number one thing I learned is that your biggest competitor in a sales arena..... Is you. We all have this ‘self talk’ that goes off in our heads. All the time we ask ourselves questions and answer them too.... Don’t we? (You just answered ‘yes’)
Sales has always been and will remain a world of ‘Feast & Famine’ When I sold ‘home improvements’ (nice way of saying windows and doors) I would have AWESOME months followed by months where I would have made more money digging holes in the road. - Feast & Famine Our world selling shirts is no different to selling anything else. We have Feast time – we are unstoppable! Can sell anything! Hundreds of shirts are bouncing on your dashboard and that dollar counter just keeps going up. How do you feel when that happens? – Awesome right? Within a week those sales are drying up – you’re spending more money on ads that you have coming in. It seems no matter what you do you just can’t ‘click’. Even those shirts that were flying have dried up. Every morning you look hopefully at the sales but it’s just ‘so-so’.
GLYN WILLIAMS / YOUR BIGGEST COMPETITOR
How do you feel when that happens? – Pretty despondent right? In fact just reading that last sentence made you feel pretty crap didn’t it? (You just said ‘yes again) This is the world we live in – it’s called self employment. You can’t rely on anyone else for your paycheck; you can’t go home at the end of the day and forget about work like your friends can. You can monitor this effect every week on the t-shirt groups. Mondays everyone is expecting lower sales, Tuesdays they start to feel down and ask things like ‘is today just a crap day or is it me?’ By Wednesday they are reaching for the razor blades and deciding which wrist to cut first – left or right? Thursday comes and you can feel the spirit lift – people start posting screenshots on Thursdays and on Friday they are positively buzzing again! Feast & Famine in action. You need to recognize when the downside is happening and keep it in check. When you feel like everything is going wrong just take a breather – look at the possible reasons for sure, but don’t consider that you are failing if it’s just part of the feast and famine cycle. I’ve been selling shirts on Teespring for over two years now and you get to spot the cycles. Here’s some useful timeframes that I noticed in my business: A A A
The Weekday Lull Mondays to Wednesdays are downer days – yes I make money but ROI is much lower and it feels pointless doing anything. I even considered switching the entire account off for these days but found that if I looked back when I was on a high, it really wasn’t so bad.
The Bi-Monthly lull People who work for the public sector – Nurses, armed forces, local government etc get paid twice a month on the 1st and the 15th. These people are a HUGE percentage of the population – almost 20% (1 in 5) of people working in the US are public service employees. So they have disposable income for the first few days of the month and a few days in the middle. Week 2 of the month usually shows lower sales than week 1 and week 4 is usually lower than week 3 and in a 5 week month! Well, get those razor blades out again.
right? In corporate business, advertising budgets are allocated by the quarter. In many businesses if the advertising department don’t spend their entire budget they are penalized with a lower budget for the following quarter. Their sales results are also by the quarter. They have two pressure points a) get the budget spent and b) hit the targets for the shareholders report. This often results in massive amounts of corporate money being spent on advertising during the last 2 weeks of the quarter. This means that you see higher CPM charges for your advertising meaning you pay more money for less traffic. Less traffic means fewer sales.
The Monthly Lull
So these are the ‘lull’ periods you will see. There are others too such as holiday season, the drop after Christmas etc. This article is to make you question things when you feel down – is something really wrong or is it just part of the Feast & Famine cycle?
The last week of the month is hard going. More and more people are paid monthly now and at the end of the month the bills are piling up waiting for that paycheck.
Take note of this for the next month. Keep a diary if you like of how things are and how they feel – you’ll note that things seem much worse than they really are when you are in a famine cycle.
The Quarterly Lull In business everything is measured in quarters. Qtr1 is Jan 1st to Mar 31st, Qtr2 April 1st to June 31st, Qtr3 etc – you get this
Next month I will write about how you can leverage this Feast & Famine effect. Catch you next month
TEESPRINGTIMES | 04
PAVING THE PATH / BRIAN MARCUS
Paving the Path: Seller Success If you are not on the Teespring platform, you are leaving money on the table. So what makes Teespring stand out? Let me break it down for you… (continued from page X) Make More Money
on Teespring can refine Facebook targeting using the encrypted buyer emails we provide.
One of our chief assets in making you more money is our relationship with buyers.
• We also continue to innovate the platform with features such as one-click checkout, enhanced design testing and availability of new
• Buyers love Teespring! One in 50 Americans bought a Teespring shirt in 2015 alone. In just
merchandise. • Launching this quarter for trusted top sellers, we
three years, we’ve shipped more than 17 million
will begin granting direct access to buyer email
products to nearly 180 countries.
addresses.
• Shoppers convert to buyers 20% more frequently on Teespring than competitor sites. And 40% of
Least Amount of Effort
Teespring customers are repeat buyers. Power Sellers want to focus on ideas, not Two, you will make more money, because we
customer service. Our job is to reduce the
prioritize Seller Success
barriers to bringing your products to market:
• You keep roughly half of all revenues for every
• Using our composer, Sellers can create and
shirt you sell – it’s the most lucrative deal in the industry, and it’s simple. Sell 10 shirts at $20 each – you earn $100. • It gets even better as you build your business, as we offer price breaks on larger sales volumes.
launch a new shirt in less than 5 minutes. • Our messaging tool enables sellers to message their past buyers as many as 3 times per week – typically delivering an incremental 2-3% sales boost. • Launching this quarter, our new API will eliminate
Three, we are committed to offering you a
manual data input into spreadsheets, saving
constant stream of new sales opportunities
some sellers 4 hours per day simply by running a simple script against the API data.
• We provide marketing tools that help you accelerate your business. For example, all sellers
05 | TEESPRINGTIMES
BRIAN MARCUS / PAVING THE PATH
We offer passive income opportunities that
Worry-Free
boost revenue >20% and drive >50% higher profits:
Our vertically integrated supply chain ensures unmatched quality, every step of the way:
• Boosted retargeting: We offer premium ad placements; you pay only when you get a sale. • Email marketing: We curate Teespring-branded
• Teespring’s state-of-the-art production facility in Kentucky features the latest digital and screen
emails that cover large audiences, featuring your
printing machinery, software and manufacturing
designs.
to keep quality high and costs low.
• Product listing ads: We put your designs in front
• Over 100 million people have bought Teespring
of shoppers in Google and other search engines;
shirts, and our merchandise holds up better wash
you pay only when you get a sale.
after wash than the knock-offs from the
• Launching this quarter is the Teespring Marketplace: We help buyers find you via our
competition. • Our global fulfillment infrastructure optimizes for
proprietary personalization engine, search
time and money – keeping shipping costs low and
engine, and insight-driven curation on our
delivering packages quickly, worldwide.
Teespring.com site, driving new buyers to your
And, of course, we handle customer service,
designs.
payment processing and currency conversion so you don’t have to.
Wherever you are, whenever you work, Teespring provides unmatched comprehensive
Since Walker and Evan invented this industry
Seller Support:
roughly three short years ago, so much has evolved. Our role is to continue to innovate social commerce
• Our 24x7 seller global support team is made up
and lead in seller success, every quarter to come.
of real people who provide hands-on help for
Together, there’s huge opportunity in front of us.
troubleshooting any issues.
Expect more tools, more services, more
• Our global community is top-notch, providing a
merchandise options, better passive income
forum for Sellers and Teespring experts to
opportunities and ownership options coming soon.
actively help each other succeed, with 100+
It is no surprise that we have aligned with some of
individuals sharing their learnings within a private
the most prestigious investment partners and see a
Facebook group and Slack channel.
clear path forward to a very bright future. Last year
• Launching this quarter, our Loyal(tee) program
alone, we minted scores of new millionaires and
will provide perks such as faster payouts and
thousands more quit their day job. That should tell
early access to new features to anyone who’s sold
you something. If you aren’t working with
more than 100 shirts on Teespring. Top sellers
Teespring, you are leaving money on the table!
even get a dedicated account manager to help you maximize business potential.
TEESPRINGTIMES | 06
IP OVERVIEW / TRUST + SAFETY
Trust + Safety IP Overview Our Goal: To reduce campaign suspensions and grow your business. What is a trademark?
What is copyright?
What is right of publicity?
Definition: word, symbol, or phrase, used to identify a particular manufacturer or seller’s products or services and distinguish them from the products of another.
Legal protection given to “works of authorship” which meet the following requirements:
Right of publicity is the right of famous people to control the commercial use of their name or likeness. So Taylor Swift has the right to decide whether her name or face will appear in a product advertisement.
• Fixed in a particular medium (painting, drawing, written, digital art, etc.) • Original (independently created by the author, doesn’t matter if similar to existing works, quality, ingenuity or aesthetic merit don’t matter • The result of at least some creative effort
07 | TEESPRINGTIMES
TRUST + SAFETY / IP POP QUIZ
Pop Quiz
Can you identify which shirt in each pair could be flagged for infringement 1
2
3
4
Answers 1. A
2. B
3. A + B
4.B
Campaigns that use the name, likeness, artwork, or lyrics of artists and celebrities, logos or names or brands and sports teams may be suspended.
TEESPRINGTIMES | 08
SKRILLA MONTHLY / RYAN ROLAND
Skrilla Monthly
PAY DAY
Ryan Roland VP of Finance Being in Finance and staring at numbers for the
Combinability! You can now add a completely new
majority of my life, I've accepted the fact that most
product to any of your pre-existing or new
people don't automatically put me on the VIP list at
campaigns. We’ve seen data that shows that
the club. The bouncer never comes to me at the back
campaigns with stickers and shirts show conversion
of the line and says "Damn Son! You look hot! Come
rates of 25-30% higher than standalone product
with me and skip the line." The business of $krilla just
campaigns.
isn't appetizing to a lot of folks. I get it. More margin for sellers = more flexibility for your Sometimes it feels like Fulfillment and Operations
marketing. We have dropped the base price of
hangs out with me at the back of the line a lot too.
stickers from $2.70 to $2 (small sticker), and $4.70 to
Sourcing,
inventory,
$3 (large sticker). This drop also opens up the ability
throughput, margins. Are you kidding?! Those could
to use promo codes like "Free Shipping" on these
be some of the hottest words I've ever heard. In a
campaigns.
cycle
times,
ship
times,
world dominated by juggernauts like Uber, Amazon, and Alibaba, logistics is sexy. Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s
Better shipping rates for buyers! With this release,
founder and CEO, has been obsessed with it from the
the shipping price of stickers will be $1.50 for the first
company’s early days. It's not only selection that can
sticker, and $0.25 for additional stickers (down from
drive our growth flywheel. It's lower cost structure
$1.99 and $0.50 respectively). We are also hoping to
leading to lower prices that makes it spin faster.
sweeten the deal for international buyers, by dropping international shipping from $3.99 to $2.50
Recently
our
fulfillment
team
had
a
major
(and $0.25 for additional stickers).
breakthrough that is hugely impactful for our entire ecosystem. The new release of stickers marks not
More selection. Higher conversion rates. Lower
only the first (of many) new products to be added to
shipping for buyers. More margin for you, our sellers.
the composer, but also a number of developments
Spin that flywheel baby! Not everyone finds
that will pave our way to fulfillment glory in weeks to
fulfillment excellence like this as sexy as I do, but it
come. So what are they?!
makes the Teespring world go round. Thanks sellers for the hard work that you do!
09 | TEESPRINGTIMES
TS CREATIVES / UPDATE
Update TS Creatives Introducing a true game changer with Teespring Creatives We’re just as tired of seeing those white squares over wooden planks as you are. Our new Teespring Creatives tool brings your design to life (quite literally) by placing your graphic into high quality lifestyle scenes. You'll have over 300 images to choose from, giving you the freedom to test and discover what type of imagery truly resonates with your niche. With this update, you will also make more money on Teespring and significantly improve the effectiveness of your ads. Check out some photo highlights that show a few examples of the new Teespring Creative tool - head over to the bottom of your campaign’s setting page to try it out for yourself! It’s a fact that Facebook rewards those who champion fresh and new content. This update is just another reason why if you’re not selling on Teespring, you’re leaving money on the table!
11 | TEESPRINGTIMES
UPDATE / TS CREATIVES
Over 300 unique images to choose from to fit your design to a tee!
TEESPRINGTIMES | 12
TEE CON 2016 / SPAIN
Tee Con 2016 Announcement
Get Ready for Tee Con EU When: June 25th Where: Barcelona, Spain Want to meet fellow springers, gain invaluable insight from top sellers, chill with the Teespring Team and vacation in one of Europe's holiday hotspots? Then don't miss out! Sellers of all levels are invited to attend TeeCon EU 2016! We will be selling a limited number of tickets to this event. Stay tuned for guest speaker announcements and ticket sales.
13 | TEESPRINGTIMES
TEESPRING EUROPE / EVENTS
Teespring EU Events Calendar Hey Springers! In order to stay on top of the biggest commercial holidays you’ve got to plan ahead! Last month we reminded you about Mother’s Day (celebrated on May 8th in the USA & EU, and May 29th in France & Sweden) - so now it’s time to start thinking about Father’s Day! For more information on translations and global events join the Teespring EU Languages group on Facebook today!
Event Calendar June 2016
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Saturday
Friday
Father's Day
Zürich Festival
Ibiza Pride
National Day
6
2
June 6-12 (ES)
(SE)
Start of Ramadan
1
7
3
(CH)
London Pride
(CH, DK)
4
5
Father's Day (AT, BE)
(UK)
8
9
10
11
12
Granada International Festival
13
14
15
Glastonbury Festival
16
17
(UK)
20
Wimbledon Tennis Championships
27
(UK)
21
Barcelona Pride (ES)
28
15 | TEESPRINGTIMES
22 Amsterdam Roots Festival (NL)
29
30
24
Mother's Day(LU)
Father's Day (UK, US, NL, IE, FR, CA)
18
Paris Gay Pride March
19
(FR)
23
Haro Wine Festival (ES)
(ES)
Sunday
25
26
EVENTS / TEESPRING EUROPE
Free Translations for Father’s Day
Top EU Buyer Markets Belgium Dutch French German
Netherlands Dutch
Germany German
Denmark Danish
This Father’s Day, Teespring’s Translation Team will be offering
United Kingdom English
free translations for Norway Norwegian
Ireland English
father-themed campaigns; email translations@teespring.com and
Finland Finnish France French
write fathersday in the subject line of the email. Also make sure
Sweden Swedish
Spain Spanish
to add a “fathersday” tag to any new campaigns you launch if you want it to be featured on the
Czech Republic Czech
Portugal Portuguese
Teespring homepage (learn more about categories and tags here). This is a big commercial holiday
Luxembourg Luxembourgish French German
Switzerland German French Italian
Italy Italian
Austria German
in the USA and UK so don’t miss out!
Campaign Cutoff Dates: To ensure buyers get their gift in time for Father’s Day pay attention to the following cutoff dates: Note all locations below are reflective of their select fulfillment region.
Father’s Day – June 19, 2016 USA June 9
DAD
Canada June 4 United Kingdom May 31st Europe (Netherlands, Ireland, France) May 23rd
Father’s Day - June 12, 2016 Europe (Belgium, Austria) May 16th
Father’s Day - June 5, 2016 Europe (Switzerland, Denmark) May 9th
Father’s Day 2016 Plan on launching a father-themed campaign? Get featured on the Teespring homepage! Add the tag ‘fathersday’ when setting up new campaigns! TEESPRINGTIMES | 16
POPULAR CATEGORIES / STATE BY STATE
Popular Categories State Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington Washington DC West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming
Category 1 Category 2 Snowmobile Yoga Hunting Yoga Skiing Alcohol Freemasonry Scuba Diving Hunting Samurai Hunting Beard Auto Racing Reading Hunting Horse Fishing hunting Yoga Yoga Hunting Hunting Horse Hunting Fishing Hunting Yoga Fishing SUV Hunting Yoga Auto Racing Horse Hunting Hunting Yoga Hunting Yoga Hunting Snowmobile Helicopter Yoga Hunting Snowmobile Hunting Hiking Fraternities & Sororities Hunting Snowmobile Snowmobile
17 | TEESPRINGTIMES
Hiking Wine Auto Racing Horse Guitar Beard Airplane Auto Racing Fishing Penguin Snowmobile Food Food Wine Alcohol Freemasonry Beard Skiing Hunting Fishing Snowmobile Fishing Food Fishing Horse Auto Racing Fishing Yoga Yoga Yoga Hunting Beard Snowmobile Food Fishing Fishing Fishing Food Fishing Yoga Fishing Horse Sewing Truck Yoga Science Coffee SUV Horse Truck
Category 3 Fishing Science Fishing Food Hunting Yoga Horse Yoga Yoga Yoga Alcohol Hunting Fishing Fishing Beard Truck Hunting Hiking Horse Reading Wine Yoga Truck Horse Snowmobile Alcohol Science Snowmobile Reading Reading Food Science Alcohol Fishing Horse Wine Auto Racing Science Reading Beard Yoga Truck Yoga Fishing Mathematics Beard Computer Auto Racing Wine Alcohol
STATE BY STATE / POPULAR CATEGORIES
TEESPRINGTIMES | 18
MERCH TRENDS / CALENDAR 2016
Merch Trend Season Overview What sells by season Spring
Summer
Fall
Winter
19 | TEESPRINGTIMES
• BELLA+CANVAS Unisex Premium Jersey V-Neck • BELLA+CANVAS Women’s Jersey V-Neck Tee • American Apparel Triblend • Hanes Women’s Relaxed V-Neck • Gildan Unisex Tank • BELLA+CANVAS Women’s Tank
• BELLA+CANVAS Unisex Tank • BELLA+CANVAS Women’s Fitted Tank • Alternative Women’s Meegs Racerback Tank • BELLA+CANVAS Women’s Slouchy Tee • American Apparel Women’s Fitted Tee • BELLA+CANVAS Women’s Flowy Tee
• American Apparel Long Sleeve • BELLA+CANVAS Women’s Flowy Long Sleeve • Hanes Full Zip Hoodie • BELLA+CANVAS Women’s Slouchy Sweatshirt • Hanes Unisex Crewneck Sweatshirt
• Hanes Unisex Crewneck Sweatshirt • Hanes Kids Crewneck Sweatshirt • Hanes Full Zip Hoodie • BELLA+CANVAS Women’s Slouchy Sweatshirt • Gildan Kids Hoodie • American Apparel Pullover Hoodie
LET’S GET DISTRESSED / DARREN KANE
Let’s Get Distressed! Design tutorial by Darren Kane Understanding the Concept Okay, for the distressed look, what are we really after here? What we want, is to simulate a t-shirt that’s been through the wash so much, that small pieces of the printed design have flaked off, allowing the t-shirt color to show through those missing pieces. That may sound obvious (and it is), but thinking about in it that way helps with the approach. We’re deleting pieces of our design, to allow the background color (the t-shirt color) to show through. So, let’s start with this concept exercise:
Step One Create a new Illustrator document, and on the first layer, draw a navy blue rectangle that fills most to all of your artboard. This is a background that represents our t-shirt color, and this is almost always how I begin a new t-shirt design. (Sometimes I actually paste in a screenshot of a blank t-shirt as the background, but for this tutorial, let’s just do it with a rectangle.) Lock this background t-shirt color layer, because we don’t want to do anything with it for now.
Step Two Now on a separate layer above our background, let’s draw three simple shapes: a white circle, and then two smaller pink squares.
21 | TEESPRINGTIMES
DARREN KANE / LET’S GET DISTRESSED
Step Three Let’s move the squares, so that they’re both on top of the circle in different ways. One square is completely within the circle, the other overlaps the circle edge.
Step Four Using the magic wand tool, click on one of the pink squares. This should automatically select all the other objects of the same fill color, which in this case just means the other pink square.
Step Five
Step Seven
Once both pink squares are selected, hit “Delete.” Okay,
With all three shapes
what’s happened? The squares disappear, and the circle
selected, let’s use the
remains. Just as you’d expect. Wow, incredible.
Pathfinder functionality in
Step Six
Illustrator. Within Pathfinder, there are different options of how to affect
Let’s “Undo” that delete, to bring those squares back.
overlapping shapes; if you’re new to Illustrator, I highly recommend you play
Now, using the selection tool (not the magic wand),
around with them, to learn what each option does. Many come in very handy,
select all three shapes. Yes, that means the circle and
and are often essential. In this case (and this is the key to this tutorial) we’re
both squares, all selected together.
using Pathfinder > Trim.
Step Eight After applying Pathfinder > Trim, it seems at first as though nothing happened. But let’s see what it actually did. Using the magic wand again, click on one of the pink squares. This will actually select both squares, since they’re both the same fill color. Now, delete the selected pink squares, and look what’s happened. The spaces where the pink squares had been are cut out of the circle, allowing the blue background to show through. This is because of how Pathfinder > Trim works. After we applied it, only what we could SEE of the three shapes remained. In other words, Illustrator actually ditched the parts of the circle that were hidden by the squares. When we selected and deleted the pink squares, it revealed that we cut holes out of the circle. Another way to think about what Pathfinder > Trim did: it cut our overlapping shapes into puzzle pieces, all on the same, flat plane. Remove any piece from the puzzle, and a hole remains where that piece was.
TEESPRINGTIMES | 22
LET’S GET DISTRESSED / DARREN KANE
Let’s Actually Distress This Thing Okay, now that we’ve run through the process of how to punch holes right through a design with Pathfinder > Trim, let’s do it again, using a distressed pattern.
Step One Here’s our white circle, just like before, a separate layer above our locked background t-shirt color layer.
Step Two In a separate Illustrator document, go ahead and open up your distressed pattern, and… Whoa, whoa, wait! Where did THIS come from?! This is actually a freebie vector distressed pattern I found online a while back, and I did some minor tweaks to it. So, you’ll have to hunt down your own pattern (freebie or an inexpensive buy), or there’s fairly easy ways to make one. Anyway, note how I currently have the pattern colored in the same navy blue as the t-shirt colored background in our main doc. Select the entire pattern and copy it.
Step Three
Step Four
Going back to our “circle” design, paste the distressed
That’s why I like to change the color of the pattern, to
pattern right on top of it.
something entirely different than what’s used in the
Are we done already? I mean, it looks like we’re done. But we’re not. We’ve simply overlaid the pattern on top of our circle, and since it’s the same color as the background, it LOOKS like we’ve deleted out pieces of the circle so the background shows through, but we haven’t deleted anything yet. (This actually though is a nice preview of what we’ll end up with.)
23 | TEESPRINGTIMES
design or the background color. So I can clearly SEE the pattern. Let’s make it the same pink as the squares from before.
DARREN KANE / LET’S GET DISTRESSED
Step Five Select both the circle and the entire pattern together. Then, same as we did before, Pathfinder > Trim.
Step Six After trimming, magic wand any part of the distressed pattern, and it should select the entire pattern. Because hey, every path in the pattern has the same pink fill color.
Step Seven
Step Eight
Delete the pattern…meaning, that’ll delete everything
But let’s make sure you did it right! It’s really easy to test: go ahead and
pink. You’re left with a distressed circle design, with the
unlock your bottom background color layer, and change the color of that
background color showing through all the “missing”
rectangle to something else. Like say, red.
pieces.
If you can see the red through the cracks, then you know you’ve successfully deleted out pieces of the circle, allowing the t-shirt color to show through.
Closing Tips To Distress You Out: • Once you’ve found (or made) a distressed pattern that you like, play around with the positioning on your design. You may only want to use distressing on select parts of your design -- like on the outside edges -- to enhance the overall look, and not detract from it. Often using it sparingly is the best way to go. • Be careful with sizing down your distressed pattern too small, where the “cracks” get microscopic. It may become problematic to print, because the ink ends up filling in the holes. And thusly, defeating what we’re going for. • Always, always, always save out a clean version of your artwork with everything intact, before you distress it! In fact, I often distress designs, in a different file altogether.
TEESPRINGTIMES | 24
TEELYMPICS PREVIEW / MAY - GYMNASTICS
Teelympics May Preview Gymnastics - Score the Perfect 10! You hit the sand for Beach Volleyball in April, but now it’s time to trade your swimsuits for leotards. Gymnastics is an sport that requires strength, endurance and a little bit of style. That’s why for this month’s challenge winners will need to exemplify all three to earn a spot on the podium!
To win: Now’s the time to dig deep and master a brand new niche! No one ever scores a perfect ten without practice, so start doing some research. At the end of April, the sellers with the most units sold in an entirely new niche will take home a Teelympic medal. To qualify a “new niche” campaign, enter “Teelympics” as one of the tags along with a description of your design’s category.
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DEAR RONNIE AND SUHAIL / Q + A
Dear Ronnie and Suhail Every month, new wise Springers will take the stand to answer questions from Springers new and old. First up, Australian Springers, Ronnie and Suhail! What are some of the things you look for to
pages, replying to comments & archiving old designs
know if you should scale an ad?
(we have an enormous back catalogue).
It will always be the ROI. Depending on the overall
5 x Designers - 2 are full time, the other 3 part time
ROI will determine how aggressively we start scaling.
and bring different skills and designs to the table. We
We have lots of rules in place to make it as black and
are always looking for talented designers to help us
white as possible.
bring fresh new designs to the market.
We let the numbers do the talking and at this point
3 x Internal Springers - we have recently employed 3
we are only concerned with 1 thing...Sales. Not
guys in our office to run campaigns for us. We are
oCPM, not CTR or the amount of likes or shares,
basically paying these guys to be educated with life
SALES. Often times people get too bogged down in all
changing skills!
the data that is available when their focus should be on quality of designs & targeting. The only time we
1 x Website VA. This guy takes care of posting to our
look at these is when we’re looking at new niches or
more brand centric pages where we are building
trying to work out why a campaign isn’t selling.
communities/brands, updating websites content to offer the niche more than just products to buy. We
Do you have a team? If so, how many members
are actively aiming to build a culture around this
do you have and what are their tasks?
brand where people want to live and breathe
We wouldn’t be where we are if we didn’t have a
everything to do with it!
team. A team allows us to focus on the most important money making tasks.
Do you sell mostly in the US or in the EU? Do you target by country or by state?
2 x VA’s - Philippines based, these guys take care of
The lion's share of our launches are stateside
uploading campaigns and posting to the various
however as soon as we have got a few sales on a
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Q + A / DEAR RONNIE AND SUHAIL
campaign we immediately launch it in the UK and EU
What do you do to automate your selling?
shortly after. In some cases where we know the
Good question. Having VA’s is a massive help in
niches well we will launch to the UK and EU first.
automating a lot of the more mundane jobs. Having rules and a schedule have helped a lot in automating
The thing people need to realize is that it is not hard
parts of the business however to really unlock the
to sell to the UK & EU. They are people with a sense
power of selling on Teespring you need to spend
of humor or sense of pride as well and want shirts as
time in the trenches, learn your niches, learn you ads
much as the next person. The targeting is a little
management etc. Once you grasp these things then
tougher at times and the language barrier (i.e. those
start outsourcing different elements.
countries that don’t speak English) may pose a slight problem BUT it is worth it. There is soooo much
If you could sell any product aside from shirts,
opportunity and by not launching over there people
what would it be?
are leaving money on the table.
Anything that solves a problem for someone. If at the end of the day we can get something in someone's
What words do you live by when it comes to
hands that they want/need and we can make a profit
selling on Teespring?
to continue doing that then we will look into it. Both
Keep on keeping on… eventually things will turn in
Suhail and I have had other business in the past and
your favor as long as you keep learning, adapting to
the thing we love most about Teespring is the ability
changes (market & Facebook) and testing (new
to only have to focus on key areas instead of the
niches, ad types, scaling methods etc).
whole solution. With Teespring we don’t need to worry about building & refining landing pages or
What’s the best part about being a powerseller?
websites, split testing different colored buttons,
We’re powersellers? That’s not a term we throw
there’s no concerns with trying to get better postage
around lightly and are still searching for what we
rates or print quality.
believe that term actually encompasses. We have learned a lot in our journey and have SOOOOO much
If we can sell products through Teespring where we
more to learn. One of the things I love about being
only need to focus on coming up with a concept and
able to do this full time is the connections we’ve
selling then there are only two areas we need to
made with other sellers and the guys at Teespring.
focus on to be successful. Much easier than being a
Ever since starting out in business I have wanted to
jack of all trades. It’s all about the team and
work with people who I get along with and because
Teespring bring a very important, reliable solution.
of the scale of this community it is an absolute
So as for the products? No idea.
pleasure to “work”. There is also a byproduct of having success with Teespring. We have flexibility to do what we want, where we want, however we want… We have time to spend with our families, time to step out for a coffee, time to step back make strategic decisions about our futures. Teespring has given us what we’d only ever dreamed of in terms of freedom, we are now living a meaningful life that allows us to help others.
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MAY 2016 / TEESPRING CALENDAR
Teespring Cal May 2016 Monday
2
Tuesday
3
National Teacher's Appreciation Day (USA)
Wednesday
Thursday
5
4
Father's Day (DE)
Friday
Saturday
6
7
13
14
Musica en Segura (SP)
9
10
Constitution Day (NO)
11
12
World Day For Cultural Diversity (UN)
16
17
23
24
30
31
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Chelsea Flower Show (UK)
18
19
20
21
Isle of Man TT Races (UK)
25
26
27
28
Sunday
1
Mother's Day (US, AU, BEL, CA, IT, DK, DE, NL, CH)
8
Horoscope: Taurus Springer Today you might feel the urge to launch, Taurus! This could involve nothing more than a lengthy research session to get inspired for your next design, but it could also be some administrative work, such as cleaning up your FB ads account or archiving old campaigns. Whatever it is, you are likely to clear a path and clear your head to unlock new selling possibilities. Don’t be surprised if you come up with more curiosity than answers!
15 Event Title:
22
Mother's Day (FR, SE)
29 National Pet Month (USA)
National Teacher’s Appreciation: Father’s Day (5th May): Mother’s Day (8th May: Musica en Segura: Constitution Day: World Day for Cultural Diversity: Chelsea Flower Show: Isle of Man TT Races: Mother’s Day (29th May):
End Date UK: End Date EU: End Date World: 15 Apr 17 Apr 19 Apr 23 Apr 29 Apr 03 May 06 May 10 May 10 May
05 Apr 09 Apr 11 Apr 15 Apr 19 Apr 25 Apr 26 Apr 02 May 02 May
19 Mar 21 Mar 25 Mar 27 Mar 02 Apr 08 Apr 09 Apr 15 Apr 15 Apr