Benefits of Sketching
Sketching and drawing is a great way to improve your creative skills. I have a small hand-held sketchbook that keeps with me always. You never know when inspiration for a new design hits you. When I try to think of new designs I usually go on Pinterest and see what other artists have done. Other artists inspire me to create. Seeing complete designs motivate me to design and produce something new. Yet, in order to make something truly your own, you need to sketch out your ideas.
Sketching helps me develop strategic thinking. It helps me organize a design before it goes into production. I usually sketch multiple thumbnails, adding new design elements in each one. It’s important to sketch without an agenda. I try to create my thumbnails fast and in different formats. Trust yourself to produce something different. There are no rules or restrictions on what you do, you are allowed to draw whatever you want and may inspire you to create multiple designs.
Sketching one of the most crucial tools for a designer. It is the source of visual brainstorming, to work out the ideas in your head and bringing a design to life!
Adobe Illustrator Tips and Tricks
After designing in Adobe Illustrator for the past two months I have learned how to use many tools that help to make a sharp, clean design file. Here are a few of my favorite illustrator tools to use when designing my t-shirt logos.
Pen Tool: Creates vector paths that can be converted into selections that in turn can be used to extract or mask groups of pixels.
Direct Selection Tool: Activates all anchor points in an object or group at the same time, allowing you to move an object without changing its shape.
Type Tool: Use typography in your designs. Download new fonts from Adobe Typekit or dufont.com
Object > Expand: Expand your typography once selected to convert it into an object with anchor points.
Pathfinder: It is the quickest and most efficient way of manipulating paths and shapes, providing you are clear as to the outcomes of each action. Mastering the tools with the pathfinder kit can help to create complex shapes.
Shape Builder Tool: Combine, edit, and fill shapes on your artboard. An easy way to merge objects together and create complex images using geometric shapes.
Stroke Options: The Stroke panel can change a line to be solid or dashed, adjust the stroke weight, the stroke alignment, add arrowheads, width profiles, and the line style.
Creating Mock-ups: How to Export your Logo Designs
For 30 days I designed t-shirt logos using adobe illustrator. It’s important to have a lot of content made, therefore when you launch your apparel you have plenty of designs to choose from. In order to create the best designs for your apparel, you need to think about how the files will be printed on the clothing.
Here are some rules of thumb when exporting your designs.
1. Edit your design’s slightly even if you think they are finished. Zoom in and out and look at the design from different perspectives. Alter colors, type, and effects so that your designs are polished.
2. Remove background colors and any areas of color that you don’t want to be printed on your product. Make the image background transparent.
3. You can export your logo designs as JPEG or PNG files, but when it comes to uploading them use the polished Adobe Illustrator (AI) file.
Creating a Brand Guide
Before you create your company it is beneficial to have uniformity and a niche in mind. A niche relates to products, services, or interests that appeal to a small, specialized section of the population. The smaller and more precise your niche, the more successful your brand will be. A more specific niche will let you enter with little to no competitors and have the potential to own a market. Here is a list of things you should consider when developing your brand.
1. Creating a brand name and logo
2. Purchasing a domain name for your website
3. Make a list of association words you want your brand to express
4. Typography you are going to use on your website
5. Color swatches
6. Apply for a Tax ID (EIN) Number, depending on your state the application process may vary
Here is my created brand guide, for my t-shirt company, Hunu Apparel Company. Hunu stands for Head Up Next Up. It is a hard work mentality brand focused on fostering identity, creativity, and determination. Click the images to view guide details.
Creating an Online Store Using Shopify
Creating your own E-Commerce store is made simple by using Shopify. Sign up for a 2-week free trial and set up your store. For a t-shirt company using a drop shipping service allows for the minimal barrier to entry. The service I used for my company is called Printful. Printful will print your custom-made designs on all types of apparel including hats, shirts, sweatshirts, and more. From Printful’s dashboard, you can upload products to your Shopify store. Printful will then fulfill the products when there are ordered, and ship them directly to your customer. When you start to upload your Product collection, you will find that you can set your prices, write product descriptions, and organize products into collections which is beneficial when displaying your products on the website. You can organize the products into men’s, women’s hats, and more. Be mindful of Printful’s printing guidelines, as they have size guidelines for designs on certain products. Incapable designs will be put on a hold and you will have to update them accordingly so they can print to their standards.
When creating the look of your online store, you can pick a theme from the Shopify library. I personally like the Brooklyn theme. It is clean, sharp and its free to use. When creating designing your sight be sure to use the elements of the brand guide you created prior. Uses the typography, logos, and colors you choose to emulate your brand. A simple main menu that directs customers to your product catalog and different product collections is key.
Check out my site at hunuapparel.com
Navigate through Shopify’s settings menu and update how you want your email notifications and order confirmations to work. You can also set up your shipping prices. Make sure to make them match with Printful’s shipping rates. Printful also offers branding labels for your shipment. Printful does not use their brand on any shipments. Every order is branded to your company. You can also set up discounts and Promo codes on the Shopify dashboard to help promote your brand and attract more sales!
The Launch
Once your site is completed, all your settings are in place, and all your product designs are uploaded, its time to launch your company! I announced the start of Hunu Apparel on Instagram and created a Hunu Apparel account to link my website and share my products with my friends and family. Many family members help to share on Facebook and I shared my progress with the Praxis community.
Never be afraid of sharing your work. Although it was exciting to create my first company, it was also intimidating to put it out into the world. I had been working on it so closely for so long and when it’s time to share it, I just didn’t want it to fail. I didn’t want it to be something that people didn’t like. I wanted approval from others and I wanted it to be successful. Be confident and focus on creating content daily. Set short-term goals for what you want to succeed. My goal for the first month was to sell 50 shirts and gain up to 300 followers on Instagram.
Go to hunuapparel.com visit @hunuapparel on Instagram
Social Media Marketing
In the first couple of weeks after launching Hunu Apparel, I looked into ways I could promote my brand. I used ad promotions on Instagram, shared my website and story on LinkedIn, and I also reached out to other popular fan pages to post an ad on their Instagram stories to reach a broader audience. I spent about $100 dollars on marketing through this strategy. Once I have more money to market, I would try and promote on different pages that offer an actual post as opposed to a 24-hour story with a swipe-up link to my website. I also want to do a free t-shirt giveaway contest where people tag their friends on the post and someone is randomly selected as the winner. In the future, I want to buy some inventory and have a photo shoot with friends and family to rep the brand so that I can post pictures of people wearing the clothing rather than just posting my mock-up designs. I have also thought about sponsoring and organizing my own corn-hole tournament where I can improve my promote and sell my apparel. The key to marketing your own business is to stay on top of it and keep things fresh. One post could spark someone to visit your website. Owning an e-commerce store is all about organization, finances, and most importantly implementing creative marketing strategies.
Finances
After the first month of Launching my company, I organized an excel spreadsheet of all my orders and created an income statement. I did not reach my short term goal of 50 orders and I fell short of reaching my 300 followers at the end of the month. I still generated over $800 with more than 20 shirts sold. Keeping your finances organized monthly is a great way to reflect on the performance of your business and helps you reflect on what changes should be made in the upcoming months. Check out my income statement for August 2018.
Challenges
The only way to learn about business is to be in business. I had to work through this process and teach myself how to create a company from scratch. I learned how to use Adobe Illustrator and develop my skills by teaching myself how to use different tools. I watched YouTube videos on how to create a brand and find your niche. I developed my own website using Shopify’s platform. I researched drop-shipping companies and found out how to upload my designs and bring them to life. I taught myself how to deal with product guidelines and return policies and procedures to make sure my customers received their order in a timely manner. Through Instagram ads, I learned more about marketing and what does and doesn’t work when promoting. I learned how to organize my finances and be cognizant of expenses and pricing. I am the owner of my own apparel company and I think that’s something that many people can’t say at 22 years old. Being hands-on and creating something from start to finish has been a rewarding and humbling experience. I still have a lot to learn, but I will continue to hustle.
– Jake Beman
