Jul

A Kindred Spirit at Kindred Market

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kindred market, kindredmarket.com, sell your own tees, set up t-shirt brand, t-shirt business, t-shirt start-up

Now, I get a lot of submissions here at Buy Tees from Cafepress and Spreadshirt designers and time and again I explain to them that one of the major reasons I won’t review them is that I don’t see the point of passing on kudos and PR if it simply goes down the drain of a corporate behemoth with a marketing budget that could feed a small country. Besides any company as big as say Zazzle doesn’t really give a damn if you make money as a t-shirt designer, all they want are premium store fees and more and more online traffic. The usual advice is to use a third-party merchant like Big Cartel and then print your own or use someone local. But, and here’s the biggest but I’ve seen in a while, I did come across another alternative recently, KindredMarket.com, at first I guessed their site was simply feeding the general public the usual hype, but I’ve been studying Kindred Market in a little more detail recently and I have to admit I am impressed – and here’s why.

They offer a top-notch service for beginners at the t-shirt business, they don’t drop any of the usual bombshells on you that their competitors like to do so often, right now they have just 17 brands on their books. Yes ‘brands’ – they treat each designer as a brand, just the way it should be, and I’m not sure how the application process is carried out because as far as I can tell they have a handful of superb designers on the site. (and then some not so good My problem with most services of this kind is that they seem to go more for quantity over quality, some like Spreadshirt have almost abandoned the idea of supporting their creative users and simply offer a D.I.Y application for any idiot strolling by. KM seem, at least on the surface, to be pulling out all the stops in order to build up their reputation in the t-shirt industry as a truly high quality print to order t-shirt company. In fact even if you have your own stock they’ll still help you sell your wares.

Here’s a breakdown of their profit-sharing scheme:-

* If they sell one of your t-shirts at their online store you receive 32% of the income. The rest goes to cover their costs such as stock, printing, site administration and advertising.
* If they sell your brand to a boutique (shop with less than 10 stores) you receive 16% of the sale before shipping costs.
* If they sell your brand to a Medium sized Retailer (has more than 20 stores) you receive 8% of the gross sale before shipping costs.
* If they sell your brand to a Mass Retailer (has more than 200 stores) you receive 4% of the gross sale before shipping costs.
* If you’ve printed your own stuff they take a 30% commission excluding shipping and taxes (Which will be your responsibility).
*What’s more they also offer to sell your artwork at a 10% commission, plus 3% Paypal costs.

Unlike many similar companies out there they let you keep full rights to your designs which will come as a big relief to many of you I am sure. If you decide to deactivate your account they will have 60 days to fulfil any outstanding orders and then you’re free to hit out on your own. I must admit I am a little disappointed with the URL structure, if these are truly brands I’d have expected sub-domains at the very least, but that asides I doubt you’ll find a company that will go this far to placate their designers. Oh actually one more problem, a small technical error I am sure, when you select how many brands you want to see per page you get a line of PHP output, one for the programmer to take a look at there.

KM’s site is well designed, comical, humorous, quirky but clean. They even feature a brand every week at the top of their homepage, you can vote on their brands too if you need a ‘Threadless fix’. To make it real easy to get started you can read their short tutorial here. Now here’s the most important point, I get quite a few emails asking about alternatives to the usual range of high-priced graphics software packages out there, well KM have taken care of that for you too. They offer all their brands free usage of their online Phoenix image editor from Aviary.com which more than passes most people’s requirements. Imagine Photoshop 7 but a little more user friendly. So if you’re desperate to start your own t-shirt brand, are not impressed by the major print to order labels out there, then I’d recommend you follow the lead of these featured brands and set up your own at Kindred Market today!

Chewbika Tee by Black T-Shirt

The Chewbika tee by Black T-Shirt is available for men and women at $24 in sizes small to XL. I have to say the colour isn’t exactly my favourite, a kind of tan/pink affair, still it’s a great concept and illustration by this bike mad label. I’d like to see KM focus on encouraging their brands to come up with something more of a profile (some do some don’t), although the comments section is cool. Here’s a rather enlightening one from Ally V about Black T-Shirt – “I like to ride my bicycle. This is a true “biker’s” brand, and by biker, I mean cyclist. I love to ride and I’m loving that there is now a brand dedicated to biking. Keep it up!”

Skully LaFlame Tee by Advice Apparel

Advice Apparel serve up doom-laden tees with a side dish of gory humour for good measure. Incredibly well drawn, not particularly my taste but I can definitely see a market for it. Skater style meets punk aka The Cramps. This is one of four tees available from Advice, it comes in teal, unisex, and sizes range from small to XL – again for $24.

To finish off here’s a couple of tees by my current favourite designer at Kindred Market.

Wave Grain Tee by Phloem

This is Wave Grain by Phloem. The Phloem brand offers an extremely unique style, I can’t think of anything that reminds me of their work. Phloem’s statement reads as follows ‘This line is inspired from my upbringing in the forest when it met my current design and art aesthetics. Phloem represents the love for trees, nature, and the boundless application of unusual graphic design not meant for the masses.’ An almost scientific dissemination of nature runs through their designs, a strange alternate vision of reality, blessed by an obviously wondrous childhood in juxtaposition with quantitative and qualitative aspects of modern society that raise the tension in all our individual lives. Fascinating design. Available for $24 in sizes small to XL.

45 Windows Tee by Phloem

Last but not least 45 Windows. I haven’t a clue what this one’s about, perhaps it relates to systems, systems in nature, and those of control, especially in modern society, who knows. I do know however that I like it, especially because I can’t tell exactly why. That for me is a sign of a great piece of art, when you’re left scratching your head, the title and the image both imprint on my mind in a way I wouldn’t normally expect from a t-shirt. I’m guessing the mention of ‘45′ is more likely to do with angles than quantity. A slice of life? A view askew? An urban recollection of snapshots of the countryside? There’s something almost dreamlike about Phloem’s compositions, not in an airy-fairy way, simply this, when one recalls a dream they see snippets, jumbled together in a mish-mash of pictures and ideas. This t-shirt makes me think of half-forgotten dreams, broken memories, but again it’s playing on the theme of beautiful beginnings tempered by the constriction of experience. Freedom versus power, the open road to nowhere versus the safety, security of an urban setting, a comfortable prison of one’s own making. Or should that be a prism? Enough of the deep meanings, get this tee for $24 in sizes small to XL.

Check out the rest of the brands at KindredMarket.com or even start up your own!