LOGO for Tee-shirts CONTEST!

   At the May 12 Wednesday Web Conference it was decided to remunerate the top 3 logo designers for the time, effort and materials spent designing an appealing graphic for The SmallBlimps UltraLight Airship Tee-shirt!
   The Project will sell the shirts online and use the proceeds for funding the "SmallBlimps FirstFlight Prize."  http://smallblimps.lefora.com/2009/12/03/ta-dathe-smallblimps-prize/page2/?vm=39#post39

   Here are the preliminary details which are of course, subject to change, pending further developments. We expect to obtain the screen-printed shirts for $7.50 and sell them for $15 [plus shipping and handling], a markup of 100%. The logo designer will receive 10% of the markup, or 75 cents per shirt, up to a quantity of 100 shirts, after which we will re-negotiate the arrangement.

   **************Tentative closure date of May 28, 2010 has been changed, on May 20 to there being no closure date. We will keep going until we get three great designs which enthuse everyone enough to want to choose the winners.**********

   As far as what HAS to appear on the design, we have TWO guidelines. The design must be appealing, attractive, interesting and salable and have a strong reference to small airships. Plan on a white tee-shirt background. Later we may add ball caps and tank tops.

  The purpose of the Smallblimps Prize, as well as the SmallBlimps Project and Forum,  is to design an UltraLight airship and to award a prize to whomever succeeds in flying one first.  Graphics of the Big Zeppelins or multi-passenger blimps are not appropriate. 

FLY + YOU =  WWW.SMALLBLIMPS.LEFORA.COM

So how long is the contest?

I went back into the original tee shirt design post and the closure date has been changed to no closure date. We will just keep going until we see something very good roll in. 

Dude, can we find someone who can run off single shirts from digital graphics at a good price rather than commit to a run of fifty?

This add appeared in the sidebar. They seem to have prices for single shirts. http://www.customink.com/q/02/?loc=bottomlink

hmmm, yeah, I checked it out and they are crazy. they want 25 bux per shirt. I was thinking no more than 10 bux could work for us. But I guess no one does one-off digital shirts that cheep!

Not that this a logo, but this is a great looking airship, IMO.

I think this one somes it up!!!

I checked on prices for T-shirts today. White shirts are like $1.35 plus or minus. Colored shirts are a little more around $2. We also have to pay for screen printing which may be as low as 2-3 dollars a shirt. We will also have to pay for shipping($3?), and the royalty to the artist (10% of markup). So subtracting cost $15-2-3=10 then royalties 10*.9=9  minus shipping  9-3=6. That is 6 dollars net.

Dude, or whoever, before I get quotes on printing shirts, I need to know what kinds of quantities we want to make for an initial run.
Here are some thoughts...  It would seem reasonable to assume that we can sell at least 10 to the current participant users of this blog (hopefully many more... any guesses anyone?).

I think I can sell at least 5 more; again, maybe more, but I think I can sell at least that many.

Supposing some of you can also sell 5, let's say another 20?

That's 35 at a base....

Over some long term, I should think we might sell a LOT more than that, say if we have a popular web presence, or if we sell them at events (hot-air events?  airshows?  street fairs?).  But I think we should keep our initial run pretty reasonable until we have a good sense of the rate of sales.

So I'm thinking I might get a quote on 30 to 50 shirts.

Does that sound about right?  Or is there an argument for printing more in an initial run?

I suppost the biggest potential sales are on the web.  But I'm a little doubtful we're gonna sell very many off this blog (hope I'm wrong!); maybe 5 a month?

Does anyone have a good idea how many we might sell on this blog?  If 5 a month, then it might make sense to run up a hundred shirts, but I still think it makes more sense to go with a lower number first, then make more.

Thoughts?

I agree, I would say less than 50. Most screen printers have a minimum order of like 30 or 36. So I think your range is the right area. I would buy at least 2. And could sell at least a couple more to friends. So lets say 5 per each of the active members and that is 25 shirts. And lets say 1 per each of the occasional posters. That is at least another 5 shirts. Also the better it looks, the more people will buy it without caring about the project itself. We don't have to sell out right away. It might take 6 months to sell all the shirts. And that is OK. This isn't a business. So my magic number is about 36, but I am cautious. I believe we would sell that number out and have to order again. But that is also OK.

Another question is how many colors? We might like to do two colors. Like royal and black on a white shirt. And I thought it would be cool to put the web address on the back of the shirt below the collar. 

There are a lot of choices when it comes to art.

I've found several vintage airship / blimp images that I think could be elements of an eye-catching T-shirt.  Here is one I like a lot:

"A ONE MAN BICYCLE BALLOON" from Modern Mechanics, Cover, Sept., 1929:

We'll need to check if this picture is copyrighted.

What would it cost if everybody sent in their own logo and the lefora site address was added to it once the logo got there?

I'm not sure I follow the question. Are you talking about just adding the site address to a shirt that is already logo-ed?

No. I was wondering if the logos could be from individuals, and just added to the shirt and lefora part and sent back for a reasonable cost.

Setting up a screen for many different images would be quite expensive. A transfer method would have to be used to be economical. That method is not as common.

I was playing around at zazzle.com and used their tshirt designer to make this shirt design. it would cost 20 bucks to have them make it. plus ship and handling i spose.
I love my slogan. the cluster balloon is way too small at present, just wanted to show what's possible. Maybe we can order our own tshirts. I know I would want to have Meece Air Design on any shirt I bought plus some other customizations.

The target market i spose, is the casual surfer who loves the airship idea but doesn't know how to empower themselves to make one and so they leave soon. might as well sell them something they can use to show others what their dream is???