So a little over a month under our belts and we have learned a few things I thought I would share with everyone (sorry long stream of thought coming with bad punctuation).
What is the TeeFury Style?
Are we more like Woot? DBH? Threadless? Time will tell, hopefully TeeFury becomes known as a place which takes risk and features great art. We feel like over the last 30 days we have shown a fairly wide variety including tees (this blog has them all) including puny/whitty tees, artsy illustrative tees, simple woot like tees - and we feel lucky to have gotten to know all these different artists and we feel honored to be able to work with them, even if the collaboration only lasts 24 hours.
Why wont TeeFury email me and tell me if they are using my design or not? What Gives?
A few challenges here, challenge 1)we want would prefer if the daily TeeFury remained a mystery until it was revealed on the site. Having said that, we have occasionally leaked (on purpose) the next days design on various blogs or via email. With each 24 hour session, we feel we need to devote our attention and efforts to the current artist being featured in order to ensure their time on the FURY is worth their time.
We will typically notify an artist only a day before they are going live, primarily for the reason of controlling rumor and the reveal of the next days tee.
TeeFury is not a design contest. Any art submitted to us is not ours, is not controlled or restricted by any kind of holding period by us and is 100% owned by the artist - so when artists ask us to release their art, we have nothing to release. The art belongs to artist and always will (unless they sell the artwork off) ;)
We have a very hard time telling an artist "No, we will never use your art in the FURY" because who knows, maybe we will use the design at some point, we just don’t know in 2 weeks if we will use the design or not. however, I can also understand how annoying being left in the dark can be, and we realize as an artist you just want to know. So we will put something in place which will give more clear direction on if a design will not be selected.
Im not buying a TeeFury shirt because they place the graphic on the tee in their mockups
I can understand this point as sometimes the printed version can vary slightly, however there is a thread on teefury where you can see the print quality of the TF shirts, and most folks have been very happy. Our tees are printed by one of the best screen printers in the country and the tees almost always come out better than in the photoshop renderings. With such critical and tight deadlines we do not have time to do a daily photo shoot - so we do the next best thing. Occas of every design (we do like to at least take a bit of a break on Sunday) occasionally we bring in models and shoot new blanks shots to use.
The bottom line is we will do whatever it takes if you are not happy with your tee - we really feel taking the price down to $9 allows folks to maybe experiment a bit with their tees and purchase a tee they may not otherwise purhcase.
Ugh a white tee again! Whats the deal with the shirt colors?
We rely 100% on the artist to choose the shirt color for guys and girls, if the artist does not specify then we are forced to choose a safe color we know the tee will work well on and has a general acceptance amongst the community. The artist can control ALL aspects of the printing, including how saturated or opaque the colors should be when printed, the color of the tee - and any other request they can think of and we will do our best to accommodate.
Everyone has a right to their opinion
You will notice none of the other sites out there put comments for the daily shirt right up front on the home page. We deal with everyone as honestly as we know how, and we feel like comments, good and bad, are part of the process - Some designs are more polarizing than others - however, believe it or not, we truly are all about the artists and when an artist is featured on the home page of TeeFury they get a ton of visibility and traffic to their portfolio and many artists in the past have been contracted for other work based on being seen at TeeFury - we don’t look at a submitted design and ensure the design appeals to the masses or will guarantee us a sell out - we pick art because we respect and admire the artist being featured, and we think the art is really cool - pretty simple for us really.
We are so appreciative for the all the creative energy flowing into TeeFury, and appreciate everyones support and participation. TF can be whatever you would like it to be - just let us know ;)
Thanks for reading this whole long post - now go spend your lunch money on a new TF tee ;)
21 Comments
Jon Kruse said 2 months ago
I’m not a fan of the brand of t-shirt’s you print on. If you could use something more like DBH’s shirts or American Apparel I would prefer that a lot more.
... and good job on your company, you’ve printed a lot of cool shirt.
basil said 2 months ago
the brand you guys print on is like a softer kind of gildan, its a good bad thing haha, meds are too big for me, as for aa medium is perfect/small. ill try out your smalls.
totally respect what you guys are doing, this is a very good idea, i check out tee fury everyday, checking what i should buy next, in my book, you’re way better than woot.
gaunty said 2 months ago
thanks for taking the time to answer these questions, now print my pigs goddamit hehe
Reliique said 2 months ago
you forgot one thing Layne... INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING!!! Any thoughts about it ?
wotto said 2 months ago
This is what a good business is all about. Answering questions keeping us informed. International shipping is gonna be a constant issue but remember people this is still a very new company and adding int. shipping is going to mess with that $9 price tag we all love so much. ;)
Jon Kruse said 2 months ago
Letting the artist know if the design might be selected or not is a great idea.
Also setting up something that tells you that you received a submission would be a plus to.
vonmonkey said 2 months ago
Great post, and a great site
Yes, you definitely need to sort international shipping! Wotto, I don’t love a $9 price tag if I can’t buy the tee at all ;) and it shouldn’t affect the actual price of the shirt
Also, if you wait until the day before to tell the artist, you run the risk of selecting something that the artist has already sold exclusive printing rights to, thinking that silence means you don’t want it. I’m sure most designers are able to keep a secret (people manage it with threadless all the time) :D
SteveOramA said 2 months ago
i appreciate this post. although i don’t really have any questions or concerns about what teefury is doing. everything is simple. simple is good.
wotto said 2 months ago
I meant it purely from a business perspective Von. I too am in the UK and have difficulties getting shirts but teefury is new and they need time to grow. I am sure they will.
FuzzyInk said 2 months ago
Layne, I sent you an email a few days ago. Just wanted to verify that you have received it. Thanks!
shantyshawn said 2 months ago
I dig the shirts. What I don’t like, is that more companies don’t offer regular cut tees. Not everyone is into slim fit, I think it limits the hell outta sales potential by alienating a huge demographic.
I think you guys will be huge. It’s a great concept and you’ve been featuring some great art by some great artists!
Keep it up... and yeah, hoodies!!!
Reliique said 2 months ago
And guys please consider doing hoodies one day! Thank you!
jsheldon said 2 months ago
Yes, excellent work guys. Great concept and great execution.
edword said 2 months ago
I ended up selling the design I submitted to you to a different company. I assumed you weren’t into it when I didn’t here from you, I wasn’t even sure you got the e-mail.
I think it would be nice if you had a return e-mail that said.
Thank you for your summission to TeeFury we will be in contact with you with in ___ days if your design has been choosen.
I think most designers can take rejection and if they can’t they better find a different line of work.
I do plan on submitting other designs, I think you have a nice business model, the one design a day will keep people coming back and you can’t bet the price.
hunty said 2 months ago
Completely agree with the above.
It would be good to offer a standard 'If we’re not back in touch with X days - then we don’t really think we’ll use your design...'.
RikkiB said 2 months ago
How about an email of decline or acceptance upon reciept of each design? You have 365 days to fill every year so you’d build up a good stock of accepted work to choose from each day. I’m assuming you never get a holiday of course, that’d be slacking.
Sent from my iPhone.
Ps. I just typed that to be cool.
vonmonkey said 2 months ago
Yes, some kind of auto-response would be great.
Sent from my iPhone.
Ps. Not really.
radiomode said 2 months ago
kind of agree with edword. An acknowledgement is pretty much necessary.
Joey said 2 months ago
i don’t understand why everything in the designer’s little interview part on the side is always way better looking than what they submit as a shirt.
layne said 2 months ago
Great Thoughts everyone, we shall bolster up the art.teefury.com site to include notifications as well as perhaps show number of submissions, allow you to browse what has been submitted etc. - thank you for this little "focus group" appreciate the thoughts.
Great question - one of the limitations we are abiding buy is keeping to a 6 color palette with a general size of 16x20, center chest print.
When we create an artist interview and then create the featurette image to go along we try to pick some of the artists best work to promote and showcase the artists skill.
Many of the pieces are either fine art pieces with way to many colors for us to print and sell for $9, or they are pieces already sold or being used.
What has been really positive about showing this art is the community is able to let us know about additional pieces from the artist they would like to see printed, we make a note of these requests and then hope to do another FURY with the art in question. We love suggestions of pieces we should print and are totally open to any and all art (as long as its 6 colors and can fit on the front of a tee) ;)
ryanmiller said 2 months ago
how’s the company doing? hope you guys are doing well.. i really like the idea of the site. layne please email me when you get a chance to talk about some of my designs ryanmiller@relentlessstudio.com