Dept. of Shameless Self-Promotion Dept.

by Steve, November 10th, 2006

hockeySince I’ve become an amateur t-shirt designer in an attempt to support this site, I’ve learned a lot. One of the interesting
things is where antiwar hockey fans live. I’ve sold gear to folks where you might expect to find lefty hockey fans, places like Ontario, Oregon, California, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. But I’ve sold even more in Virginia, Ohio, Kansas (!), North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Florida and Arizona. I’ve even sold a sticker to somebody in Hawaii.

One of the oddest lessons I’ve learned is that you never know what people are going to like. I’ve developed several designs over the last couple months, with these two tossed off just to try to hit on a theme:
Yellow T-shirtpass shoot score T-shirt
The general idea being a star as the center of a distressed design. I had an old Mr. Zog’s Sex Wax t-shirt that I really liked, that was yellow with a blue star on the front, and I kind of wanted to hit on that.

The trouble was, the blue turns green against the yellow fabric with Cafe press’ dye sublimation process, and I didn’t want to mess around trying to get the color right. So I pretty much just left the design up there out of laziness. The “Pass. Shoot. Score!” shirt was another experiment using the star as a central theme, but I thought the design was too busy. But again, I just left it out there. Now, suddenly, both of these designs are selling like hot cakes. WTF?!? I was seriously going to pull both of them, and they’re both outselling any of my other, more refined designs. Both of these designs have been in the top five when you search on “hockey” at Cafe Press over the last few days (the “pass shoot score” design has recently fallen some, but it’s still on the first page of results).

There’s one design I haven’t sold any of yet, that’s specific to Oregon, Washington, BC and Alberta. The front says “Left Coast Hockey” and on the back, superimposed over the red star (I like stars!), are the cities of the Western Hockey League’s Western Conference:
women's left coast hockey t-shirt
I bought one for myself, and I plan on wearing it to a Winter Hawks game one of these nights.

Anyway, thank you to all who have bought my designs on Cafe Press. And don’t forget, if there is any issue with quality, please take advantage of the Cafe Press satisfaction guarantee. They like to fix things.

3 Responses to “Dept. of Shameless Self-Promotion Dept.”

  1. Comment from Alex Charns:

    My favorite is the More Hockey! Less War! black t-shirt. It has been seen in the Pylons’ locker room in Hillsborough, NC, at the University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor (Go Blue!) and at a Carolina Hurricanes’ game. [Full Disclosure: I was wearing it every time I saw it. At least this proves it travels well.]

    Keep up the great work.

    MH! LW!

  2. Comment from Himself:

    Alex, that design was my first, and it’s still my favorite. Glad you’re getting some mileage out of it!

    Good luck to the ‘Canes tonight; they’re going to need it. I’m rooting for Portland boy Paul Gaustad to continue his goal streak for the Sabres tonight. (Against almost anyone but the Sabres, I’d root for the ‘Canes. I’ve really taken a liking to your boys in red.)

    I’ll be watching Crosby and Malkin tonight against those hapless Flyers (who somehow managed to take the Sabres to overtime Saturday).

  3. Comment from Alex Charns:

    You were right. The boys from Buffalo caned the Hurricanes on Monday and Portlandian Paul Gaustad scored to top it off. I thankfully was on the ice at a nearby rink helping out at my kids’ hockey practice and was not a witness to the Buff-fest.