Advertising Swag

[ken]

And now for the other side of pickup marketing... swag.

I'm talking about the NON Pickup stuff that customers expect nowadays in their boxes, like bumper stickers, Koozies, pens, guitar picks, and stuff like that.

Does anyone have a line on a good place to get some without a screaming amount of wait time, and maybe good quality too? I'm tired of pens that don't work and
stickers that fade out (or even worse... don't stick) in a couple of months.

Ken

[Enzo]

My favorite part of going to expos, conventions, and the like, is all the stupid swag I can collect. And as a business owner I get sample promo items in the mail all the time. My favorite is the pens that have my company name spelled wrong, or better yet, since it is a long name, they run out of letters and leave the last one off. And they expect me to buy something...

My wife gets promotional items every year as a gag at my expense. She has a caricature drawing of my face, so she puts that on stuff. One year was round erasers, like half dollar size, that said "Mistakes, I;ve made a few". She has given out chip clips with my face several times. She has vegetable peelers that say I am appealing. Har har. Plastic spatulas, even a flexible chopping mat with me saying "ow-ow-ow-ow-ow" on it.

Anyway, things like that come from promotions companies, and the one she likes to deal with is Motivators. They have everything from really cheap little items up to executive gifts. You know, a desk clock with a sailing ship on it... or whatever. I used to deal with a company locally to make various lapel buttons and such and was very happy, but there are so many places online these days. The wife likes dealing with the reps there, and once she approved the art, the goods always came within 10 days. Never been displeased. And I will say the peelers work pretty well. The hacky sacks, well I never play that, but they do appear to be sturdy. Big plastic drinking cups with my face, even tote bags that say "Here let me carry that for you". I realize those specific items won;t fit in a pickup box, but ideas are ideas, and who knows what may come of them.

Promotional Products & Custom Printed Items | Motivators

I don't know your company attitude, but I like humorous swag myself, even if it is stupid. Like the little 6 inch rulers that say something like "Does your pickup measure up?" Note pads titled "Set List" and the first song is already printed there as "Free Bird". My wife gave out little magnetic dry erase boards titled Things to Do, with #1 being "Hire a divorce lawyer" printed on it.

Picks are easy to get. DO your pickups adjust? How about a little screwdriver or allen wrench or whatefer they need, with your name on it.

here's a stupid idea, use shredded paper as packing material, and make some reference to "our pickups really shred." Or something.

How about neck wiping cloths? Fret wax? Those tiny bottles of Tabasco sauce, because these pickups are HOT. yes, I am a hack at ad writing. Fridge magnets.


I don;t like pens much, cheap ball points write like cheap ball points. I am spoiled, I only buy gel pens any more. The Pilot G-2 is my choice.

I hope any of that is useful at some level.

[WolfeMacleod]

Been looking for a place that can print full-color T-shirts ultra cheep. I'd love to be able to include one with every set.... For those, I'd go to China.
Alibaba hasn't been much help in that department.

[jack briggs]

Been looking for a place that can print full-color T-shirts ultra cheep. I'd love to be able to include one with every set.... For those, I'd go to China.
Alibaba hasn't been much help in that department.

T-shirts aren't expensive enough to warrant going to china. most of the cost is set up, making screens, etc. it's still "volume, volume, volume".

cheers,

[rjb]

Been looking for a place that can print full-color T-shirts ultra cheep.

Why the need for full-color?
https://www.google.com/search?q=gibs...w=1093&bih=534
https://www.google.com/search?q=mart...w=1093&bih=534
https://www.google.com/search?q=fend...h=534&dpr=1.25

[WolfeMacleod]

Why the need for full-color?

OUr logo is not black and white, single color.. or even 16-color.

[J M Fahey]

Ouch!!
Killer logo, and no problem on (monitor) screen or printed paper but a bitch to skilkscreen and doubly so on any kind of cloth.

Problem is youīll need to turn this into a 4 colour separation first, then choose proper dot size, which wonīt be too fine because cloth texture will disrupt it (and thatīs an undestatement) and then print it in perfect register, again a problem on cloth.
In fact, printer will print a solid background, even solid black on a black T shirt just to have a smooth background and be able to reduce dot size somewhat, problem is such background soon cracks after a few wash cycles and looks ugly.

Maybe you could consider "posterizing" : to simplify image somewhat, to a few grey *solid* tones )(no pesky small dots) , PLUS a single colour patch: fluo green eyes.

From 1meter away it will look very close to the real thing, at book reading distance, the closest anybody will look at it will look better than the ugly not-so-little dots you would be forced to use.

In fact, even a white on black posterized image will still be recognizable by users and accepted because it would be the "T shirt version".

Try it yourself on Photoshop or Corel Draw.

EDIT: just as a quick example, this is cloth printable 8 solid grays , which with care can be simplified to, say, black/white/2 or 3 grays + 2 green: fluo and dark, which again can be simplified to bright green (think Trace Elliot panels) plus white accents (shiny reflections) , you already have a white layer anywa.
Whiskers should be printed over everything else with black ink, for sharpness, you canīt count on background black cloth for that.
You might also make them slightly thicker or they will easily clog.


Only cheesy effect of posterizing is that it split smooth degrading letters background into distracting grey bands, you might simplify that to a single solid mid gray letter shadow
You might also print the pickup cover in a light cream colour and keep pure white for letters.

[ken]

Wolfe, I like your logo. I wonder how you would possibly screen print that on a T shirt given that screen printers only print one color per shirt at a time. With all those colors it would probably take months to finish just one shirt.

I chose only two colors because I'm a po' boy Besides, process blue is my favorite color, and I figured that if I used easily available stock colors whoever printed my swag
would have no problem matching colors.

I do wish I had a 'gift of gab' ability to just sling adjectives around like some of the other ads I read in my time. I sorta do, but the words I've been known to use wouldn't sell pickups that's for sure.



Ken

[rjb]

IMHO if you need more than two colors for a tee shirt design, something is seriously wrong.
Bluegrass Shirts | Blues Shirts | Vintage Instrument Ads

Simplify, simplify, simplify.
- H.D. Thoreau

-rb

[WolfeMacleod]

Ouch!!
Killer logo, and no problem on (monitor) screen or printed paper but a bitch to skilkscreen and doubly so on any kind of cloth....

Wolfe, I like your logo. I wonder how you would possibly screen print that on a T shirt given that screen printers only print one color per shirt at a time. With all those colors it would probably take months to finish just one shirt.

That's why we've gone the full color laser-printed route with what we've had done. There's also "sublimation" printing.
I used Spreadshirt to have several done. They look great, but they're expensive.. which is why I consider China for this.

[J M Fahey]

Cool.
Can you post some of what youīve done before?
Even if too expensive to mass produce.

As of sublimation, yes, it solves 2 problems, (sort of), because since ink is not liquid but a gas at the moment of actually reaching the cloth you donīt see the dots because they smear into each other, also cloth texture loses importance.
Price paid is loss of small detail definition, although in your case itīs no big deal, only text present is big bold letters.

Not sure about cost though, never used it.

I do silkscreen a lot for my own use but only PCBs, amp panels and the odd business card on exotic materials (think thin wood/rubber/plastic)

Always in single colour if possible, maximum two of them.

@RJB: LOVED the Blues T shirt designs, very skillful simplifications while still being distinctive and recognizable.

[Richard]

My favorite swag was a nail file courtesy of a short film that featured an inattentive receptionist filing her nails. Made in Germany, I still have it and its a very good file.

[jack briggs]

I worked in screen printing for 9 yrs. For what Wolfe is calling "full color" a printer would use 4-color process. This is not a cheap process no matter where you'd get them printed.

Just FYI.


cheers,

[Freekmagnet]

And now for the other side of pickup marketing... swag.

I'm talking about the NON Pickup stuff that customers expect nowadays in their boxes, like bumper stickers, Koozies, pens, guitar picks, and stuff like that.

Does anyone have a line on a good place to get some without a screaming amount of wait time, and maybe good quality too? I'm tired of pens that don't work and
stickers that fade out (or even worse... don't stick) in a couple of months.

Ken

If you could find a local print broker in your area, I'm sure that they could make some recommendations for you. Usually, a brokers prices are very competitive, and they would have access to pretty much every vendor in the country. I worked for a broker for several years. I'd recommend him, but he retired and closed the business last year.

OUr logo is not black and white, single color.. or even 16-color.

Woah, I'd call this more of an illustration than a logo. Don't get me wrong, I think it looks really nice. I design logos for a living, and usually it's best practice to make designs with one or two colors and no photographic images. I'd really recommend coming up with a one color alternate for printing. Otherwise, you're going to be in for a world of hurt when it comes to printing costs. You could easily make one with just the text, "Wolfetone Pickups". That choice of font is more than branded enough to make a respectable logo suitable for T-shirts and coffee cups and stuff like that. Or you could hire an illustrator to replicate that wolf's head. That could be pricey as well.

[rjb]

Or you could hire an illustrator to replicate that wolf's head. That could be pricey as well.

Or royalty-free clipart is available.
A silly example:


This one would require a bit of graphic re-design...