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Articles
BlueCotton in the Media: Spring 2009
Jun 11th
The old adage “April showers bring May flowers” has never been truer here in Bowling Green. The spring of 2009 was extremely wet and even approached soggy! Climate data by the University of Kentucky indicates rain on seventeen of April’s thirty calendar days. April’s 4.4 cumulative inches of rain resulted in some very lush (read: overgrown) lawns and gorgeous spring flowers all over the SouthCentral Kentucky area.
Similarly, BlueCotton was showered with several significant press recognitions and appearances this spring. The April 2, 2009 USA Today Lifestyle cover featured the Favorite t-shirt survey we conducted back in February.
On April 11th, our fearless leader Mike Coffey went live on Barry Moltz’ podcast, “Business Insanity Talk Radio” to discuss t-shirts as the original microblog. Click here to listen!
Mike was interviewed for Business Week’s publication Small Biz. In the April/May issue, “Turn On, Tune In, Tweet Out,” Mike discusses Twitter’s impact on our customer interaction. Twitter is a positive addition to our customer service tools, and we enjoy using the 140 character limit to engage customers. You can read the article here.
Through April, We’ve been using TwitPic to send photos of customer t-shirts hot off the dryer, actively issuing daily coupon codes for a free custom t-shirt, and tweeting discount codes up to 50% off the total order. We’re continuing our Twitter campaign through the summer and have some special BlueCotton and Twitter-themed t-shirts on deck to give away very soon.
We’re confident this publicity shower will push us to blossom through the summer!
The BlueCotton Bailout: More T-Shirt for Your $$$
Mar 13th
While everyone’s taking a closer look at their expenditures and analyzing each dime, you oughta know BlueCotton wants to help you stretch your apparel dollar further. We’re ready to bail YOU out of our overpriced competitors’ trap and show you how to get the most shirt for your money. There are many ways to create a striking t-shirt design without breaking the bank. Anyhow, let’s start with a few basics on how we price our shirts.
1. The more garments your order, the less expensive each one will be. This allows us to spread the cost of production out over more shirts and save you money. 50 shirts will be less expensive PER SHIRT than 25 shirts. 100 shirts will be less expensive PER SHIRT than 50 shirts. It’s kinda like buying a pallet of cheese curls from Costco…its cheaper PER BAG in the long run to buy the whole pallet instead of buying one bag at a time. You get the idea?
2. The fewer ink colors we print, the less expensive the shirts will be. A one color front is cheaper than a two color front; that much is obvious. I will show you later on the blog how you can use the color of your shirt as a “free color” and save money on ink colors. A shirt printed only on the front is less expensive than a shirt printed on the front and back. Makes sense, right?
3. The cost of the blank t-shirt is factored into the pricing. Premium brand shirts–like American Apparel and Bella–are more expensive than more standard brands like Hanes and Gildan. 50/50 cotton / polyester blend shirts are less expensive than 100% cotton. Depending on your personal preference, a 50/50 is not necessarily a “cheap” shirt. 50/50s are lighter in weight and resist significant shrinkage. If price is a factor, 50/50 garments are the way to go. Since white tees do not go through a dyeing process, they are less expensive than color shirts. For the absolute lowest cost shirt, you want a 50/50 in white.
Holla back.
Everyone’s Irish on March 17th
Mar 5th
Order your custom St. Patrick’s Day shirts now! Make sure you show up to work or school in green to avoid being the designated pinch-ee on St. Patrick’s Day. Are you having a St. Patrick’s Day party or planning to go out with your crew for a pub crawl? Customize your group’s shirts here! You can start by editing one of our templates or start from scratch in our Design Studio. We have tons of great Irish, leprechaun and clover clip art for you to use!
From Wikipedia:
St. Patrick’s Blue, not green, was the color long-associated with St. Patrick. Green, the colour most widely associated with Ireland, with Irish people, and with St. Patrick’s Day in modern times, may have gained its prominence through the phrase “the wearing of the green” meaning to wear a shamrock on one’s clothing. At many times in Irish history, to do so was seen as a sign of Irish nationalism or loyalty to the Roman Catholic faith. St. Patrick used the shamrock, a three-leaved plant, to explain the Holy Trinity to the pre-Christian Irish. The wearing of and display of shamrocks and shamrock-inspired designs have become a ubiquitous feature of the saint’s holiday. The change to Ireland’s association with green rather than blue probably began around the 1750s.
Here’s a few of our customer-created St. Patrick’s Day designs:
What’s In Your T-Shirt Drawer?
Feb 24th
A shirt from your high school track team?
One from a sorority event?
Your all-time favorite rock band?
Or from the junior high summer camp where you met your first love?
We recently conducted a nationwide survey and found that roughly 4 out of 5 Americans still hang on to at least one favorite, sentimental old t-shirt – and, more likely, they still have two or three.
Shirts from a vacation led the way by far across all demographic groups. Shirts from a business or employer, from a concert, from a favorite pro or college sports team, and from a charity run/walk also are popular.
So what’s your list? Share it with us on our Facebook page, here. Add a list to the discussion titled My Favorite Shirts, or add a photo to the album with the same name.
We’ll even get it started with a few of our own lists:
Brad:
- Racquet Ball t-shirt – paper thin light blue tee that I bought at a thrift store in Seattle in 2000.
- Dave Letterman shirt (the first time) – bought in 1998 while at the show. This shirt was retired in 2008.
- Hanes Beefy T with navy BlueCotton oval logo. I started wearing this bad boy around 2004. The shirt has probably been washed 300 times and it shows.
- BTSS shirt – my rap group from 4th grade. I still own this shirt although I can’t sport it. It had felt iron on letters that said BTSS. Brad, Ty, Shaun, Steve.
- CABG shirts – who does love a good coronary artery bypass graft shirt?
Angie:
- Gym tee, circa 1988. It is so soft, and still fits. No age jokes from you, Michael.
- Navy long-sleeve BlueCotton tshirt from Christmas 2003. Nothing says the holidays like that shirt.
- Guffy-Kuykendall shirt from Leann’s 2003 WKU Archaeology class. I wasn’t in the class, but the design is choice.
- Get Fresh Crew tshirt, tearing it up at the B+B on Fri nights. You know who you are.
- My Amazing Delores tshirt from 1996. Because she signed it “Amaizing Delores.” Amazing.
BlueCotton Flashback: 2008
Jan 12th
Are we really in 2009? It seems waaaay too early, but here we are! This is when we look back through our emails, order database, art files, and photographs to see what the heck it was we did all of 2008 that kept us running in circles. So let’s see…
Close to ten thousand designs breezed through here this year, so there are tons to look back on. It seemed best for us to just round up highlights for 2008 we felt summed up the past year.
Of course local customers stand out, as these are the people we see face-to-face throughout the year. Not only do we see them when they stop by our office and place orders, they’re even sitting across the dining room at a restaurant wearing t-shirts we printed.
Since 2006, we have been printing the t-shirts for the Glasgow Highland Games. The four-day event is held each year on the weekend following Memorial Day at the Barren River Lake State Resort Park. Nearly 20,000 people from the United States, Canada, and Great Britain attend this south-central Kentucky celebration, and the festival has sold out of t-shirts each year we have printed them. We now start preparing the artwork for this shirt nine months before the event, and the client decided to pre-print t-shirts for 2009 to sell at events leading up to the Games. All we can say is, wow!
During the summer, we printed shirts for the Bowling Green East (11-12 year old) baseball team. The “All Stars” were preparing for an upcoming weekend full of baseball and wanted to represent their team. Following that weekend, they decided to order more t-shirts as they had won several games and were moving up in the league, eventually moving on to the state championship. Within a month period we printed four different t-shirt designs for them. Megan, our receptionist, has many memories of this particular client: “As their customer service representative, it was fun to keep up and be able to follow along with their status. When they were on the news, I enjoyed watching their time on the air and picking out the shirts that BlueCotton had produced for them.”
BG East fans cheer for their 16-6 win over Indiana during the final day of pool play in the 2008 Little League Great Lakes Regional Tournament in Indianapolis. Photograph by Joe Imel, Bowling Green Daily News
Color Concepts
Nov 20th
As if worrying whether you spell all the names correctly isn’t enough to think about, the color t-shirt you choose is just as important. The t-shirt color you wear sends an impression to those around you about who you are. Okay, maybe these messages aren’t so straightforward–as in wearing a pink t-shirt means you really like cake–but messages are sent to others’ subconscious where they will unknowingly develop a judgment of you.
So now that I have your attention and got you contemplating what your off-black (yes, I consider this a color!) tee from high school is saying about you, let me offer a little insight.
WHITE: The staple of all t-shirt colors. It is a popular choice, be it for fashion or it’s economical factors (white shirts typically run a little cheaper than colored ones). White symbolizes purity, innocence, sterility and light. So if you’re in some deep trouble with a loved one, this may be the color you want to swing for a few days to soften them a bit. White is the choice for good guys. Also, white goes with everything, which is a plus. The down side? It is difficult to wear since it shows dirt so easily.
BLACK: Can you say mysterious? This color signifies a variety of things. It is often viewed as being modern, stylish and timeless. People often opt for black because of the slimming effects of the color. Fashion aside, the color symbolizes strength, authority, but also submission and evilness. It can be overpowering while giving the impression of aloofness.
RED: “Hey! Look at me!” Red is definitely attention getting. It attracts the eye and even effects the body by increasing a person’s heart rate. Unlike black, red does not offer a slimming effect and sometimes can make a person appear heavier. (So if you’re trying to lose a few you may want to avoid this color!) Red is intense and may not be the color you want to wear when confronting your boss about getting a raise or trying to negotiate with your professor to extend your term paper deadline.
BLUE: The Switzerland of colors–complete neutrality. Peaceful, trusting, cool, dependable, and caring. Blue has a universal appeal, and designers often fall back on this color when working with clients such as banks and large corporations to reinforce that the company is dependable and trustworthy (ahem…. BlueCotton…). This color tends to increase productivity and help people perform better. The hue of blue can also have a large impact; navy is loyal, aqua is hip, light blue is serene, electric is fun. More >