Furry Inspired T-Shirt Line

[Tyins Darkwulf]

Hey guys, I've always wanted to start my own t-shirt line. I really had little to no inspiration of what to do, but the idea hit me when I was getting commissions done of my fursona. I'm currently in the middle of writing a business plan for this. I envision to provide 'trendy' looking t-shirt designs centered around feral and anthropomorphic themes. I want to market this predominately towards the furry community, but the designs won't be completely "OMG FURRY" so you can wear them outside of furmeets or conventions without feeling any reserve and people who aren't furries, but lovers of animals, would enjoy as well.

It will be a small start up, so the initial business creation (trademarks, business registration, website, and designs) will be all out of pocket, but to run the first designs onto t-shirts I will be creating a kickstarter campaign. I hopefully will have the business plan in line and most of the boring crap done or pending to be done in order to start the kickstarter campaign mid-August. I plan to create designs for the kickstarter campaign for pledge rewards to choose that are at-cost limited runs (exclusive designs for the campaign).

Why do I want to do this? Well, because I really like wearing nice-looking clothes with funky designs, and it's really difficult to find decent looking animal themed t-shirts without them looking extremely tacky (that doesn't stop me from wearing them though!)

I'm posting because as apart of my business plan I wanted to get some feedback from some people. Such as if it's something you would like to have apart of your wardrobe, how much you would be willing to pay for a t-shirt, etc. Any feedback from established members of the community would be really nice too!

I am also throwing around the idea of getting some furry artists to design a t-shirt for the line, once the line has been established. I need to work out costs, logistics for use of images, etc. For now, I'll just be creating the designs myself, utilizing royalty free art from stock websites and my own graphics design know-how.

Anyway that's about it! Any input, suggestions and constructive criticism would be really appreciated.

[Tef]

From my experience, the standard price for a T-shirt would fall under $15-20.

I am thinking about this from the top of my head so...in terms of ideas for T-shirts, I guess you could try spoofing off movie classics and TV quotes or something...?

i.e. (from Top Gear)
If dogs are rear-wheel drive,
  cats are front-wheel drive,
  elephants are four-wheeled drive,
Then what wheel drive are furries?

xP
I know I royally screwed it up somewhere.

7:40
MX5 vs Greyhound challenge - Top Gear - BBC

[Carter]

Oh my gosh O: <3
I think this is a wonderful idea! I'm rather supportive of stuff like this, myself. <:
Online, i normally see shirts going from $15 to $20
And what kind of designs were you reffering to? <3
Id love to see sketch examples of something you may have in your head.
Not to mention, I'd love to wear the shirts around! Can't have too many nice clothes!
(Not to mention my wardrobe is in need of some new additions!;;; )


And spoofing off of TV or Movie Classic Quotes sound like a neat-o idea too! :3
Its good to have a variety of things in a shop.

[Tyins Darkwulf]

@Tef - I was thinking around that too. Mass ordered tshirts with basic color (one or two) can be doable to sell for between $15-$20, but to begin with I will probably start selling on the lower side. I'm sure some pop culture turn furry references would be really popular, but I'm not all that cleaver so for now I'm going for more generic stylistic designs for the first designs.

@Carter - I have a few ideas dancing around my head, but nothing solid yet. I want 5 solid designs for the launch of the product, and I will probably focus on more abstract and basic colored animal designs before I dabble in spoofing movies / TV shows and stuff like that. Once I get them down on paper I will definitely be posting them here for some critique. Also, if any artists are interested in designing abstract tshirt designs for commercial use they are more than free to inquire :3

Thanks for the feedback guys! It helps a lot!

[Ember]

So basically your plan is to copy what Kittylovesmonster ( http://kittylovesmonster.com/ )  does?

Also you should be aware since you don't plan to do the design work yourself that it's not the same as purchasing an art commission- you're purchasing the marketing and intellectual property rights of whatever you use. This can get pricy if you don't find someone to do it in house.

[Tyins Darkwulf]

@Ember -  What I have in mind for my line is not similar to the types of shirts sold from that vendor. Although, even if I wanted to design a shirt line explicitly for furries with furry culture references, it would be completely unethical for me to copy directly from someone else.  
Also, I am very aware of the legalities of the commercial use of intellectual property, but thanks for bringing it up because it's an important part of the business. I am creating the first designs myself to save on costs and will only be bringing in contract work if the line is successful. I would like to keep the work within the furry community to support our fellow artists, but if most artists have issues with their work being used commercially then I have absolutely no problem with finding designers outside of the community instead.
Thanks for your input!