Boosting Brand Visibility: Why Custom Merchandise is a Game-Changer for Businesses

In today's competitive marketplace, custom merchandise has surged as a crucial component of the marketing mix. This strategy involves creating personalized products that resonate with a brand’s identity, ranging from apparel and accessories to office supplies and gadgets. The trend towards personalized products reflects a broader shift in consumer preferences towards more authentic and bespoke experiences, making custom merchandise a vital tool for businesses looking to stand out.

This article delves into the transformative impact of custom merchandise on brand visibility. By leveraging personalized items, companies can not only strengthen their brand identity but also ensure that their marketing messages resonate more deeply with their audience. The goal is to uncover why incorporating custom merchandise into your marketing strategy is not just a trend, but a fundamental aspect of building a memorable brand in a cluttered market.

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The Power of Custom Merchandise in Branding

Custom merchandise offers a unique opportunity to embed your brand into the daily lives of your customers. By designing items that are not only useful but also aesthetically pleasing, businesses can create lasting impressions that reinforce their brand identity. This approach transforms ordinary objects into powerful branding tools, continually reminding customers of the brand every time the item is used.

The beauty of custom merchandise lies in its ability to maintain brand visibility outside of conventional advertising spaces. Whether it's a branded tote bag carried through the city or a custom coffee mug used during Zoom meetings, these items keep your brand front and center. This constant exposure helps maintain top-of-mind awareness among consumers, significantly boosting brand recall and increasing the likelihood of repeat engagements.

Strategic Integration into Marketing Campaigns

Integrating custom merchandise into your overall marketing strategy can amplify your brand’s message across various platforms. For example, merchandise can be used in tandem with social media campaigns by encouraging users to share photos of themselves with branded items. It also plays a crucial role during events and promotions, where merchandise can serve as a tangible reminder of the brand experience.

Economic Efficiency of Merchandise Marketing

When compared to traditional advertising methods like TV ads or billboards, custom merchandise can be a more cost-effective solution with a potentially higher return on investment. Merchandise creates physical touchpoints with consumers, offering a durable form of advertising that extends beyond a one-time exposure.
Unlike fleeting ad campaigns, the tangible nature of merchandise ensures that your brand remains in the consumer’s life for an extended period. This longevity translates into prolonged marketing benefits, as each item continues to reinforce brand loyalty and recognition long after the initial distribution.

Designing Effective Merchandise

Successful merchandise design starts with a deep understanding of your target demographic. Knowing the preferences, lifestyles, and needs of your audience allows you to create items that are genuinely appealing and frequently used, ensuring more visibility.

The most effective merchandise combines aesthetic appeal with practicality. Items should be visually striking to grab attention and crafted with quality to ensure they are kept and used regularly. Branding should be seamlessly integrated into the design, enhancing the item without overwhelming it.

To stand out, businesses must think creatively about their merchandise. This might involve tapping into the latest tech trends, like AR-enabled wearables, or eco-friendly materials that resonate with environmentally conscious consumers. The key is to create products that not only serve a practical function but also tell a compelling story about the brand.

Implementing a Merchandise Strategy

Launching a custom merchandise strategy begins with identifying the goal of your campaign, be it increasing brand awareness, driving sales, or enhancing customer loyalty. Following this, businesses should select products that align with their branding and appeal to their target audience. It’s essential to establish a timeline and budget, taking into consideration the design, production, and distribution phases.

Partnering with the right vendors is crucial for producing high-quality merchandise. Look for suppliers who not only provide a wide range of products but also support custom designs and sustainable options. Ensuring the quality of your merchandise reflects the quality of your brand is paramount.

Measuring the Success of Merchandise Campaigns

To gauge the effectiveness of merchandise in marketing campaigns, it's crucial to focus on specific metrics that reflect both reach and engagement. Sales data, promotional code usage, and social media analytics provide tangible evidence of how well merchandise is resonating with your audience. Additionally, surveying customers on their satisfaction with and usage of the merchandise can offer insights into its practical impact. Tools such as Google Analytics and social media tracking platforms can be instrumental in capturing this data, allowing marketers to assess how merchandise drives traffic, converts leads, and fosters customer loyalty.

Beyond quantitative analysis, qualitative feedback is essential. Engage with your community through social media comments, direct feedback, and focus groups to understand the emotional and brand-connective impact of your merchandise. This feedback can reveal whether your items are cherished and used in the manner intended, or if they miss the mark in aligning with customer expectations and lifestyle. It’s also a way to gauge brand sentiment, which can be a more subtle but powerful indicator of a campaign’s success.

Establishing a clear set of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) before launching a merchandise campaign is crucial. These could include increases in brand awareness, measured through social media mentions and website traffic, or direct revenue impact, such as sales attributed to promotional merchandise. Regularly reviewing these KPIs allows for ongoing adjustments and optimizations, ensuring that the merchandise continues to serve as a valuable and effective component of the broader marketing strategy.

Overcoming Challenges in Merchandise Marketing

One common obstacle in merchandise marketing is aligning the product selection and design with the brand identity and customer preferences. To overcome this, businesses should conduct thorough market research and gather customer insights before product development begins. This strategy ensures that the merchandise not only stands out but also resonates deeply with the target audience, enhancing overall campaign effectiveness.

Another challenge involves logistics and inventory management, especially for businesses that are new to merchandise marketing. Overstocking can lead to unnecessary costs, while understocking can miss sales opportunities and customer dissatisfaction. Implementing a just-in-time production strategy or working with a demand-driven manufacturing partner can mitigate these risks. These approaches allow for more flexible inventory management and reduce the financial strain associated with large upfront production runs.

Finally, maintaining high-quality standards while keeping costs manageable is a delicate balance that can impact the perceived value of the merchandise. Partnering with reliable suppliers and manufacturers who understand your quality expectations and can scale with your needs is critical. Additionally, regular quality checks and staying actively involved in the production process can help in maintaining the integrity of the final product, ensuring that each item reflects well on the brand and meets customer expectations.

Conclusion

Custom merchandise is a powerful tool for enhancing brand visibility. It offers a unique blend of practicality and creative expression, allowing brands to make a lasting impression in the consumer’s mind and maintain visibility in everyday life. Integrating merchandise into broader marketing strategies enhances its impact, providing a cost-effective solution with long-lasting benefits.

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Looking for The Best Merch printer?

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Our showroom at 2755 Fruitdale Street, Los Angeles, CA 90039 is open by appointment only from 10 am - 4 pm Monday through Friday.

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Art & Merch Design with Coco Nella

Photo by New Perspective LA

In honor of Women’s History Month, we decided to interview some Los Angeles women artists, designers, and business owners. We start this series by talking to artist and designer, Coco Nella who has paved her way through the Los Angeles art scene after relocating from the Tri-State area. Coco has worked with several brands and businesses to elevate their brand with her abstract designs.

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Who Is Coco Nella?

Photo by New Perspective LA

Coco Nella is a Los Angeles-based mural & custom artwork business owned by Corinne “coco” Pulsinelle. Coco hails from the east coast, where she grew up fascinated by abandoned buildings and street art. After attending SUNY Purchase Art Conservatory in New York, she was able to refine her style and scale up her designs into large murals.

Since moving to Los Angeles, Coco’s painting style has caught the attention of major corporations, interior designers, business owners, and independent clients looking to have custom artwork in their homes. Her illustrations have also been used on packaging, clothing, and merch specifically in collaboration with local breweries.

Coco’s Background

Growing up in New Jersey, Coco became interested in the arts while taking an art class at her high school. Growing up, she took a specific interest in photography and graffiti as her artistic outlet. While in high school her teacher encouraged her and helped her apply to art schools.

After relocating to Los Angeles, Coco made connections with local interior designers and she began doing large-scale paintings and home murals as well as retail and office spaces. She has been able to create these connections through the years and building a brand for herself.

Although Coco’s primary work is painting murals and graphic design, she majored in Screen Printing while at SUNY Purchase where she learned the art of printmaking. This knowledge helped her understand design and plays a big role in how she works today. Coco has been able to pivot her knowledge of design and printmaking to create artwork for beer cans and apparel.

10 Questions with Coco Nella

We sat down with Coco to talk about her story, her inspiration for what she does, and the women in history that paved the way for her.

Q: How do you think learning the art of Printmaking in college influences your art today?

Coco: Printmaking is a cool knowledge base to come from because it is process-heavy and I am better at setting up a project overall because of it. For example, I approach murals by having a completely planned-out design first and pay close attention to things like color order as you would in printmaking. The heavy focus on design and image layering is definitely something I think is evident across my work.

Q: Growing up, who were the women that you looked up to as inspiration for making art?

Coco: I have always been inspired by strong women in general, especially those who are accomplished in male-dominated industries or have overcome very big challenges. I can’t pinpoint a particular idol in the art world, but I will say that seeing my grandma react to the drawings I was doing as a kid for example made me feel like maybe I had something worth pursuing. So maybe I didn’t know all of the art icons & hadn’t been to many galleries, but I had strong women around me who I looked up to and wanted to make proud.

Q: How do you help brands develop their visual assets?

Coco: My approach to working with brands is based on making a personal connection and understanding the ethos of the company and who their customer is. Developing color schemes, fonts, and images. Those are all tools we can utilize to communicate. Sometimes I feel like a translator, taking what it is a company wants to express and simply putting that into the language of design. I am not short on unconventional ideas and I value freshness and originality while keeping things approachable.

Q: What is your process when designing merch for a business?

Coco: On a technical level, it’s important for me to understand what the design is going to be used for. An image that translates well on a digitally printed t-shirt might not work on an embroidered hat for example. Once that part is sorted out, I really just focus on making the merch look eye-catching and awesome. People often buy merch because it’s nostalgic… you had a great time at a new brewery and there’s an awesome t-shirt hanging in front of you that you can wear and remember that awesome time. It’s built into the experience for the customer, but it’s also built into the advertising of the business. It’s a proper win-win scenario that should be treated as a fun and enjoyable creative process.  

Q: What do you enjoy about working with local breweries?

Coco: Local breweries are often down-to-earth social environments where things behind the scenes are often very creative and experimental. I feel like my goal as a visual artist to bring people together parallels the goal of many brewers that I have met, and that alignment allows for really cool artwork to happen.

Q: How important do you think it is for breweries to have label art for their cans?

Coco: Label art on almost any product is an integral part of creating/product brand awareness and making sales. A lot of people like myself will engage with a new product almost exclusively because I like how it looks, after all that’s often all you know about the product until you’ve tried it.

Q: What is the best part of working with a local business?

Coco: The best part of working with a local business is that I am also a local business and we speak the same language, a lot of times as far as understanding the hustle, the highs, and lows. I come at those projects from a place of support and I really appreciate the support in return.

Q: What do you like most about designing beer can labels?

Coco: Craft beer is specifically cool to make art for because oftentimes the customer will sip on a beer and have a rare moment of pause where they can actually look at the can. I like to bring a lot of detail into these labels and give people lots to look at, it’s just fun and part of the whole experience of unwinding with a good beer. Plus I’ve seen people either collect or turn the can into planters so that’s been a meaningful and unexpected demonstration of how people respond to the work I’m putting out.

Q: What is the most challenging part of designing merch?

Coco: The most challenging part of designing merch for me is creating the best strategy ahead of time so that whatever artwork I send to the printer will translate really well onto whatever product we are making. At the same time, I want to create artwork that is versatile for my client, so if they decide in the future to turn the same image into a patch or a pin I need to hit that sweet spot of having visually interesting details, but not so many details that they get lost on the item or can’t be made at all. It’s not always possible but that is often a challenge I face being in between the client and the printer.

Q: What inspires your creativity when designing merch?

Coco: When I design merch, I am always on the lookout for unconventional sources of inspiration that can bring freshness and originality. I don’t look at other merch as much as I might look at old photos, advertisements, and even just cool color combinations that I might notice while I’m out on a walk. 

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Designed by Coco Nella for the 2020 Los Angeles Brewers Guild

Beer label designs

Coco has worked with some Los Angeles County-based breweries such as Lucky Luke Brewing and Pacific Plate Brewing designing their cans. She has been able to bring a brighter concept and an out-of-the-box approach to label design.

Colorful and eye-catching beer label designs have recently become a very integral part of the craft beer business in Los Angeles. Having a well-thought-out, colorful and fun design on a beer label has proven to increase sales, and breweries all around the country are beginning to notice that combining art and beer is a good way to create brand awareness and loyalty.

Check out The 20 best beer label designs of 2020

Read How to design a beer label: The ultimate guide for craft brewers

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Merch Design

Having a well-thought-out design printed on a t-shirt or stickers can get you noticed. Coco has created some very cool designs to establish a brand visual asset for some of her clients such as Leo & Mamas, which is a women-owned lifestyle brand and shop in Lancaster, California, and a cool bandana collab with Lady Luck Print Co. which is a women-owned print shop located in Carlsbad, California.

As a business with regular customers, selling t-shirts, mugs, or stickers at your events or establishment creates a beautiful flywheel effect: the more merch you sell, the more money you make, and the more your brand gets promoted by your regular customers. A nice mention on their social media also helps promote your brand and gets you noticed by orders in a way that is fast and easy.

Read 8 Reasons why your company needs branded merchandise

Author: Irene Floridia - Content Creator

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Health and Wellness Merch Design

The branded fitness apparel and accessories market grew in popularity when our lives were put on hold due to Covid-19. As more people spent their entire days at home, the demand for some physical and mental release became a priority in daily life.

Workout equipment and accessories were at such high demand that many big brand such as Peloton could not keep up with purchased orders and their delivery timelines were months behind schedule due to supply chain issues.

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Fitness Merch

Fitness merch can be broken down into 2 different categories; fitness equipment and fitness accessories. If your business is centered around health, such as a fitness trainer or training program or a fitness supplements retailer you will want your merch to follow the same theme.

Check Out 32 Health and Wellness Business Ideas

Yoga Mats

Weather you do yoga or not, you will need a mat to perform your workouts. A branded yoga mat can be an easy way to promote your brand and add a stream of revenue for your business. Because yoga mats are such a big surface, you have the space to play around with design.

Not only can you print your logo on a yoga mat, but you can add other elements such as abstract shapes and colors or you may take a more simplistic approach. Your yoga mat is your canvas!

Check Out Why Should You Create Your Own Branded Fitness Merch?

Resistance Bands

Resistance bands are more popular than ever! Not only are they a low-cost product, but it’s a great surface to display a logo. Adding resistance bands to a merch store can be a nice addition as they’re not very common for a lot of brands outside of the sporting goods big retail stores.

Resistance bands can also make a good free promotional product if you’re just getting started because of it’s low cost.

Due to the material, it’s important to find the right merchandise product printer as it can be a tricky item to print on.

Sport Water Bottles

Every fitness brand will have a water bottle with their logo on it, and you can definitely go the same route. However, we think adding another element of design can help differentiate your brand from the completion.

Remember to always follow your brand guide and use your brand color and any other identifier. Thinking outside of the box in terms on design will be the best approach when creating basic merch items for your business.

There are also a lot of options when it comes to the design of the bottle itself, make sure you shop around before making a decision.

Athletic Apparel

Athleisure wear trend became popular with the comfort that leggings provided for everyday people going about their daily routine outside of work. Because most people seek comfort, athleisure wear is the perfect merch item for both very active people and perhaps less active but busy people.

Athleisure apparel can help to bridge the gap between people that live a very active lifestyle and people that may not have as much time to dedicate to going to a gym but would still like to feel comfortable while out running errands.

This is the perfect way to introduce your services or retail business to a broader audience.

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Wellness Merch

The wellness industry has been experiencing a boom with society focusing more on mental health. There are a lot of wellness businesses that focus on practices such as meditation, yoga, and nutrition. If your business fall into one of these categories, you understand that the potential to sell a product on top of your services can be challenging.

Check Out The Big, Booming Business of Wellness

Candles

Candles are easy to make, this could be the most cost-effective product if you’re looking to make your own candles (which a lot of the businesses in this field prefer to do) and attach your branding to the candle container. Your branding can be in the form of a sticker or a sleeve that wraps around the container.

In addition to the branding on the container itself, there are other things you can offer such as matches which can also be customized with your brand’s logo and can be a nice touch.

Soaps

Much like candles, soaps can be easy to make or manufacture if you choose to work with an established soap supplier. The opportunity for branding is on the packaging.

Soaps are usually wrapped in branded paper and this surface is of significant space to create something that is a clear representation of your brand and overall business mission.

Travel Mug

A travel mug is a more basic and simplistic merch item, however, there’s a ways to make this feel like a luxurious item, which depends on it’s design. Travel mugs come in all sizes and shapes, finding the right mug for your brand is key.

As the example photo shows, this brand chose a simple mug that has soft edges and contains a very simple image clearly defining their brand message. The key is to know your audience and know what they would like to have. Find a mug that you not only would buy for yourself but also buy for someone else as a gift.

Recipe Book

For a content creator that focuses on nutrition, creating a recipe book is also a great way to engage your audience in a deeper level. Many of us also like to have a tangible frame of reference when we are cooking, therefore, a book of recipes can be the best merch for this type of service or entertainer.

It doesn’t have to be perfect, you can play around with design and it does not have to be thousands of recipes. Choose from your most popular dishes and curate a list of them for a limited-quantity run recipe book.

Author: Irene Floridia - Content Creator

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Looking for The Best Health & Wellness Merch printer?

send us an e-mail at quotes@familyindustriesla.com, or give us a call at 323.227.1547 and we'd be happy to help.

Our showroom at 2755 Fruitdale Street, Los Angeles, CA 90039 is open by appointment only from 10 am - 4 pm Monday through Friday.

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Custom Packaging For Your Businesses

Increasing sales growth via quality packaging is quickly becoming a priority for many businesses big and small, however, it is true that this is more important for smaller brands that are trying to accelerate brand recognition by using attractive custom packaging. More and more, we see our clients invest in custom boxes, packaging sleeves, custom labels, and even personalized inserts to elevate their customer’s experiences.

Surveys and studies will tell you one thing — branded packaging brings big value for your business. But just to give you an idea:

• 72% of American consumers say that packaging design influences their purchasing decision. (Ipsos)

• 71% of American consumers say they are more likely to buy products in paper or cardboard packaging. (Ipsos)

• 60% of online shoppers say that branded or gift-like packaging gets them excited about receiving the package. (Dotcom Distribution)

• 50% of online shoppers say they are more likely to recommend products to friends if they came in branded or gift-like packaging. (Dotcom Distribution)

According to a study by Statista, a leading provider of market and consumer data, e-commerce growth is projected to hit a whopping 6.54 trillion US dollars in 2022. With the market growing, we can expect more brands to further saturate different industries; and with that, there will be a pressing need for you to stand out from the rest.

This where branded packaging comes into play, and here are effective ways small businesses are making sure they stay on top of their packaging game.

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Customize Your Design With Your Brand in Mind

Branded packaging encourages the customer to remember you after their purchase. Well-planned and executed packaging design can turn first-time buyers into repeat customers, and if your packaging design resonates with them, they will become your brand advocates, too.

Taking your product packaging to the next level does not mean you need to have custom shipping boxes. There are factors to consider, such as your product itself not needing it, or your price point now allowing the increase in cost.

Don’t worry - you can make small and meaningful investments into upgrading your product packaging.

Read more about How Can Branding Costs Be Capitalized

Custom Packing Tape

By far the most budget friendly option, the personalized packing tape option is the best option for growing businesses. Besides being a cost-effective way to customize your packages, it can also be an opportunity to include a discount code or more information about your brand as well as advertise any additional items available in your shop.

Custom Packing Labels

Packing labels are usually applied to a simple box where the product is stored. These custom box labels are great to display your branding such as logo, colors, and tag lines or your social media handles. It’s another easy and affordable way to personalize your packaging.

Pro Tip: Hire a product packaging designer

Custom Packing Sleeves

Packing sleeves are often used on small items that are packaged in small boxes where a sleeve can be placed. Besides the visual component, your branded packaging design should be functional. After all, it will hold your product securely in place during transit.

Custom Tissue Paper

Customized tissue or packing paper is primarily used for apparel, however, it does not have to be! This option is again another way to keep your branding costs down. Tissue paper with your brand on it can be printed by your local merch printer or screen printer, or if you’re looking for a more DIY option, you can purchase a stamp of your logo and stamp the paper as you go!

Custom Packing Inserts

Packing inserts compared to the top suggestions may cost a bit more depending on the type of paper (you will want to use a thick card) and the type of print such as gloss or matt. Insert cards give you a little more flexibility as to how much information about the brand you can include due to the size (assuming your box is big enough to fit an 4x6 card).

Adding a discount card can make for a wonderful surprise treat and are a great way to encourage repeat sales.

You can also add thank you notes and other personalized messages that allow them to inform, engage, and ultimately, build a relationship with their clients.

Author: Irene Floridia - Content Creator

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Do you have more questions about packaging design and printing?

send us an e-mail at quotes@familyindustriesla.com, or give us a call at 323.227.1547 and we'd be happy to help.

Our showroom at 2755 Fruitdale Street, Los Angeles, CA 90039 is open by appointment only from 10 am - 4 pm Monday through Friday.

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For any inquiries, send us a message!

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Halloween Costume Ideas for 2023

This year Halloween has the potential to be great, as the day falls on a Saturday, which means you can have a late night with the kids or with friends watching scary movies and eating way too much candy until you pass out from a sugar crash. While a lot of things are different this year, we can all still dress up and make it fun. We’ll take you through some simple and on-a-budget costume ideas to stay in the spirit even if there is no Halloween parade this year.

Costume Ideas

If you’re anything like us, every year you get caught off guard once this time of year arrives and you end up panicking trying to find a last-minute costume for a zoom Halloween party. Here are some ideas that you may find helpful in the search for that great costume that took little money, effort, and time to put together.

Custom T-Shirts make great DIY Halloween costumes

While not the most original idea, it’s the perfect last-minute choice and the cost is much less than a traditional costume. So, you will be saving money and time! a t-shirt costume is a simple and practical idea for a costume that, if dressed correctly, can be a big hit at the annual Halloween party. For 2020, especially, you will most likely spend the night at home but this doesn’t mean that you can’t have fun and dress up!

A few things to consider when coming up with a costume t-shirt:

1. Humor - Always be funny! Do you like to make people laugh? find a way to still be funny with a simple t-shirt costume by

2. Cleverness - A play on words is always a hit! a clever way of using a word or phrase will almost always get a chuckle from people.

3. Originality - Make sure you’re the only one at the party with your costume, try to be creative and reference pop culture or current events.

4. Relativity - There is nothing worse than having to explain the joke. Make sure your costume is something people will understand and relate to.
   

Here we will show you a few fun ideas that have all the elements needed for an awesome last-minute Halloween costume for your “chill-at-home Halloween party”.

Nerd Tee

The classic nerd costume. We all have a pair of old thick framed glasses. Buy this shirt and put on the glasses and you’re good to go!

BUY

Clever Tee

Wittiness will always get you brownie points. Everyone likes a clever t-shirt!

BUY

Tuxedo Tee

This shirt tuxedo costume allows for some versatility. You could be a magician or a fancy man at a fancy dinner party. Grab a top hat and some dashing white gloves and you'll be ready.

BUY

Hillbilly Tee

Barbed wire tattoos, flask in the pocket, corncob pipe, and a bandana. All you need is a mullet and a trucker hat and you’re good to go.

BUY

Pregnant Costume Tee

Have a bun in the oven? Most costume won’t fit? No problem! This t-shirt will scare all the little trick-or-treaters.

BUY

Star Trek Tee

Now this is an effortless cool costume! Throw this shirt on, slick back your hair and put on some black pants and you’re in with the trekkies at the Zoom party.

BUY

Costume Masks

As we continue to battle Covid-19, it is important to follow the CDC guidelines for this holiday. Wearing a mask will have to be part of your costume if you are taking your kids trick-or-treating, or if you’re an adult that still enjoys childhood traditions. Whatever the scenario, we decided to list some of our favorite Covid-19 friendly face masks for Halloween.

Fun Halloween Face Masks for 2020

Ron Swanson

Everyone loves the show Parks and Recreation, and Ron Swanson is an iconic character. Just put on a suit, slick back your hair and put on this mask!

Buy

Kevin - Home Alone

You can’t think of a more iconic movie from the 90’s. This scene from home alone printed on a mask is genius!

Buy

Zombie

The classic Halloween costume! get this mask and skip all the special effects makeup.

Buy

Hocus Pocus Witches

The best Disney Halloween movie ever made! The Sanderson sisters are the most iconic witches, and these face masks prove that!

Buy

LED light-up Face Mask

If you’re going for a more futuristic look, this face mask is it! Some of the features are great and you can use it for multiple occasions.

Buy

Plague Doctor Mask

We couldn’t think of a better occasion to wear this than for Halloween during a pandemic. This steam punk mask is great for a simple costume idea.

Buy

Author: Irene Floridia - Content Creator

Custom Design Embroidery Tips and Trends

Embroidering a logo or a design on a t-shirt or polo-style shirt automatically elevates your brand above common apparel. Embroidered logos are most often done on polo-style shirts for big company corporations or on hats with your favorite sports team name or mascot. We’ve seen a popularity increase in this trend among streetwear and modern fast fashion clothing brands. In this article, we will take you through some tips and tricks when designing a logo or a graphic for embroidery.

Design

Lines:

The thickness or weight of the lines on the logo or the graphic should be thick, as stitching creates a thicker line than ink does. Designs that may look great on paper can be hard-to-read on fabric. Thread is of a standard thickness, approx. 0.4mm. and tiny strokes for emphasis and small lettering are often not possible in embroidery.

Colors:

Repeated color changes within the design can result in the thread breaking during the embroidery process. When designing, try to avoid changes in the line weight for each color. This is what we strive for when converting a design into a stitch format.

Shading:

Color shading or blending is easier to when screen-printing than with thread, therefore, it is not recommended to have a design with different shades of color that merge. However, color blending is not uncommon as there are a few ways to achieve this. Check out the different ways color blending can be done.

Letter Sizing:

Line weight also applies to letter size, you will want to make sure your front or text is the right thickness, lettering below 5mm rarely embroiders well. By designing something bold, clear, and simple you are guaranteed a nice embroidered shirt. It is also important to keep in mind that the sizing of the font will differ depending on whether it’s written in upper or lowercase lettering. Lowercase lettering is approximately 70% of the height of uppercase lettering. Keep this in mind when ensuring that your lettering is contained in the parameters.

0.25'' is equivalent to approximately 36pt, and the letters will also have the necessary thickness. But this depends on the font. We recommend using simple fonts like Arial, Helvetica, Myriad pro.

Details:

When embroidering on fabric with a pile or heavy texture (eg. Polar fleece, terry toweling, etc.) thin lines can often sink into the fabric pile or texture. When sewing on a cap, detailed outlining is often unsuccessful as the register is often lost in mid-design. See tips to avoid shifting and gaping.

Size

Simple and small is the way to go! A big embroidery piece on a shirt is not only a bad design choice but depending on the material, the embroidery might cause the shirt to look deformed around the design over time. If the design is for a jacket, it may look better big, but it also depends on the placement.

Fabrics

This image shows how embroidery may cause some fabrics to bunch up around the design after a single wash.

Embroidery can be applied to most knit fabrics such as Polo, Lacoste, and Penguin, as well as most outerwear and denim. The fabric you should avoid is cotton, after the first wash cotton will cause the fabric around the embroidered piece to bunch and therefore making the garment unwearable, unless that’s the look you’re going for! Check out embroidery fabrics 101.

Placement

The most common placement on a shirt is the top-left chest area, while for outerwear and denim it is common to see embroidery on the back of a jacket, jeans, or even collars. When designing apparel, placement is very important, therefore, this should be considered when submitting your design to your embroidery shop.

Trends

Patches

Embroidered patches have also become very popular in the year 2020. As they say, history repeats itself, and in this decade we have seen styles from the ’90s make a comeback. Patches of your favorite band or that classic American tattoo style heart design with a ribbon around it with a catchy phrase are all the rage now. Embroidered patches are commonly applied to denim jackets or jeans but are also commonly applied to flat brim hats or sweatshirts.

Shoes

Shoe giants Nike and Adidas both have customization options for a lot of their classic shoes. One of those customization features is embroidered text. Personalized embroidery on shoes is not as common but as we embrace the ‘90s more, they seem to also be making a comeback.

At Family Industries, we try to help our customers by providing design consultations and placement recommendations. Let us know if you need help!

Author: Irene Floridia - Content Creator