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Band Merchandising

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Advertise Your Band Through Merchandise

One of the best way for a band to make money for it's continued music production is merchandise. It's well known that selling your CD can make you some money, but Tee-shirts are usually better in the bang for the buck at gigs.

Then again if can come up with a gimmick, you can rake in the extra dough!

Below are some ideas as well as some suggestions on creating that prefect graphic representation of yourself.

This pic is a view of my book cover for the up and coming podcast and ebook Stage - featuring the the fake/fictional band Blown Pageant

Be sure to contact me if there is some way I can help your band, or your book for that matter.

The Merchandise, Man, The Merchandise
Graphics Programs
Now That The Graphic Is Finished
Reader Feedback

The Merchandise, Man, The Merchandise

Just a quick note about your merchandise.

I have always set up my shops on Cafepress or Zazzle but sometimes you need a local shop. Just make sure you shop around. Don't take your first t-shirt company.

The more you keep your design's color count down, the cheaper the t-shirt costs will be.

The added benefit? When you photocopy your fliers, a simple logo design, copies better, unless you can photoshop and do a manga style screen technique.

Simplicity is the design of the day, but make sure you have a design that will hold up for brand recognition. Yeah, some more advertising jargon, but if your going to make it to the next level, you have to sell your product.

Also, don't forget all of the other stuff. Stickers, window vinyl, badges, koosies, ringtones, USB thumb drives with a couple of unofficial songs that they won't get anywhere but your gig. Lots of ideas out there. Play around with some of them. Much less selling your CDs!

Photo courtesy alvimann on Morguefile

Graphics Programs

As I mentioned earlier, you need band photos. Most PR kits are expected to have a picture of the current line up of the band. Even the electronic press kits.

But you should have them by this point.

If you want to save a ton of money, you need to create your band's images yourself. What you do with that image is up to your imagination and how it fits with your plan for your music. Cartooning, Vectorizing, and Poser-like 3D are all options. But the most common unless you can do those yourself, is to use a Photoshop-like program to do the filters on your own.

Below is a list of free Photoshop-like programs I find very useful. Of course I also have an ancient version of Photoshop as well (5.5) I am also going to list their strengths and weaknesses. There will be more to come!

Picasa: Google's answer to Photoshop. It has basic editing capabilities, but lacking in several filtering areas for me. And it can't edit on a pixel level, which is a thumbs down for me.... It gets good reviews but I say for the free money, go with Irfanview...
Gimp: Short of the Gnu Image Manipulation Program, GIMP was actually designed for the Linux OS. It has been ported however with it's basic core usability to Windows. Once you get used to it it can have much the same use of the older photoshop versions.
Photoscape: While I don't have a very good memory as to why I quit using this one, it is a good editor, but still very basic.
Irfanview: While not much of an editor (it does have some functionality with certain Photoshop filters) It can sort and rename like no other program! It is a super slideshow creator, and that alone (because it can save the entire slideshow to a burnable CD for your fans! We're merchandising remember?) It is a must have for anyone working with pictures of any kind!
Paint.NET: A delicious painting/drawing/image manip program. But if you have a small computer that doesn't yet have the dotNET architecture installed, you better skip this one. The program itself is fairly light weight hard drive wise, but .NET isn't...
FotoFlexer: Fotoflexer calls itself the world's most advanced online image manipulator. Work with the photo 'In Your Browser'!! With many Photoshop like options to play with, you probably won't need to install anything. Just go to this site. And it can upload automatically to several online photo sites like Flickr and PhotoBucket.

Now That The Graphic Is Finished

Now that you have the logo or picture or both fixed up the way you want it, you'll need to have the shirt or other merchandise made.

There are many Print on Demand (POD) sites available for many different applications. Below I have listed a few links to the one's I have found fair priced and reliable. And of course with CafePress and Zazzle you can create a whole store of your merchandise to sell online at a profit!

CafePress: Everyone's good ole standby. They regularly add new products to their arsenal and have easy templates for creating just the perfect look. They also can burn your CD and print the jewel case!
Zazzle: Actually my favorite. A little harder to get used to the layout, but oh, the sweet products. Sketchers, skateboards, Avery binders, just all kinds of awesome stuff! AND! (get this) They will allow you (if you have purchased to mechanical license) to produce artwork for licensed copyrighted material. They also have a section exclusively for band merch!
You Design It: A web based graphical interface that helps you create the look you want. Full screen printing (not iron-on printed transfers like CafePress, though they offer it as a cheaper alternative) and embroidery with prices set at 6+ for groups and single setup. Lots of ideas with their graphics or upload your own.
Spreadshirt: Another online graphical interface. They have recently gone the CafePress and Zazzle approach but are only stocking clothing-like items. In other words a specialty store. Again you can create your own storefront and sell from the website also! Yet another way to monitize your band's merchandise!