Since I was totally unfamiliar with Zazzle.com a few days ago, I figured Id better look into how we can share our T-shirt design with our membership, as we seem to have quite a bit of interest in the current design(s).
This is what I have found out:
The design we choose can be stored as a Template on Zazzle, meaning it can be accessed, customized by our members and used for a wide variety of products ~ T-shirts, hats, bumper stickers, fridge magnets, aprons, etc. The prices seem pretty good for all of these things. Thats the good news!
Now for the slightly less than good news:
In order to make a design/template, like a T-shirt, available to the public (our members), it must follow these Zazzle guidelines.
1) It has to be listed as a product in a Zazzle personal store;
2) In order to sell something in a personal store, it has to have a minimum 10% Royalty Fee attached.
Since I am not out to make a profit off the DIS Dads, I dont know how to go about sharing the design with our membership without the Royalty Fee attached. I believe we have two choices for having a standardized Disney-themed logo via Zazzle.com, if thats what we want:
1) I can set the template and shirt design up in a personal store and make them available to our members with the minimum required 10% Royalty Fee. That would add about an extra $1.69 or so to each non-discounted, basic white T-shirt purchased. The fee does take discounts into consideration, so with the current 10% shirt discount, the fee would actually be around $1.52 or so per basic white T-shirt. If we do that, I would be open to suggestions for what can be done with any profit I make from the Royalty Fees. I dont expect this to be much but I really am not out to make any profit from our group. The 10% fee would also apply to any other items with the logo that might be in my store: hats, bumper stickers, kids shirts, etc. I enjoy designing the stuff, I just dont want to make a profit off my DIS Dads friends for doing it.
2) I can make the details of the approved logo available to anyone who wishes to create their own shirt on the Zazzle site, thus saving the Royalty Fee. That would mean giving our members the Font information and the Goofy image information. To have a standardized logo, each member would then have to go to the design section of the site and use that info to duplicate the design Nate and I came up with. Such items do not have to go into a store since they are just being made for personal use. They can be purchased outright and saved on the site for future use. I dont know how many members would want to spend time doing this as it is a little tedious and requires some familiarity with the design section of Zazzle. It isnt difficult, though, once you get the hang of it.
Keep in mind, if we go with a standardized logo in a personal store, it can still be set up so the logo can be modified by each individual member. Fonts (type, color, sizes), wording and slogans can be changed to suit each person. I havent found a way yet to change the Goofy image without starting the design process over from scratch, but there may be a way to do that, too. Images can also be resized. A template can also be set up so only certain parts can be modified, such as the member name and membership number, leaving everything else the same.
The current design uses a basic, white T-shirt printed on one side (for cost purposes); Goofys image, since that was requested by various members; lime green for the lettering (the DISs official color); a font (AdLib) suggested by Nate; and
www.disboards.com to help advertise our club. Nate also likes the slogan Will work for Dole Whip, as opposed to Man Laws and Cheese Balls, so the slogan would definitely be something each member could modify. A template with each slogan could probably be set up in the store to make that easy. Other styles of shirt and different shirt colors can also be used, if anyone would like to pay extra for those (Zazzle costs). That includes shirts with printing on both sides, as well.
I would appreciate some feedback on this. Thanks!