Monday, October 15, 2007

The T-Shirt Spiel Deal

Super Tees Blueprint

Split the Atom lays out its blueprints for breeding a race of atomic super tees.

We stock T-shirts. Loads of them. They are for men and they are for women, and our tip-top, ground-breaking designs are all exclusive to us.

T-shirts are brill. They're the ultimate piece of clothing to showcase art - they're a blank canvas just waiting to have the latest wunderkid's graphic design masterpiece screen-printed upon them.

Wearing a Split the Atom designer T-shirt gives you the chance to stand out from the crowd. While all your student/office chums are lazily purchasing clone tee-shirt brands from shopping malls, you can shop with us and be safe in the knowledge that you'll look and feel individual - a cut above the rest.

Wearing a Split the Atom tee will lead your friends/relatives/enemies to start seeing you in a different light - they will be compelled to reach a sky-high level of respect for you. They'll no doubt be enthusing about you once you've departed the room:

Acquaintance 1: "Hey, did you see Jack/Janice has started wearing some really bang-on tee shirts?"

Acquaintance 2: "Yeah, I did. They look really boss. Where do you think he/she gets them?"

Acquaintance 1: "I'm not sure, but - I'll tell you one thing - I'd truly consider sleeping with him/her now.

Or something.
Limited edition

We print limited runs of our tees, and once they're gone, they might never be printed again. And even if they are, they'll probably be printed on a different colour T-shirt. So don't end up missing out on a MAKI classic on grass-green, and end up sobbing when we reprint it on gold. ("But gold just so clashes with my complexion, boo hoo.") Save yourself the agony and purchase it when you can.
Quality prints

Our tees are printed using the highest quality spot-colour screen printing process. We treat our designs with the reverence great art deserves, so only the finest prints will do. If the standard ever slips, the tshirts get chucked in the charity bag. It's as simple as that.
God bless American Apparel

We print our exclusive designs on fashion tee-shirts manufactured by American Apparel. They are a modern design, stylishly cut as and 100 per cent cotton. Their range of tee colours is both varied and inspired, and they are manufactured in sunny LA and not some Honduras sweatshop where the 13 year old workers are being paid wages of twenty pence a month.

American Apparel is also a far superior fit. Rival brands tend to produce saggy, shapeless tops, with a touch that is abrasive to the skin. The American Apparel shirts feel silky smooth. When you've got one on, you just know it's a classy piece of clothing - as do those who see you wearing it.

The finishing fashion touch we add to our T-shirts is the application of our custom made sleeve-tag labels (featuring our 'atomic' motif) that will make you stand out in any crowd.
Community spirit

At Split the Atom, we pledge to give you the best designs by the most impressive upcoming designers the world over.

So we're calling for graphic designers and illustrators the globe over to submit there original art into our NeverEnding T-shirt Design Competition™ . We screen-print on to our tees the very finest and most popular designs, and the artists walk away with £250 each in their sky-rockets - which can't be bad.

And how do we determine which designs are most popular? We know because you, in no uncertain terms, tell us which designs are your favourite! We collate ratings and user comments for all our submissions and use them to help us decide which tees to print up. It's your shout. You have the power. Use it wisely. If there is a submitted design that you think would be ideal for a tee-shirt - so good, in fact, that you think it would be criminal for us not to print it - then let your voice be heard, because we're listening.

This democratic approach (a genuine application of the dictum: 'the customer knows best') helps to forge the community spirit on the site. Users know that they have an influence here, so they're more inclined to voice their opinions.

The site also works as an excellent sounding board for ideas. Not every designer who enters the NeverEnding T-shirt Design CompetitionTM will win the cash and see their t shirts printed, but there is a good chance they will receive useful and constructive feedback from their peers in the comments section - a process which will help further young talents.
Style guide

So what kind of submissions are we looking for? What's our style guide? We'll let you into a secret: there isn't one. We have no editorial policy towards the style of tee-shirts that we print. Funny tees, serious, tees, miserable tees, cool tees, arty tees, silly tees, zany tees, pretentious tees, clinically-insane tees - we'll print the Jewson lot. The only criterion is that the work is original, and that you like it and we like it - and that's it.
The power of the blog

Blogs, if written with honesty and integrity, are a fantastic way for retailers and customers to communicate with each other in a way they have never done before. This is why the Atom Blog is an element of the site we really want to make good use of - and we hope you will to.

It's unlikely that you could ever walk into your local Tesco and get to speak to the CEO about the direction the company is taking. ("Oi, Terry. Your strategy of implementing Metro stores on the west coast is U.S. is doomed to failure. Sort it out!") It's not going to happen. But, with the Atom Blog, you can have your say - and we'll be all ears.

Lord knows, Split the Atom is no model of entrepreneurship. It's all a bit fuzzy, messy - a shambles, in fact. But, perhaps, if we're transparent enough about this business of flogging T-shirts, sharper brains will chip in, help steer the ship. In our experience, intelligent people love showing other people just how intelligent they are. Atom Blog is designed to milk that tendency.
Crunch time

So there you are. We've pimped our company as best we can. Frankly, we've talked it up to the observation deck of the Tower of Babel. We're drained. So go and check Split the Atom out for yourself. We're like our tshirts - lots. Maybe you'll like them to. (Was that a bit too Linda Barker?



http://www.splittheatom.com/resources/articles/blue-print.asp