How Promotional T-shirts Work?

tshirts by Rob Allen

As what they’ve said, promotional t-shirt is one of the most effective promotional products that companies can use in order to advertise their brand to their targeted audience. But have you ever asked how these customized t-shirts can morph its user into a walking billboard? Technically speaking, there is an inner science behind that. And if you care to know, let me explain how it happens.

Advertising your brand is a form of communication and to give you a little background about it let me introduce to you the basic model of communication. In order for you to communicate, there should be a source. The source will give the message through a medium and this medium will send the message to it receiver. The feedback is the last element that will be provided by the receiver. This element determines if the message has been sent to the audience successfully.

If you were to illustrate that, it goes something like this:

THE S-M-C-R+FEEDBACK

This illustration is the basic S-M-C-R +Feedback model of communication. However, we wouldn’t focus ourselves on the whole model. Instead, let us dissect what a message should be made of in order to have a successful communication flow.

On the other hand, communication is not always successful. The interference of noise (semantic and physical) could affect the flow of communication. There could be a technical glitch on the t-shirt design that makes it hard to read (physical noise) or the people might have a prejudice on the things are imprinted on the t-shirt (semantic noise).

What an effective message is made of? There are various elements that make an effective message. Here are the elements that you should focus on.

Design

The design plays and important role in engineering success on promotional t-shirts. A design should be clear and attention-grabbing. In designing a t-shirt, you should know how to play with different shapes and colors.

Slogan

The slogan is the message that goes in line with the design that you will print on the t-shirt. A slogan is a phrase that ranges from 10 words and below. In composing a slogan, you should always remember these:

It should speak in behalf of the products, service or the company itself
It should not be a novel.
It should be clear
It should be concise
It should relate to its targeted customers

Color

Color is very symbolic. In fact, there are colors that are designate only to a certain disease of awareness. And if you care to know what a single color symbolizes, here is the list:

Red – Aids/HIV/Alcohol or Substance Abuse
Orange – Hunger/Leukemia/Cultural Diversity and Racial Tolerance
Yellow –Liver Cancer/Suicide Prevention
Green –Environment/Mental Health
Blue – Child Abuse Prevention/Colon Cancer
Purple – Domestic Violence/Pancreatic Cancer
White – Peace/Diabetes/Innocense
Black – Mourning/Melanoma
Brown – Colorectal Cancer
Pink – Breast Cancer

More than that, there are rule in blending different kinds of colors that you should take note:

No color overload

Do not print designs with the same color scheme as your t-shirt

Apply the law of contrast (use black on white and vice versa)

These are the things that you should consider in how promotional t-shirts work. You should always remember that people are visual. So always do your best to design the best t-shirt design that you can do in the name of brand promotion.

Sources:

http://www.craftsnscraps.com/jewelry/ribbons.html
http://davis.foulger.info/research/unifiedModelOfCommunication.htm
http://www.youthedesigner.com/2007/12/13/the-ultimate-guide-to-designing-custom-t-shirts/

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