Street Stickers Sell It: the New York State of Mind

In 2008, Brett Stein discovered an important fact: thanks to the First Amendment of the Constitution, it's legal to sell T-shirts in the streets and parks of New York City as long as they make a political/religious statement. Stein put that knowledge together with his political views, love of street art/graffiti, skateboarding and hip-hop, and came up with New York State of Mind (NYSM)--a clever, eye-catching collection of t-shirts sold on the streets of Soho and in NYC's Union Square Park.

Since then, thousands of NYSM shirts have been sold to people from all over the world--proving, in the immortal words of Mos Def, "it's not where you're from, it's where you're at!"--but to this day, every shirt is silk screened by hand in Stein's Brooklyn studio with mad love.

Despite all the success, NYSM is still an independent business with virtually no budget for marketing/advertising, so beyond  word-of-mouth and some basic social networking, Stein's entire marketing plan has consisted of custom sticker "stick ups" on the streets of Manhattan and Brooklyn. As a consequence, he told us, it seems like almost everyone he meets in NYC is familiar with his brand/logo.

Why did Brett Stein choose Custom Sticker Makers to print those all-important NYSM stickers? "I choose to deal with CSM because I know they value me as a customer and go the extra mile to keep me happy," he told us.

The Threadless Test: Does Your Sticker Design Have What It Takes to Be a T-Shirt?

So you've got an amazing custom sticker design that's proven popular. Does that same design have what it takes to be a popular t-shirt?

While the answer, as far as your particular design goes, may seem intuitive, it may not be, as the same image that appeals to people as a sticker may or may not inspire them to emblazon it across their chests.

Fortunately, there is a way to test your crossover sticker-to-shirt idea before you invest in getting it printed. Threadless Tees is a website where registered users can submit prospective t-shirt designs, via easy templates, and get them scored by their sophisticated design community.

Of course, Threadless has its own agenda: to find great designs for use on their t-shirts. However, if your design scores high with the Threadless community, chances are, you won't object, as the website awards $2,000-$22,500 for the most popular designs.

Even if your t-shirt design doesn't take the cake, though, this service offers a free and fun way to evaluate the potential of a sticker design as a t-shirt, offering the kind of market research on-the-cheap you'd be hard-pressed to find elsewhere. (And if you're considering multiple designs, send your online friends over pick their favorite.)

Miss Wit Will Bring It: Smart Branding to a T

Miss Wit (a.k.a. Deborah Goldstein) seems to have a knack for, in her words, “hitting the zeitgeist on a whim and prayer.” It started back March of 2003, when she made a few shirts for friends with the simple statement: "And I want to thank Harvey Weinstein," as a joke. The shirt was on display for just one day in a Brooklyn boutique, but a reporter from The New York Observer happened to observe it. The shirt was subsequently featured on E! News Live, The New York Post and CNBC. Some wit, a good name and a domain, and thus was Miss Wit born.
There are a whole lot of smart and sassy t-shirt designs available through her website, but the best shirt the Brooklyn-based Ms. Goldstein has to offer may be your own. That’s right: her “underground branding brigade” stands ready to turn its quick wit and graphic skills to your business or nonprofit t-shirt design. (They’ll handle getting them printed, too.)

As connoisseurs of great branding, we’re big fans of Miss Wit. Anyone who has ever tried advertising on a t-shirt understands (or found out the hard way) that it’s not about slapping your logo on a shirt, it’s about making a shirt that people actually want to wear. By offering grassroots organizers and entrepreneurs the kind of creative services normally associated with the big, expensive halls of a professional advertising agency, Miss Wit offers smart branding for everyone.

As far as custom stickers go, Miss Wit includes them in every shipment, as well as on her bags at fairs, festivals and markets. And don’t tell anyone, but she also does a "stick up" whenever she can, be it on bathroom walls or street posts. She also reports that small children love her stickers so much they stick them directly on their faces.

Why Custom Sticker Makers, oh, Miss Wit? “So far,” said Goldstein, “price, quality and great timing!”