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T-shirts to raise awareness and funds

Dainty

Senior Member
Messages
1,751
Location
Seattle
Okay, I've seen a few brief mentions of T-shirts around the forum, but no one has become serious about the project. I know there are places online to design your own t-shirt, as well as places where you can open your own online t-shirt shop for free with much of the hassles take care of by the merchandizing store.

To reduce confusion over who gets what, all participation would be volunteer, and all profits would be donated to agreed upon organizations that are assisting CFS substantially, such as WPI or Pheonix Rising, for example (I know it ain't free). ;) Designers, while offering their designs free of charge, will retain the copyright of the design.

PWC can contribute their ideas to the kinds of things they'd like to see on t-shirts. Anyone can try their hand at perfecting a design and offering it on the store, or presenting it to the person in charge of the store to see if he/she thinks it's good enough to sell.

Prices would be reasonable.

I have a lot of ideas already, but there's no way I could handle the logistics of making the idea work out. Someone else needs to do that. There are several different websites that can be used for this...someone needs to shop around, find the best one, create an account for it and manage it in an ongoing fashion. Since the merchandizing and S&H are taken care of, it shouldn't be too difficult, but some sites may have more design options than others, some may cost more than others, etc, so it pays to shop around.

Once that's established, the floor can be opened for ideas and designs.

I suppose we'd need a panel of people that decides where exactly the money goes? Organizing these sorts of things isn't my specialty, so I need you all to pitch in with your ideas and abilities if this is going to work. :D
 

snowathlete

Senior Member
Messages
5,374
Location
UK
I might be able to come up with a design, as long as you dont need it anytime soon...
Id like to buy a T-shirt and i think its a good idea to promote things more widely.
Maybe a list of organizations to recieve funds could be posted and those buying get a vote?
 

Tammie

Senior Member
Messages
793
Location
Woodridge, IL
I agree with Cafe Press being a good choice (fairly easy to use, good prices, decent quality, quick answers to questions, orders go through pretty quickly, etc)

......but I would absolutely stay away from Zazzel.....too tired to go into it rt now but have had TERRIBLE results from them - products suck, orders take a really long time, customer service is really bad, really rude, etc, and they have failed to send all items in an order and tried to blame me for their error.....and I am not the only one who has had issues with them
 

citybug

Senior Member
Messages
538
Location
NY
Someone was discussing t shirts on another site, and there was a good rate for 25 or better for 100. We could have a couple designs and ask for orders and only get them when there are 25 or close. Ship each batch to a different person so no one has to do all the shipping. If one is popular order 100. I'd like most of the money to go to WPI for research (it would be about $10 per shirt) with a small amount to PR for hosting and for postage to individuals.
 

Frank

Senior Member
Messages
850
Location
Europe
Great project, i support it.
The hard part will be the design i guess. Making it appealing to other people, an eyecatcher:eek:
 
Messages
16
I've got a friend who owns a print shop. She said she'd cut me a deal. Anyone out there have ideas. There are CFS T's out there, but I've not come across anything I'd actually wear. My friend said the graphics need to be in "vector art in adobe illustrator" what ever that is.
 

SOC

Senior Member
Messages
7,849
My daughter saw a "This is what an invisible illness looks like" t-shirt somewhere. She thought that might be a conversation starter on campus. That might be good on the front of a t-shirt with a list of common symptoms on the back, showing that ME/CFS is NOT all about being tired. Has potential for raising awareness....

Then there's all the variations on " I TOLD you I was sick", like "I TOLD you it was a virus". We might be a bit premature with those since we only have presumed causality, not proven causality.
 
Messages
22
Location
Indiana
I like both these ideas, but the first one especially since we could use it now. If it takes awhile to get things going, then I would go with the "I TOLD you I was sick" ones better. Just my 2 cents.
 
Messages
16
Nice ideas! I thought of a child's shirt that says "My mom couldn't help me get dressed this morning because she's too sick so I was stuck with this t-shirt. CFS awareness" or something more generic like "I wear my pj's all day to support CFS"
 

citybug

Senior Member
Messages
538
Location
NY
With zazzle. com can customize shirts. Can set up some ideas and see if any sell. I'm interested in doing as benefit for WPI (the proceeds) or other xmrv research.
Like Support XMRV Research with virus image. or Silence = A Living Death.

Cafe press only gives 10% of sale. At zazzle can set up for 20 percent (or more, price goes up). They have more product options. I was interested in them for the postcard options.

Didn't see the negative comment about zazzle before, products could be on both sites.
 

Hope123

Senior Member
Messages
1,266
For those interested, this is my friend's website on Etsy.

She is an artist who has had CFS for more than a decade. The cards are her original designs and she also sells original paintings. There are also some simple CFS T-shirts for sale on the site. All proceeds go to CFS research/ awareness activities. I had asked her in the past to consider designing a T-shirt for an organization or an original painting for WPI auction but here health has been up and down. I'll try asking her again and if anyone wants to reach her, just PM me directly if you don't want to go through Etsy.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/muddipuppy...+puppy&ga_search_type=seller_usernames&page=1
 
Messages
22
Location
Indiana
Agree: proceeds from wherever shirts are done to go to WPI. I like Silence = A Living Death. I have no experience with Zazzle.. off the top of my head an additional 10% profit is not worth any additional headaches, JMHO. I have purchased from Cafe Press; found them to be quick, nice packaging, good shopping experience. Another group in my old life that I used to volunteer with uses them with no issues; pretty much set it up and then forget about it.
 
Messages
22
Location
Indiana
Your friend does lovely work. Personally I am up for a bit stronger statement than the shirts that she had on Etsy. If her health permits and she is willing, I think she would be wonderful to design something with a bit more edge to it.
 

Dainty

Senior Member
Messages
1,751
Location
Seattle
Just a quick note, the "this is what an invisible illness looks like" is already on a T-shirt; I'm pretty sure selling T-shirts with that exact same message would be copyright infringement unless we had the original artist's permission to use it.

I'd like to see one with a message along the lines of:

My illness may be invisible, but I'm not.

We won't be ignored.

(They could be two separate shirts, or on either side of the same shirt....I'm just brainstorming here...)

Another brainstorm, perhaps a bit corny, I dunno...

Nobody puts XMRV in a corner.
 

Sallysblooms

P.O.T.S. now SO MUCH BETTER!
Messages
1,768
Location
Southern USA
I want a positive saying on a shirt. I don't want to wear something that is negative or has the name of a virus. I would love the same for POTS. There are some really cute and catchy sayings for POTS. Something that involves Hope and awareness. The people that need to REALLY see a shirt are doctors! Also, colors should be settled on. I have seen different colors for POTS and CFS. Blue, red, etc. Pink is known for Breast Cancer and the shirts etc are usually positive and hopeful.
 

Tammie

Senior Member
Messages
793
Location
Woodridge, IL
I agree that POTS would be good, too....or more generally O.I. (most people with ME/CFS have one of the forms of OI, but not all of us have POTS)

I also would love to see more on MCS....there are a few, but most refer only to perfume & make it seem more like we are annoyed with smelling perfume we don't like - that is NOT what MCS is about, nor is it the message that I want spread around

that said, though, I think getting a few good ones for ME/CFS first and then seeing how things go would probably be best before branching into related illnesses

also I cannot say strongly enough how horrible the quality and customer service is through zazzel.....if things fall apart after one washing (& that is not an exaggeration), then we are not going to do much for spreading awareness...and the customer service is so bad, if there are any problems, there is a good chance they will not be fixed

I have heard more than a few other complaints about them, too, since I had problems with them and started mentioning it - so it was not just a one time fluke (& actually I gave them more than one shot myself, too)