A little before Christmas I received an email from Sam with a company called ooShirts. They are a custom t-shirt printing company out on the West Coast and offered me a couple of free shirts to see their product and let some people know about it on my blog. So, I responded and gave them a try.
I have a problem. Since I first cruised out the on-ramp to the Information Superhighway I’ve always had this Bnpositive persona. I’ve rarely used my actual photo for avatars and rarely put my real name on comments and other interactions online. I’ve enjoyed the persona, it’s unique and I still love it.
The problem is when I go to conferences, meetups or other events. Nobody knows who the heck I am! Unless I’m suffering from some serious jaundice and smiling really huge (which rarely happens even though I am “Bnpositive”), I don’t really look like my brand smiley face.
I had actually thought about getting a big bobble-head thing made like a mascot head but the price alone was a little out of my budget. A custom t-shirt could be just what I was needing! Alas, ooShirts delivered!
Check that sucker out! There’s my big, bold, yellow smiley face right on the front of the shirt. I’m wearing the shirt today and one of the other things I noticed about the placement of the logo that I hadn’t planned, that little smiley face  peeks out from my half-zipped jacket very nicely. Got a couple of looks this morning in the local Starbucks. I love the boldness of the yellow color I chose for my ooShirt, but I’m not sure if it highlights my brand logo as well as it might have if I’d gone with a different background color. Using their online design lab, I tried a couple of different versions using some of the other colors in my logo. I have a ton of black t-shirts already, so I went ahead with the bold yellow. I think it works.
Now, I can wear this shirt when I’m hanging out at the next social media tweetup and maybe one of these days I’ll make it back out to Blog World Expo and SXSW.
The quality of the t-shirt is very nice too. It’s not thin and light like some other cheap shirts, it’s nice and thick and really looks great when you’re wearing it. The process of uploading my image to the editor and changing the placement was very easy. One thing I would have liked to achieved, but because of the image and t-shirt printing process I’m sure it couldn’t have been done, would have been to really enlarge the graphic so the smiley face really covers the entire chest (you know, like the Superman emblem) and the starbust pattern wrapped around to the back and under the sleeves. But I’m very pleased with the finished product.
I got front and back printed, here’s the back! Had to try and capitalize on the social media love peer pressure.
What do you think? Do you like it? If so, you can be the proud owner of your own Bnpositive ooShirt! There are only two in existence and you can share the cool factor with me and get all the ooh’s and aah’s yourself.
If you’d like the shirt, and promise to wear it (and that doesn’t mean for doing things like changing the oil in your car, field dressing a deer or being the next guest star with Mike Rowe on Dirty Jobs), I’d love to send it to you. Just leave a comment on why you’d like it and what you think.
If you don’t want my shirt and would like to make your own, personalized ooShirt, be sure and check those guys out at their website, on Facebook and on Twitter. They’ve got a ton of different shirt styles (even hoodies and shorts) and colors to choose from and it would be perfect for sports teams, clubs, family reunions or those people who get the matching shirts printing for their trip to the amusement park! Whatever your reason for needing a custom shirt, I’m sure you’ll be pleased with the results!