Aroace
#ffa100
Name Colour
𝕱𝖑𝖚𝖙𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖋𝖆𝖑𝖑
Villain Enjoyer
Taking a break from the forums because my cat died. Will probably be back mid to late October.
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Post by 𝕱𝖑𝖚𝖙𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖋𝖆𝖑𝖑 on Apr 26, 2021 13:58:03 GMT -5
The suspected mole on this site better report back to Harper Collins soon!
Seeing a thread on here about the recent t-shirt collection and after watching BGAs video on that same matter has given me time to think about how there could be some ways with which HC would be able to create more thought out merchandise that doesn't make me want to use a flamethrower on it, every time my eyes blink in disappointment and a kind of despair, after witnessing another promotion picture. While there are a few pieces that I kind of like and even consider buying, such as an Epic Poster Tote Bag, most of them are not really worth throwing that much money for.
My only and real advise is, to immeadiately drop the mini figure designs as a form of print on clothing or other accessories and only stick with these as the original Collector Figures that they are meant to be.
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Post by Snowfire on Apr 26, 2021 14:58:00 GMT -5
One way these shirts can be good, official fanart
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Post by Thunderheart57 on Apr 26, 2021 15:50:31 GMT -5
One of the ways that can help improve the current merchandise is to hire artists who can create unique art for each character. I was so disappointed that the current character name shirts on display didn’t have a piece of art for the character they were trying to advertise. The way that the names were done with those patterns inside them doesn’t really tell anyone who the character is, especially if you are looking from the outside of the fandom. You could very easily mistake those shirts for a generic graphic t shirt you find at Hot Topic or even Kohl’s.
I’d argue as a graphic design student that these t shirts had done the bare minimum of getting a quick piece of merchandise out as possible. The character art they chose for them makes no sense. Leave that artwork for the vinyl figurines and their packaging. I could probably make a better mock up (creating a render of a design on a shirt or a water bottle by using special templates) using some of the best fan art to highlight some of the characters’ personalities better than what these designs are doing right now.
While I can agree that some of the merch looks good, these shirts are not. This is just bad advertising for the books. These don’t tell me what the series is about other than a few names and iconography. The use of Arial doesn’t work for the quotes. I love the font. It’s not a bad one. I use it for writing large blocks of text occasionally. I think because Arial is so common across multiple computers and platforms, I wouldn’t be surprised they picked it. I think a more unique font combined with a different sans serif font would look more appealing.
TLDR version: Hire better artists and graphic designers who take their time and create quality merch that doesn’t embarrass anyone wearing it.
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Post by ᏞᎪᎠᎽ Ꮎf fᎪᏁᎠᎾms ミ☆ on Apr 26, 2021 16:25:12 GMT -5
the plushies and figures have awful designs...they're not cute...the cat faces aren't cute or appealing to me at all. if they were more cutesy, i'd actually buy one of my fave character someday, but they're not...
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Asexual
#07B04C
star_black.png
Name Colour
Ṣanɗypaw™
The Shiny User
🎵Guess that's just the way it goes, easy come, easy go🎵
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Post by Ṣanɗypaw™ on Apr 26, 2021 17:06:36 GMT -5
I'd say to hire fan artists to make their own unique design for each shirt. Hell, if you even just put clip arts of fanart you find on the Interent (with the proper credit, of course) I'd be satisfied. Or, hire the person who's been drawing the art for the Polish books and have them make something for the shirts. They should be worth the price.
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#FF55A3
Name Colour
Apricity
Bravelands is too slept on.
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Post by Apricity on Apr 26, 2021 19:54:49 GMT -5
I think it'd be cool to see Wayne McLoughlin art on shirts. Though I'm not sure of that happening cause they may want to leave that art in the past and not do anything with them.
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Post by Emeraldripple on Apr 26, 2021 20:23:41 GMT -5
I mean, they kind of shot themselves in the foot with how not like the promotional images the plushies were, so they could try to make the next line actually look like promised.
But as for the shirts, I think they look far too tailored towards what a board of marketers thinks people want fandom merch to look like. I haven't seen anyone wear that kind of "thing & thing & thing & thing" shirt in years, but they were easily marketable for long enough to probably still be engrained in companies' memories as something The Youth(TM) totally wear.
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Asexual
Medicine Cat of the Valley
Vale
Writing essays on what should be simple questions since 2019!
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Post by Vale on Apr 27, 2021 6:10:16 GMT -5
I agree with the sentiment that they're super out of touch overall. I can imagine it's hard to make merch for Warriors in general but I think they should lean into the mangas for the artwork for them as it's immediately recognizable for fans and I just really love James L. Barry as an illustrator overall. They could commission him to make a few images for the shirts perhaps or use work he has already done from panels. The minis are fine but they don't lend themselves to this kind of merch at all and are very corporate and boring to me. I've never been a fan of quote shirts either and especially not the quotes they thought were good to be on these shirts. I'm not a kid though so maybe their research with real kids said otherwise.
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Post by Ghost/Aster on Apr 27, 2021 10:05:33 GMT -5
Maybe doing more non-clothing things. If they did some of the quote shirts, but say, got a fan-artist or a generally better artist, and put the quote on a notebook, I may actually buy it. But that's mostly because I like using notebooks, a lot.
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Post by Sand 🎃 on Apr 27, 2021 11:15:30 GMT -5
They need a better design team and marketing team as far as I can tell. The shirts are boring. As a design student, I feel like people in my courses could come up with something way better.
I could go on about what I don’t like from the merch and it’s a lot of things. I’d rather not because my view is very negative.
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