What a Load of Shirt

As some may know, I design t-shirts on occasion, and sell them through the print-on-demand service MySoti (formerly known as Bountee). I don’t churn out designs by the dozen and I only have five up for sale at the moment, but the ones I do have up seem to be gaining popularity recently.

I’ve posted about Squid Rocket before (which, to date, has the most sales), but over the last month I’ve thrown two new designs up, although they somehow managed to keep in the theme of unlikely beasties. Weird, huh?

“Yeti” features… well, a yeti (sasquatch, abominable snowman, bigfoot, wendigo, etc), who is ice fishing. The concept for this design I can’t take all the credit for. I was in the mood to doodle but at a loss for what, so I asked a friend and she replied, “Draw a yeti ice fishing.” So, I did, and ended up liking the sketch enough to finish it and slap it on a shirt.

“Innsmouth” is a tribute to the work of H.P. Lovecraft. It features my personal interpretation of a Deep One, as described in The Shadow over Innsmouth, but with an anime-esque twist. The text is a spoof on those touristy shirts you can find in almost any iconic town or city, this time promoting the seaside port town of Innsmouth, Massachusetts (entirely fictional and also featured in the aforementioned Lovecraft story). It’s kind of a nice little joke for any Lovecraft fan, but you can still wear it out in public without people thinking it’s especially bizarre or in bad taste.

When I first opened up a shop at MySoti, I didn’t really think I should expect much out of it. I figured I might get a sale or two a year and when I finally decided to buy a shirt of my own design for myself or friends and family, the option would be there. Sure, there are fancier sites with cheaper shirts, like Threadless, but that’s a situation where your design being printed for sale is determined by popular vote, so there’s always a chance it won’t ever happen. I know this from experience when I submitted Squid Rocket to Threadless and barely got 2.0/5 as a final score. Not enough to get printed. So, in a way, this is more convenient and a better option simply because I don’t have to rely on popular opinion to ever get my designs on a shirt.