Why not throw t-shirt designing into the mix…

Keep Calm and Just Keep Swimming Storefront

How it Began

I found this really cool place online that makes custom apparel when I was looking to design a tank top to wear for the Race for the Place. After several weeks searching high and low for online stores that A. weren’t overly expensive and B. had no minimums, I decided to go with Customized Girl, based out of Columbus, Ohio. While they were more expensive than a traditional screen printer, for the fact I could custom design a tank top for me and design something similar for anyone else on my team who wanted a shirt AND we could all get different styles and there was no minimums, I was willing to pay a little extra. I absolutely LOVED the shirts I ordered when they arrived and couldn’t wait to wear them. A repeat customer I would be! On my quest to find a tank top with another saying on it a couple of weeks ago, I really didn’t like anything that was already available on the internet so I thought, "why not design my own and go back to Customized Girl and have it made there." So that's what I did.

The story continues…

Not too long ago, a friend at work shared with me that her fiancé’s sister was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and asked me where I got my tank top from. She wanted to get something that had her soon-to-be sister-in-law’s new mantra “f#ck cancer” on it. She was just going to put the words on a shirt and I remembered seeing a shirt online somewhere that had the “u” replaced with the breast cancer ribbon so I told her I’d come up with a design and see what she thought. In the meantime, I was on the website and noticed Customized Girl offered storefronts: you design shirts and when they are purchased, you make a small commission. I thought, “why not.” And there is how my storefront “Keep Calm and Just Keep Swimming” came into being.

What’s really cool about the items on my storefront is they truly are customizable.  If you like a particular design but don’t want the shirt it’s on, or say, perhaps you want to put it on a coffee mug instead, all you have to do is simply select the design, and in the in the upper right corner and select “Customize this Design.” On that screen, you can add text, swap out the item, add something to the back, make the design larger, smaller, etc. You could even put the design on a shirt for your favorite pooch! The possibilities are endless!

I will admit, while the commission may not be all that much to where I'd be quitting my day job in the foreseeable future, I am pretty excited that I can incorporate my love of graphic design into creating “fun wear” for myself and others. All proceeds from my t-shirt sales will be donated to The Gathering Place's Annual Race for the Place 5K.

Here’s the link to my storefront:  Keep Calm and Just Keep Swimming

Check back often as I will be adding designs as the spirit moves me.

Update

Thanks to all the t-shirt sales I had over the last year, I was able to donate $73 to the Gathering Place's 2015 Race for the Place 5K.