Wednesday, May 13, 2009

New Apparel Design for NewDominion Bank Softball Shirts

Auer Agency | Charlotte, NC | 704.236.0568 | mariellen@aueragency.com
NewDominion Bank softball team wanted to stand out from the other teams on their weekday league.
We designed a custom softball shirt just for them. With Charlotte's hot nights, we decided to use a performance wicking shirt and sublimate their name, website and number on the shirt.
NDB is very particular about their color as well. Their last order of t-shirts from a local printer ran when they washed them and the blue was everywhere.
Sublimation doesn't run because it's actually heated when they print so the ink the fabric mesh together.
Let us know if we can do a team shirt for your league or company's next event.
www.aueragency.com

Friday, May 1, 2009

Logo Update - Union County Military Assistance Project

Auer Agency | Charlotte, NC | 704.236.0568 | mariellen@aueragency.com
It's been a week or so since I talked about this project with Union County program where businesses are offering assistance to families of the Military. We are getting close to launching the brand for this new initiative. I can't reveal anything yet, but here is a glimpse at what I created.

Custom Made Apparel is the New Trend

Auer Agency | Charlotte, NC | 704.236.0568 | mariellen@aueragency.com
I must receive 2-3 calls a week for custom sports apparel requests. What does that mean? To most people it might be t-shirt design, but in my world I work on very technical custom clothing. or cut and sew in layman's terms.
Where to begin: I listen to the clients needs, in some cases they are working on a patent or a new design for retail sales. Then I create a sketch  of the design or pattern. This takes the longest of the whole process. To be able to pull the ideas out of my client's heads is challenging, but that's what we are good at. 
Where to produce: We have many relationships with local, national and; dare I say, global manufacturers. We do a bid and selection process (this is a little more time consuming and expensive part of the process) and then find the best manufacturer to produce the prototype. This means sourcing the fabric, decide if we are going to print our own design on the fabric and then  pick the details of collar and sleeve trim. Sometimes we model after an existing piece or we make our own patterns.
At this point, I'm either designing the graphics that goes on the apparel as well as the logo for the brand. Both are my favorite things to do and probably my niche at Auer Agency.
What about labels? As you've seen in Target or other clothing, they are tagless. This means we can print directly on the inside of the shirt your "tag" and clothing info.
So really custom apparel has come a long way in the past few years. What started out as a t-shirt design and has turned into more fashion driven creations and we are having fun doing it!
As my "tagline" (I couldn't resist)  says on my website www.aueragency.com Addicted to Possibilities and we seem to meet that challenge everyday head on with continued success.