Calling All Designers! Wacky Writers Merch Submissions Needed

You may have heard whispers of the possibility of site merch - well, I’m here to tell you that the rumors are true. We are going to start selling site merchandise to help pay for the site upkeep.

Merchandise possibilities include:

  • apparel (shirts, jackets, hats, etc)
  • stationery (wire-bound journals, hardbound journals)
  • pin buttons
  • bags (backpacks, totes, zipper pouches, laptop sleeves)
  • phone cases
  • posters and gallery canvas wraps
  • clocks
  • blankets and pillows
  • mugs and tumblers
  • stickers and magnets

Here’s where you come in!

We would love to see some merch ideas and/or actual design submissions from our very talented community here at Wacky Writers and give some of our artists the chance to showcase their work!

Here’s what you need to know:

  • Any submissions you make will be considered a “donation” to help the forum. This means you won’t receive any money for the design or commissions on merch. I absolutely hate that that’s the case, and maybe once we’re a little more successful that will change, but for now, the forum is running on donations and I just don’t have the money to pay you all. :frowning_face: I am truly sorry about this.
  • That being said, you absolutely 100% will be credited on any merch that uses your designs. You can choose to use your WackyWriters username, your real name, your portfolio, your cover shop, your personal website, or any combination of those for credit so people can check out your work!
  • By submitting a design, you agree that WackyWriters may use the design for promotions, marketing, merchandise, or any other place where a design may be appropriate and that you will be appropriately credited in all of these areas if we use the design.

Here’s what we need in submissions:

  • All submissions must be a minimum of 6"x6" at 300dpi. This is critical for printing, and any submissions that don’t meet this criteria will be unable to be used for merchandise.
  • Any resources you use (images, fonts, vectors, etc) must have a commercial license. There are plenty of places where you can get free commercial resources and we have to have a commercial license for anything we put on merchandise.
  • Please specify if there’s a certain type of product you intend for your design to be used for, such as t-shirts and other apparel, mugs, notebooks, button/pins, pillows, or stickers.
  • All designs need to be in png format with a transparent background so we can offer designs on multiple colors of merchandise (this just means we need pictures that don’t have a solid white background. If your design is really only good to be used on a specific color, that’s fine too, just let us know).

Extra stuff for you:

  • We do have a color palette we use on the site, if you want to keep that theme. Here are the HEX codes for your use, but there is no obligation to use them.
    #D8B5FF
    #C3B4F4
    #AFB3E8
    #9AB3DD
    #85B2D1
    #71B1C6
    #5CB0BA
    #47B0AF
    #33AFA3
    #1EAE98
  • We’re definitely trying to keep with a “writing” theme, so we’d love to see designs that focus on this, but other subjects are welcome as well, as long as they’re appropriate. :slight_smile:

Here are the links to the PNGs we currently have for our logo:

Light Logo

http://wackywriters.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/480x120-light-1-1.png

Dark Logo

http://wackywriters.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/480x120-dark.png

Light Large Logo

http://wackywriters.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/large-1000x1000-1.png

Light Large Logo

http://wackywriters.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/large-1000x1000-dark.png

WW Logo

http://wackywriters.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/largeWW.png

This isn’t really a “contest”, so to speak, but the staff will pick their favorites and submissions that get the most likes from the community definitely will receive more consideration for possible merchandise adoption.

We recommend you post your submission here for everyone to see, using a site like imgur. You’re welcome to use a watermark for posting your submissions, but if we choose your design, we’ll need you to remove it for use on merch.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask here or PM @CJtheSiteWizard directly!

Good luck! Can’t wait to see what y’all come up with!

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@SayWatt @Wholesomedisaster you asked to be tagged if I opened this thread lol.

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t-short mary

Our gif overlord Mary Watson is now presiding over this here WIKI post collecting shareable resources from across the realm. Feel free to edit, please don’t delete the description or someone else’s design. Cheers, enjoy~ :clinking_glasses:


Please use the summary function for easier navigation.


Quill

Cheese

Wizard hat

image

10 Likes

YAASSS!!! :smiley: :smiley:

I’m no actual artist but I’ve got some quotes for now that could be put on shirts, mugs, pin buttons etc. so maybe someone wants to use those? None of these are really writing themed but more like Wacky Writers community themed though. If someone does decide to use those I wouldn’t even need to be credited. I’m just happy to contribute a bit if I can. :slight_smile:

Here are the quotes I came up with for now. I put them in a poll so people can vote which ones they like so maybe whichever gets more votes will be more worth being used for merch.

THE QUOTES (it’s multiple choice btw)

  • Well, that escalated quicker than the forum lockdown.
  • Do NOT test me. I have a trained Rinweiler.
  • Hi, I’m a disaster. Nice to meet ya.
  • Favorite Public MenaceTM
  • All hail Fat Cat! :cheese:

0 voters

If I come up with more I’ll make new polls for them. :rofl:

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I’m no artist either, but I’ll use this post to place some random quotes I either think of myself or steal from the internet. Have fun making it into some fancy design thing that looks nice, because I definitely can’t do that :joy:


One word a day makes
the procrastination
go away


Too many stories
Too little time


Creating new worlds


Pens, stickers, or pins with “[genre] writer here!”


Avoiding editing


14 Likes

These are too niche for me (lol) but that’s a great idea to request quotes! That’d be a lot more meaningful shirt.

@CJtheSiteWizard, I gotta question tho - international shipping?

do we get a mod discount or something lol my stingy ass hates to pay shipping :rofl:

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Yeah, I’m working with manufacturers who offer reasonable international shipping so we can send it everywhere. I think I’m offering a flat $10 for international and $5 for US.

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As someone who’s looked into international shipping, I personally found DHL the quickest and cheapest, but I’m based in the Netherlands

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That’s not too bad. It’ll have to be a bulk order, though, so I don’t feel bad about the $10 :joy: coz like…I can pay $20 on a shirt but $10 for shipping?! Shut the fridge door!! :joy: :joy:

srsly tho $10 for shipping across the world is not a lot at all

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I unfortunately don’t have any control over that part of it - it’s up to my manufacturers how they decide to ship it. I can just find manufacturers who don’t charge an arm and a leg for merch or shipping.

Some of them wanting to charge more than $30 for international shipping and I was like UHHH forget that!

Yeah depending on order size, I may eat some of that cost but that’s okay.

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Whaaat! Hell no

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Yep that’s what I said lol.

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Hey! Thanks for tagging me! I will be thinking up ideas and will post them here as I think of them!

For a start:

  • a home for displaced writers slogan - could be esp in the color palette you listed
  • the :cheese: on a bkg. -like HUGE- and then on the back something about the great lord fat cat

And then bringing in @Wholesomedisaster 's qoute:
"For the love of Lesbian Jesus, don’t take me seriously."
~Wholesomedisaster

I’ll think up more :slight_smile:

Also @CJtheSiteWizard, didn’t want these gems of yours to be overlooked:
“So many WIPs, so little time”

writer future author

“This is my procrastinating editing mug”

10 Likes

Personally, I’d love to see a “Lurker(s) Beware” shirt :joy:

Also, btw, I’m loving all the quotes you’ve all thought of! I’m not one for designing, so I probably won’t be able to help out with that. I’m loving the merch idea tho!! :heart:

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Consider this: merch is only a successful idea if you can keep selling it. That means you’re going to have to keep adding new products to it in order to keep people interested in buying. Otherwise your sales will stagnate and you’ll have to give them up to cut your costs.

Writing themed merch and writing relatable merch has been overdone. It’s going to be very hard to be original with it and not accidentally plagiarize something that’s already there. Point in case: procrastination mug.

The first thing you should do before doing anything else is scout out the market. Your best shot will be going with something emotionally relatable to this very community. Alex was on to something when she mentioned merch that caters to people’s nostalgia by using quotes by users as merch. Nostalgia comes after necessity on the list of reasons for people to buy things. Why else do so many bring home souvenirs from vacations? This would also guarantee that you will always have new merch ideas as long as the users here simply keep chatting.

Ask people what they actually want to see as merch as well. This will better your chances of getting good sales.

12 Likes

Ooh, I’ll have to consider this. I used to do a lot of designing, but the program I used has been discontinued…

Does anyone happen to know if the resources on Canva can be used commercially?

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here’s one of the many designs I’m working on! not sure if its what you’re looking for, feel free to ask for any edits ^^ (PS I made sure all of the resources are free for commercial use)

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Oh
My
Goodness
I LOVE THIS!

AHH! It’s beautiful!! :heart: SOOO cute! I can see that on like, so many variants of the merch options we have. :sweat_smile:

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awwww thank you! glad to help :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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