Bryan, C.E.O. of AntiClothes

Thursday night my buddy Noah over at OkDork posted his interview I set up with Bryan to discuss the start up aspect of AntiClothes. I’ve been doing a little work for Noah’s start up, BetArcade. Check it out. I think Bryan did well in the interview and really established a favorable voice for the brand, which is something it needed. Rather, it needs more of it.

Here are a few of my favorite questions and answers form the interview:

What’s missing in the t-shirt business online now and why do we need another one?
Simple, consistency. So many companies are pushing our fresh designs every Monday, but most are forced ideas. We may move into releasing every week, but right now we wait, pick the best idea, then design. After we design, we filter even more to what we dig the most, and think our customers will like the best. You can’t show up with just one or two good designs, and the rest fillers. You need solid ideas, executed to the T (oh god, puns), every time.

There are many t-shirt companies, how are you going to stand out?
We’re the badass of the group. You’ve got Threadless who focuses more on a designer/art type t’s, and BustedTee’s who focuses on the joke and not the design as much. Both are great companies, but we’re what would happen if you smashed the two together and threw sprinkles on top. Our shirts aren’t novelties, they help our customer stand out. Strangers come up to me and compliment certain designs I wear, and that reaction our customers get as well, will help put us on top.

Biggest challenge and greatest so far?
Designers who flat out suck. We’ve went through a good piece of change with artwork that never came out right, or we just didn’t receive. We need a vast array of styles for our line up, and though you can find one solid designer out of filtering through 10, we needed more than that. What I advise to people is to search outside your niche. This is risky, but will pay off incredibly if you can find someone with raw talent in a similar field, and get them to filter it to yours. We’ve had people who are street designers, comic artists, but they raw talent is there - and once they channeled AntiClothes’ vibe they’ve made us great pieces.

A second challenge has been the fact our competitors have hundreds of designs, when we were starting out with 16, and now we’re up to 20. I’m aiming to get us to around 24-25 within a month and a half, then keep expanding from there. Selection is important, most people appreciate a good amount of our shirts. The more we have, the better a chance of some one finding their clothing match made in heaven.

So here’s a big up to Noah for spotting Bryan the interview as a favor, which in the grand scheme of things happened because I won a free book from Noah way back earlier this year. Again: read the interview!

What do you think of the interview? What about AntiClothes as a brand?

In my quest for PR coverage for AntiClothes, I’ve been contacting blog masters within the uber-cool tee realm, and of my initial contacts, two blogs loved our shirts enough to cover them in dedicated posts and share to their users a special 15% discount.

Pop Culture Tees - Run by Liz

Liz does an amazing job with running her blog Pop Culture Tees. She recently had a redesign and the site looks amazing. She features great guest posts as well, such as Blake Poutra’s article discussing the value of vector imagery versus raster illsutrations in tee designing. She reviewed AC’s Reformed Nudist shirt and I think completely nailed the approach AntiClothes takes in its work:

I think their ability to juggle that line between genuinely awesome artwork and being witty in a kind of dry, clever way, is what will make these guys stand out. Plus, we really dig the subtle humor you’ll find everywhere on their site. I bet these guys have a blast making tees.

Thanks a million Liz! Hopefully your users love your 15% discount code “POP”!

Hide Your Arms - Andy's masterpiece

With a name like Hide Your Arms, Andy’s blog has to be good—and it is. One of the largest tee-related blogs, ‘HYA’ is well-respected and being covered by his majesty is always exciting. Our confidant from across the pond has great character and an equally great interest in covering celebrities celebrating the tee culture. Andy points out:

…they run the gamut that runs far beyond the reaches of ‘funny’ (I’m sorry about the quotation marks, they just feel necessary when I write about ‘funny’ tees) towards the more serious end of things on the design scale too.

It’s nice to have someone outside the AC circle notice our efforts on supplying the world with humorous and strictly delicious tees (and of course sometimes a combination).

Andy, you’re the man! Enjoy your 15% code “HIDE”!

Are you a blog or magazine and want to cover us? Have at it.