Hey guys
today I wanted to tell you the story of how I started my little apparel company
I find it's something that people are usually quite interested in I guess just because it's
something that's not that common a thing to do
um, and if anyone watching has been thinking about starting up something similar themselves
Have a listen to my story and then let's talk about yours in the comments
So my label is called Liner Note Kids it was called Lake effect Kid when I first started just
because that was a song title that I liked and it was my username everywhere at the time
but I changed it because I wanted the name to mean a little bit more and be something
that was separate from
just my online pseudonym. So I came up with the term Liner Note Kids to represent people who, like me
are just super passionate about music and bands and going to shows
and they basically wanna wear that passion with pride. It came from the fact that
the kids that passion the ones that the bands are usually thanking in the Liner Notes
of their albums when they say things like thanks to all the fans making this
happen
so, yeah, I thought the name fit. so this all really started when I designed
this tshirt to wear while promoting Fall Out Boy's new album
in my hometown. It's pretty cringe-worthy to look at now but
it was like five years ago and I was still learning so...
after having so much fun designing that shirt
I decided to make another one with a lyric on it that I could wear to a show I was going to
and that's this one here. Even though the font is pretty bad on this
I still actually really love this shirt. I guess more for sentimental value maybe
but yeah I posted this on Tumblr along with the other one and people seem to really
like them so that sort of got me inspired to design a whole range of lyric shirts
so I was really lucky that my friend Katie
introduced me to
a guy she knew you in town called Phil who ran a custom t-shirt printing store
and that meant that I was actually able to start selling those designs online
Now, I did this is a super super DIY way, I just posted the designs on Tumblr
and people had to email me with their order
I have absolutely no idea why anyone trusted me
but if any of my original buyers are watching this: thank you for trusting me because it obviously all
worked out really well in the end
I was super keen to get another collection out fairly quickly after the success
of the first one
so I teamed up with my friend Shazz who is an awesome writer
and we took lines from poems and short stories that she'd written and I made t-shirt
designs from them
this whole collection had a whole lot more planning and consideration gone into it
which was really fun and really good learning experience
and I was a little bit worried that maybe people wouldn't
wanna buy these ones as much just because they weren't lyrics from their favorite bands
but luckily I was proven wrong and people loved it and it was great
the next line also had a lot of thought and planning gone into it.
It was called school for the desperate and devoted and I wanted the t-shirts in this line to feel like a
uniform that all us pop-punk kids could wear and really
feel like we're a part of something cool. The most successful design from this line
was probably this hoodie which had headphones on the hood
and a little message that was revealed only when you put the hood up.
after that line I decided that I really wanted to get a better print quality
for my t-shirts because up until now they've been done using heat pressed vinyl method
which is great because it's super quick and cheap and you can do
customizations really easily but it also has a lot of limitations with
how detailed the design can be and the print can actually fall off
once the t-shirt gets a bit old and you've worn and washed it lots so that wasn't ideal
I knew that screen printing would give me the best quality print but it was really
expensive to get that done in a store so I
learned how to do it myself and I'm sure I'll show you that in a future video
I sort of relaunched the brand at this point too and had a proper website and an online store
using a platform that still use today actually called Storenvy
just because it's really awesome and it's got a great community on there too
So now I've had two screenprint lines out and they're a mix of
awesome lyrics, quotes, even some more graphical ones but still with bands and music
as the main inspiration behind all the shirts. Those ones are all still available for sale
in my online store and I'm really pleased with the quality of them
both of the design and the printing and I don't want to bore you guys with
all the little details of what each tshirt means and the inspiration behind each one
but if you wanna read about that then you can have a look at my website and it's all there
a link to it down in the description box. So I've been doing this for years now and i
haven't kept at it for the money because in all honesty I don't make that much from it
I just love using this as a creative outlet and I love making t-shirts that
I like to wear but most of all I just love that there's people all over the world who
are wearing my designs and that they thought something I'd made was good enough
for them to spend their money on. and that is just so cool.
So this little company just means so much to me and
even though I've slowed down on the collection releasing lately, I can't see myself
ever stopping with this little venture cos it's just too much fun
I hope you enjoyed this little story, and if you wanna go and check out the store for yourself then there's
a link to it down there in the description box, and if you see anything you like
while you're over there then you can use this discount code to get 20% off
please make sure you're subscribed and give this video a thumbs up if you liked it
And like I said at the start if anyone who's watching
has been thinking about starting up something like this themselves then please leave a comment
and let's talk! I'll see you next time guys. Bye!