Designing for the Resistance
How a Few T-Shirt Designs Served as the Foundation of a Larger, More Impactful Project.
Frustrated by the results of the election last November, I was looking for a way to get involved. I went to a meeting at the newly-formed Indivisible East Bay, which was packed with over 200 other people who, like me, just wanted to do something. I dragged my family to our congressman’s open house (our champion is Rep. Eric Swalwell), which also was packed with people eager to learn about how they could get involved. With so many people clamoring for action in the wake of Trump’s victory, I wondered where a designer could have an impact.
Around this time, I discovered artist shops on Threadless, and started submitting some design ideas I had. I created shirts in support of the Indivisible Project, the Fearless Girl statue in NYC, and more.
In a few short months, I had sold hundreds of shirts. But there was a downside — many of my best designs were being ripped off by other online stores, who were better-optimized for SEO and surfaced much higher in search results than my shop on Threadless.
The good news was that many people involved with activist groups had also found my designs and started using them. Indivisible Petaluma and Sonoma County, for example, held a fundraiser on Booster, where they raised $630.
In addition to the apparel people were ordering and creating for their groups, I began to see my design showing up in Facebook and Twitter profiles, too:
Room to Grow
Because the project had been somewhat successful with minimal exposure on Threadless, I started looking for ways to involve others and use the funds that had been raised to benefit progressive causes.
In the last few weeks, I’ve moved many of the original designs to a new store called Apparel for Action, which is powered by Shopify and fulfilled by Printful. This new platform should allow for lower costs and help fund growth, while also opening a portion of the sales revenue to organizations who are standing up for vulnerable and marginalized populations and other causes.
I’m no longer doing this alone, either. I’ve connected with a growing number of professional designers who are working on designs, for the store, too. I’ve invited people to work on causes that they’re passionate about, and will be adding their work in the coming weeks.
Partnering with Organizations and Groups for Fundraisers
One of the new goals of this project is to work with organizations and groups to help them raise funds by selling custom-designed shirts and prints/posters. By connecting mission-aligned graphic artists and organization leaders, we’re confident that these items won’t just help raise funds- they’ll be beautifully designed and people will love to wear them.
I’m excited to collaborate with an increasingly large group of designers on the project, and I’ll be sharing updates and new designs as they’re released. We’ve also got plans for new lines that support everything from our veterans to our national monuments to LGBTQ rights. If you’d like to follow along, please sign up for our newsletter:
Additionally, if you’d like to see our most popular designs, you can check them out here:
