Gritfx T-Shirts, Perfect for dressing up your Sheila!
Screenshot of GritFX.com
Step one, take a team of Australian artists, designers and writers.
Step two, introduce Web 2.0 and Print on Demand (POD) T-shirt companies to the team.
Step three, let them loose on the internets.
What do you get? Gritfx
Between living out Auzzie stereotypes like carrying ridiculously large knives, and drinking too much Fosters while wearing cork lined hats, these “thunders” from “down-unders” are quietly building a POD revolution. Sure they are a t-shirt site, but in the view of this piker (look it up), they will leave their competitors sales as dry as a dead dingos donger. But that’s enough of me trying to speak Australian.
Gritfx has taken the DIY capabilities of the net and built a network around their individual skills. Not limiting themselves to t-shirts their site is also a portal to a damn fine blog, hilarious movie reviews and a youtube channel. Each of these areas is chock full of high quality content, and drives traffic to their shirt sites. By playing to their individual strengths they have built a site that is the envy of most POD designers. A site with content and quality that makes them one of the elite shirt design sites on the internets.
Now about their designs, Gritfx currently uses two POD companies for it’s products. Their site began, as many of ours do,on Cafepress. They have since opened a “retro” shop through Zazzle and have plans to branch out to Spreadshirt. By branching out they are able to expand product lines and build their brand. All while sticking to a graphic sensibility with clean, carefully developed, and unique work.
Gritfx was founded by Amanda Vare (a.ka. Manz), and Dave Leeflang (a.k.a. Dave) and has grown to a diverse team of artists. I had the opportunity to ask Davea few questions:
You say you are a team of Australian writers and designers, how did you all come together?
It’s all very incestuous, really. Most of us are long time friends. For instance, myself and writers Adam Fay and Decoy Spoon (not his real name) attended high school together. We may have taken different paths in life, but we always remained in contact. Some of us met through employment and some of us are related. The thing is, as far as writing goes, the internet allows an individual to publish any kind of crap they want – but you still need to set up a blog and you still need to drive traffic to it. Some of us have no time for that garbage, so we thought it might be best to set up one site (or network) that could display the work of everyone. And that, of course, allows for variety at the one location.
Did you set out making shirts, or did it develop as a revenue stream for other GritFX projects?
Originally, it was all about the shirts. Our wish was to design shirts that we ourselves would actually want to wear. From there, GritFX simply grew into it’s own entity – becoming an outlet for the entire team’s artistic passions. The credit can be given to Manz and Max Drake for beginning the expansion of the GritFX website.
Your designs are extremely unique – where does your crew draw their inspiration?
You tell me! Most of us enjoy the same films, the same music, the same books….So our inspiration, I would say, comes from the things that interest us. We are all Gen-Xers, so we grew up with a steady diet of movies and pop culture in the 80’s and 90’s. The inspiration comes from the simple things that shaped us as teenagers.
You are now working with three different POD designers – how do you find them and can you pick a favourite?
Each one is very different. Cafepress allow for a complete personalisation of your online shop, whereas Zazzle does not. However, Zazzle have really cool retro apparel that Cafepress do not stock. So each have their own benefits and each have their own issues, which makes it tough to name a favourite. Cafepress and Zazzle should combine into “CafeZazz” and then they would be totally kickass on all fronts. We haven’t delved very far into Spreadshirt, but it does seem promising. The bottom line is, even though Cafepress make a huge profit from our (and other people’s) artwork, they still offer a service that is ideal and beneficial to people wishing to start an online business.
What’s next from the GritFX team?
First on the agenda is complete global domination of the T-Shirt business. Lacking that, we have a range of new designs that will be uploaded to our main store on Cafepress shortly. Some of our writers are on self-imposed hiatus, either working on other non-GritFX related projects or just slacking off. Will Thame is working on a new Lego animation that should be available for viewing on our YouTube channel sometime in February, and we have a new competition for our blog members to win a GritFX T-Shirt – the details of which will be posted on our blog next week.
Gritfx has been selected as this weeks Elite Shirt Design Site. Keep up the good work and if you’ll excuse me I’ve gotta go get a gutfull of piss.
Note: Elite Shirt Design apologizes in advance for the excessive use of poorly contrived Australian slang found on a third party website. Elite Shirt Design recognizes that we may have got kangaroos loose in the top paddock and are certain that even Australians haven’t a clue what that means.
I bought a shirt from GritFx and gave it to my Mrs. for Christmas. It was a big hit. “Nothing to Fear Except Fear Itself, and Spiders.”
Fantastic interview, cheers and greets to all my friends new, old and unknown.
May I ask a favour? If possible, could you update the GritFX website screen grab?
GritFX have undergone a re-vamp of our look during 2009
Not a problem will do it shortly
Very cool site! It helped me indeed.