jmdbcool

dhobo said Thanks for the reasonable responses, it's a touchy subject amongst professional designers as design "contests" get to be more commonplace and hurt the design industry as a whole. I too don't subscribe to the "never do anything for free" mindset, I am a firm believer in donating my time and efforts to support people and projects that I feel are deserving who could use it! I also agree the idea of getting your fanbase involved in the process, as it helps foster a great community. If people are fine with donating their time so you can sell merch based on their efforts, then great! That's their decision to make and I fully support that. If you're interested in a relatively low-cost alternative in the future that still gets the community involved, consider paying some small-time designers with portfolios you like to do some concept work for you and then have the community choose the designs they like best and take it from there. You get the best of both worlds this way. I've done some part-time / freelance design work, and I strongly agree with dhobo. Great input. The contest is fine for now, but consider commissioning some designs in the future. If you don't know what you want, consider this: what is the purpose of this merch? What are your goals, or your reasons for selling it in the first place? Who is it for? Is it... 1. ...for your loyal community members, so we have something else we can buy to show our support? 2. ...to help promote LaunchBox to new users, growing the community, and potentially driving Premium sales? 3. ...or both? A good design should be for both. I support you directly by buying a shirt, and then by wearing that shirt I promote LaunchBox to others. Your current merch selection with just the logo is great for #1 but bad for #2. The logo is fine, but it's very generic. It says nothing about what LaunchBox is, or what it does. For all I know, you could be a cloud storage company-- maybe a competitor to Dropbox. How else can you convey something about what LaunchBox is without a lot of text? What can you put on a shirt that will capture someone's attention, and maybe start a conversation? These are some questions a good designer will help you answer. ... All that being said, I do have some ideas. 1. Pixel art, and bitmap fonts. Nothing clearly says "this is a video game thing" like pixels. Try putting LaunchBox in one of these fonts: http://www.dafont.com/bitmap.php?text=LaunchBox&fpp=50 2. Something like this shirt, where different logos or game icons spell out LaunchBox. Goes with the idea that LaunchBox brings all these games & systems together in one place. 3. "Don't forget your LaunchBox" - illustration of a lunchbox packed neatly with various game controllers. (It's portable!) 4. Old game references or jokes... like "It's dangerous to go alone! Take this." from Zelda, but he's offering you the LaunchBox logo. Or the logo is another kind of power-up. Actually, yeah. This will be my contribution. I like the idea of getting it as a power-up. Something that every gamer wants. So here it is, Mega Man style. I first thought of it being on black, but I'll upload it with transparency so it can go on any color. Large with transparency https://www.launchbox-app.com/wp-content/sp-resources/forum-image-uploads/jmdbcool/2016/01/Megaman-LaunchBox-shirt.png