Tigers Together goes nuts

 

My Tigers Together design has been the joy of my life since the GF. Far from any kind of post-premiership let-down, I feel like I have been surfing the wave with a jet booster. The design has been selling in all sorts of formats, and now for the last week as a bumper sticker, which was its original intention.

When I had a rough design I showed friends on Twitter who were unanimous that I should make it available immediately for t-shirts and mugs. So I did, and people have bought them in droves. After about a week they began sending me pictures of their new treasures. Every sale gives me joy, every picture is a miracle.

I built an e-commerce page for my reesdesign.com.au website so I could sell the bumper stickers directly. I panicked a bit when the printers called to say they were ready about 4 days earlier than expected, and the site wasn’t built yet. I am not a web designer so it was all a bit fraught but seems to be now working smoothly.

My previous best-seller on Redbubble was Bones McGhie, which had amassed 160 sales after about 4 years. Tigers Together went past that in THREE DAYS. Since Redbubble sales passed 300 I have been looking at it as an amazing Test innings; it is now closing in on the record, with only Lara, Hayden and Jayawardene ahead of it.

On top of that are 70+ bumper stickers which are out there in the world.

At lights, bloke in car next to me winds down window, 'where do I get that sticker?' Expecting to get mobbed when Tshirt goes on. @johnno1629

So that’s covered the cost of my first actual merch investment (Redbubble is all print-on-demand with no up-front cost). Another difference is with Redbubble I very rarely see the customers names or locations, so I can’t follow up with new designs they might like, or even just visualise where my stuff goes. With the bumper stickers I get a name and address to post them to and it feels really different.

Redbubble has a thing called Bubblemail whereby buyers can communicate with sellers. Its rarely used; maybe one buyer in 30 or 40 leaves me a note. But I have had so many sales in the last weeks that the notes are piling up and I want to share a few. This is a bit of an ego trip but I want to keep them somewhere in case Redbubble wipes them.

Love Tigers Together. Great stuff! Anon, Hadspen TAS

This is really a great design Chris! captured why the Tigers did so well this year Thanks! John (location unknown)

Thanks for this design. It is beautiful, simple, and powerful imagery. Go tiges. Anon, Fairy Meadow NSW

Thanks for finding the real essence of the Tiges on GF day. Anon, Jannali NSW

The design is incredible. Anon, Ocean Grove VIC

Gday mate, even as a demon I love the design and it’s perfect for my father in law for Christmas! I even gave him my gf ticket so I’m in the good books right now! Keep up the great work Anon, St Kilda East VIC

As much as I love the use of the tiger on Richmond memorabilia, the players linking arms is powerfully symbolic in commemorating this long awaited victory. I was a little emotional when I saw this, and personally this captures the many feelings that my partner, friends and that I’ve experienced and continue to experience since that glorious day- strong & bold too! Thank you so very much… Anon, Colac VIC

How’s that last one – made the hair on my neck stand up. I can’t think of anything I have done in my long career as a graphic designer that has got a response like this. Its immensely satisfying. As I said in the last post I understand that it piggybacks on the astounding achievement of the 23 men in the picture; it taps into the strong emotions people feel at the moment.