I’m With Stupid T-shirts, Part III-Can I get a spell check?
Stop it right there. I know what you are thinking. “Really? Another blog about t-shirts? What else could be said about promotional t-shirts and branding?” PLENTY! I am still debating though (for your sake) if I should just leave this a three-part series.
In my first blog post, I noted how the wearer of apparel can be, and should be held accountable for what they wear and what kind of message they are delivering with their logos and phrases. As in, I totally think that guy wearing the “I’m With Stupid –>” shirt is made up of beef jerky. The person standing next to him is just an innocent by-stander.
In my subsequent blog, I discussed how the designer (see what I did there?) is responsible for any backlash relating to said attire, no matter who wears it, or where the inspiration for the design was originated. Remember Christopher Sauve and the infamous “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”? Yeah, I stated that even if Kate Moss came up with the slogan, and even if the coolest kids in school wear it, you can still be called the main advertiser for pro-anorexia by designing the shirt. (Not a good thing, by the way.)
And now, I would like to direct your attention to the third party in apparel production. The one behind the magic curtain, the one pulling the strings, the one slamming down the presses.
The decorators of the apparel have by far the most important task. They have to print or embroider custom designs and at alarming rates. No job is a small task for most companies. There are deadlines, machine malfunctions, proofing misses, and so on. Because there is so much involved, it is easy to make a mistake. However, when the mistake turns one man’s famous legacy phrase into a farce, everyone suffers.
According to an article I read earlier this summer, South Africa hosted a cycling event in which over 5,000 participants took a 22-mile “Freedom Ride” through Johannesburg in honor of the late Nelson Mandela wearing t-shirts commemorating his famous phrase, “The purpose of freedoom is to create it for others.”
Do you see anything wrong with that sentence? Ah yes, what exactly is freedoom? The word is actually supposed to read “freedom.” The organizer for the event, Hugh Fraser, maintains that it was a PR hiccup, but seriously, who is at fault here? After an order is sent from the buyer to the decorator, should we assume they will check the art to make sure there are no typographical errors? ABSOLUTELY. Mr. Fraser does continue to say that the event otherwise was a big success. Well, good. Of course it is not going to be the end of the world, and if Nelson Mandela were alive today he may even joke about it. When your primary purpose of business is to make sure that items coming off the presses are accurate though, not taking the time to double check or triple check the slogan could be costly.
What’s that you say? You wanted your t-shirts to be misspelled? Of course you did, and the only reason we know that is because here at Show Your Logo, we design the artwork for free and always show you a proof before production. Your event is important to you, and you are important to us. The time it takes to make verification is much less than the long-lasting impression that can be made by adding an extra “O.”.
The folks in Johannesburg know this all too well, and now we do too.
Associated Press. “Nelson Mandela ‘freedoom’ T-shirt shocks memorial bike riders.” New York Post.
22 Jul 2014. Web 10 Sept 2014
