News from DemandMade and Scott Killian. Scott, together with his business partner Tim Brule, launched Yerzies.com, an online marketplace that "allows anyone to create, purchase or sell their own customized tee shirts, hoodies and other apparel items."
Sounds familiar? Yes, Zazzle, Spreadshirt, Cafepress, any many more offer the same. But the differences are in the detail.
Asked how Yerzies is different, Scott answers: "Although other Websites exist that allow you to design a tee shirt, we've dramatically expanded the variety of creative options and developed new approaches to the way users can profit from their creations."
Read an interview with Scott Killian in the next posting in this blog!
Beyond printed tee shirts, Yerzies enables the creation of stitched sweatshirts and mixed-media designs that include many advanced processes to create apparel which more closely resembles the design trends seen at retail. Yerzies' innovative product configurator allows users to access an unprecedented array of creative options including printing on dark garments, metallic foils, flocks, glitters, glow-in-the-dark materials, and stitched processes.
Buyers are also invited to "Make it Yerz", a feature that allows users to mix and match product options and in some cases, even make modifications to the content created by other users. Yerzies has also reengineered the way user-generated content is marketed.
When users are finished, they can purchase as little as one piece or sell their creations to the Yerzies community and keep the profits. All products are produced on-demand.
Yerzies thus combines advanced new manufacturing techniques with an innovative approach to crowd sourcing. It is another example of the developing trend of user manufacturing and my hypothesis that users are getting more and more advanced manufacturing technology in their hands.
In addition to providing a platform for user-generated content, Yerzies has also licensed content from third-parties including typefaces from designers such as Ray Larabie which users can incorporate into their designs.
Scott: "Helvetica and Times Roman might work nicely for writing a novel, but they don't necessarily look great on a hooded sweatshirt. We've licensed trend-right typefaces that will actually look cool on a tee shirt or hoodie."
The story behind Yerzies: An interview with Scott Killian.
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