GOAL: OFFSET MARKETING COSTS AND BUILD COMPANY CULTURE
One big expense that Abstrakt’s marketing department was consistently facing was t-shirt costs. Abstrakt has several big events throughout the year where shirts are provided and they wanted to offer designs for employees to wear around the office. As the company grew, so did the amount of t-shirts needed. I was responsible for gathering vendor pricing, creating all shirt designs and ordering the merchandise.
I first worked with several decorators and suppliers to gain a significantly lower cost on shirts and goods. The second step was to start an “Abstrakt Swag Store” in which employees could buy designs in-house. The designs I made for the store were geared towards Abstrakt’s average age group, which was 25-30 years old.
My designs were more simplistic with the t-shirts in Abstrakt’s brand colors: red, maroon and gray. I focused mostly on typography and the use of masculine and feminine typefaces to appeal to both men and women. This resulted in a brand new revenue source for the marketing department and allowed us to have more funding for bigger events.
Ad Club Members with Abstrakt Swag 
Pop-up Swag Store
BIG EVENTS
When the St. Louis Blues were in the final games of the Stanley Cup, I knew we could capitalize on t-shirts WHEN the Blues won. I made several designs, and we picked one to send out to the team pending the big win. I choose to stay with the Blues team colors instead of Abstrakt’s brand but adding in the Abstrakt logo. I choose sporty typefaces to compliment the Blues brand. The Blues made history and WON! My design was sent to the team, and here are the results.
Championship Shirt
Cost of Shirt Design : $6.50
Order Amount: 80
Sold For: $25
Total Cost of 80 Shirts: $520
Total Amount Sold: $2,000
Profit: $1,480
SWAGMAS
Swagmas is like a craft fair but better; it has SWAG! We created an event at Abstrakt that was held two weeks before Christmas that showcased winter themed Abstrakt clothing and goods. We had a wide range of items for sale that included: pajama pants, lip balm and a portable speaker.
I was tasked with creating all of the event signage, the logo/branding and email communication used. I landed on a wordmark for the branding because I didn’t want the logo to have any religious look and feel. I separated “SWAG” and “MAS” with different typefaces so that “Swag” would have a more powerful presence. Drawing from the pop culture reference, Swag, I choose a fun handwritten typeface for the word “Swag”.
I then choose a script typeface for “Mas” to give it a more sophisticated look and to stand on its own. I married Abstrakt’s brand with traditional holiday theme with snow and a complimentary blue. I added examples of the swag items that we would have for sale such as the vest and hat. This resulted in a high turnout rate and a successful marketing event that increased our revenue.
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