 So one thing before we start roasting all of your merch, I thought was interesting is Spotify made a merch tab, as you can see in the backend that is now available to everybody. This has been available to some people for a while, but now as of today, you have a merch tab here where you can more easily connect your store and see all of it and they're starting to push it. The merch looks better on Spotify. So I wanted to mention that since we're talking merch from the top. Okay, let's start the roast. You got your sticker mat. You're ready to roast? All right. So the first is from Shayla McDaniel. Oh, I know her. Yes, same. She comments in the community. Very nice person who puts helpful posts in the Facebook group at times. Shayla is using, I actually can't recognize which backend this is. Matt, can you recognize it? Not off the top of my head. So let's say the first thing I like about this is that this clearly integrates right at the website so that one of the things is if somebody gets to your merch, you want to be able to also show them all the other things they can go deeper with, which she has a thorough list of here, but we wanted to talk about merch. So Matt, let's take a look around and talk about what we're seeing here. So the first thing that I really like is that, and I believe this, it's, it's her modeling, right? I believe so. But like, even if it's not you modeling, having like a real model who isn't like a model who is a person, you know, and not just the model that like the AI like puts the clothes on. Yeah, but not a mock-up is what we would say in the biz. Yeah, but like, we've gone beyond mock-ups where it's like AI where it's whatever. Yes, I know. You know, that's really helpful, right? And like, it makes it look a lot more real. And when people feel like it's not just a print order thing, it feels a lot less like a scam. I also think people like to see like how the clothes will fit on your body or whatever. Yes. So the big problem I'm seeing here, though, is while there's an alternate view to see what it actually says is that this is the problem with shirts with a lot of words sometimes is it's very hard to get an angle. This is why fashion stylists get paid so much money is that you need to make it so that everybody can read it in the featured image. So a fun fact, you're, even if you get people to go to your merch site, I used to pay for heat map software on lots of sites that was really expensive. And if you even get 1% of people to click to the other image, you're doing a hell of a job getting people curious. But most people aren't going to click. If they don't, don't see a merch thing that they can read all the way, they're not going to click another image. They're just going to pass it by. So it's really important that you can read everything. I would say the same thing in the second image where it says Sheila McDaniel, that's very hard to read. I mean, my old blind ass is able to slightly read it, truly try to style and taking pictures until you get it right is really, really, really helpful. Those things are all correct. One big mistake I see with the picture of her LP. Uh-huh. It does not show us the color. So we're assuming black, but people like vinyl nerds want to know the color of the LP. That's a good point. You know, and it's cool that she poses with it. Like, I think that's really cool. You know, although working on it to maybe not, not have as much glare on there would have been cool, but whatever. That it, like, again, it's about the merch has to feel real, right? It has to feel like some dude built it in his print shop or it was pressed at a fucking thing by a cross punk and it's cool. Right. If it doesn't feel real, I only wear ban shirts pressed by cross punks, ethically sourced. Ethically sourced so their dogs can get fed. Yeah. Ethically sourced so they can take their dogs to cross punk shows because they have no understanding of animal rights. Um, anyway, I think that. Yeah, I think that that's a good critique. I think it's the same critique for the shirt, uh, right here. That's light blue is that like, you can't read it all from here, but the designs feel good. I don't know the music, but it feels like, uh, these are probably in line with what her community would want. And, um, I feel good about it. Yes. Okay. Let's go to the next one. So a lot of the submissions, because Matt's involved, were a bunch of, uh, in cell metal. And I think we've gotten to our first, uh, in cell metal submission. I'm just playing around with the in cell metal. I think the best with Matt, of course. Oh boy, this looks like there's going to be a lot to discuss. Yeah. So let's first look at these, uh, beanies. I see that some of the colors are crossed out now. Not the way to do it. Yeah. Uh, I feel like that's usually that you need to make different items, but I guess they're probably trying to get around some of the fees of band camp, I assume. I don't assume so. But so what I do like, and this is a thing I think that is very important to discuss, is that with, uh, merch, particularly meeting your fans, where they are in things they would wear is important. And I feel like while I haven't heard this music, I would bet that a beanie does pretty well culturally in this, uh, genre. I want to point out, this is just a case with everything here. You're going to want to put your merch on a more neutral background. Yeah. Good, great point. Shayla, you know, so obviously Shayla is like actually modeling theirs or has a friend modeling there. So it like looks a little more real, but when it's on a background with like a monster being crazy or whatever, that makes it really hard for me, the consumer to like fully get a grasp. And it's also like, yeah, I don't know, just it doesn't look as appealing. And I understand that maybe you're trying to hide that like the mock-up doesn't look great, but, uh, yeah, that's just my other two cents on this thing. Yeah. No, well, interesting things. So I'll give some science here. One of the things that I think people forget about when they're going too far is, um, there's this book called the paradox of choice. They talk about how once you have more than eight choices, it becomes very hard to make a decision. But what also even blurs that is when there's complications to the choices. And this complicates the choices that you're like, well, I'm seeing this, but I'm getting distracted by it. Instead of focusing in on the same design here, you're doing it. So what would be way better is a zoomed in design of what this person's actually going to buy rather than that, because the other thing is too, is a lot of buyers are very scared of how often they've been burned, uh, buying something that didn't look great. So like having seven of these hats, instead of one zoomed in really well, we'll do you way worse and merge sales. And just as another note, and, and, you know, whatever this person might have a perfectly good reason, but having more hats available than beat, than shirts is a choice. Yeah, not, not a good choice at that point. I like the idea, like, yeah, like I think if you're early on in your career, you don't need a bunch of different colors, something like, again, if you're getting like a crazy deal, like, fuck it, whatever. But like, you don't need a bunch of colors, whatever. Like go look at like kills, which engage, you know, like they have maybe like two hats and it's two different hat designs. And you know what I mean? Like the priority of your whole merch game is going to be shirts. Follow your shirts and black ones at that, no matter what the genre. Yeah. Followed by long sleeves, followed by hoodies. After that, you know, patches and hats and all those things happen. Yeah, there's the rare thing these days, which is like the anomalies of like that there's some groups who can sell like a bajillion pieces of obscure merch, like the one that comes to mind. So this band usually, let's see if it's the case right now. No, this is like a bare bones thing because they're probably out of album cycle or something or out of tour, but they usually have really like varsity jackets and things like that. And if you're really going high fashion and you're trying to be this bad, that's going to be, you're going to have everybody be into your like high, high end merch. You could maybe not make a t-shirts, but that is the sole exception to that rule. Yeah. There's a question here or a point here. I want to address real fast that shirts are a nightmare to stop because of how many sizes there are that makes it cost prohibitive. Yeah. You want to go first or should I? Maybe, I guess, but you're able to get easy like 4x return on investment on your shirts, like you can sell shirts for 25 bucks a pop and you're paying like six, seven bucks for them. If you're going to like a legit screen printer. My reply to that would be if you can't afford t-shirts, then you should be using print on demand services until you can. Print on demand offers a way to make great income these days using printful or printify when things are cross prohibitive at first to get your leg up so things are no longer cost prohibitive, whether you're doing a cheap big cartel store or using just print to printful or printifies own services, that's what you do until it's no longer too expensive because that's pretty much no money down in most of them. But what I would say too is sometimes buying 50 shirts and forcing yourself to hustle through them. That's like a kick in the pants that you need, you know, because a lot of times if it's just like, oh, whatever, there's, you know, if there's the shirts are there, like you're not, if you don't have skin in the game, you're not going to work as hard. Whereas like if you have a box of 50 shirts in your apartment and your roommates are making fun of you for not moving it, you're going to work a hell of a lot harder to move it. The amount of shirts I've seen would be, I've gone to people's houses wouldn't disagree that most people have that psychology, but I like what you're saying here. I like the work ethic. Okay. So we're onto this next band, Pankowski. Yeah. Okay. So my first thing we just finished saying the most important thing is black shirts, there is one black shirt and a bunch of other stuff. I, in a fair, I'm trying to say this in the nicest way possible. I don't see anyone ever wanting to buy. Yeah. There's an interesting thing here that since we don't know their music, I see that they have a lot of nerdy stuff. So it's like a pencil and a bookmark. We don't know for sure if their community isn't very literate and these are like good ideas, but I still agree with you that there should be way more t-shirts here. What I will say they did right, Matt, look at all these angles of the shirt showing how it fits on somebody where the shirt fits very well. Here's the one thing I would say with this design is this is a wasted opportunity because you don't have the band name under this making people start to become familiar with them. If you sell this to the hot guy at the pizza shop, then all the girls are going to see or or the days, thems or the boys are going to see the, that name and want to get curious about it. Don't you have to be being inclusive? No, what I wanted to say because I felt like I was being mean. I just want to point this out. My, my client, Lucy Dacus, I did some marketing stuff for her. And she did like a sort of, I didn't really go to school. It's what's like the, what like your, you got like your, your pencil case and your pencil and like your notebook and all those papers. No, like stationary. Like she did like a stationary and like sort of almost like school supply set that was like all very aesthetic for like the college girl who's really into boy genius or Lucy Dacus. And like, I think if you want to do like a bunch of like items that are like $5 and under, you're much better off doing it as like a bundle like that sometimes. Because the other thing too is this is something I want to get into. And that was important to me to talk about your value of sale is limited by your highest price, right? And it's also set by the lowest price item. So like it's very valuable to have like a $5 thing at the merch stand because sometimes you play a show to eight people and they feel bad, but they don't, they don't care enough to spend 25 bucks on a shirt, fine. But you need to have higher end stuff and you need to have a lot of options to buy at 20, 30, but also 40, 50, 60 dollars, right? Like with a squalor grind, for example, you know, like we have 50, 60 dollar items at the merch store because someone sees our show. They're really blown away. They're really high because it's an exciting show. It's great. And they're ready to buy, they're ready to invest in one big thing. Well, if our highest thing was 25, we'd be missing thousands of dollars, but our highest thing is 60. And so people show up when they spend 60 because there's a $60 thing to buy, right? People aren't going to buy a bundle of stuff to get up with it because they want to give you $100. You have to give them that expensive, that more expensive thing. Having a $3 thing, you know, like, you're like, hey, can you support my art? And then there's a $3 thing. That's what people are going to buy. Yeah. Or they're going to buy the $5 thing because so they don't feel like the complete cheapskate. So here's the other thing, though, is when people often do it, when they do buy those things, because some people are broke. The big thing is if you're going to sell them something small, you want it very clearly to do something for you by spreading your name and starting to get your name recognizable to them. This pin, the sticker, the orange circle, while it has the name, it's very, very, very small. I love the bookmark, but, like, you need to have your name way bigger because the whole thing with merch is your profiting off of somebody turning into a walking advertisement for you. But it's not a walking advertisement if it's just a symbol. It needs to be a name that's starting to get in people's heads so when they hear that name again or they see that name again, it inspires them to jump the curiosity gap, feel like it's something they should know about and actually listen to you. It's not effective if it's in that tiny little font. Like, where it says question loud, that's so much bigger than your band name. This is from Wormser. I will say, I do like the P for Pankowski just to finish. Yes, no, it's actually a good design. It's just missing that thing. One of the things that's interesting a lot of people don't know about websites, no one likes to scroll down. If you can get somebody to scroll this far, they are really enthused about you. That logo up top while it looks sick is going to discourage a lot of people from scrolling down. Okay, I have something real quick off the get because I'm looking at mobile where it actually, the site looks a little bit better on mobile. And yeah, around half of your sales are going to be from mobile and half from desktop. Subway between 40% to 60% will swap but no matter what, it's usually around half and half. The white shirt on the white background. Oh, very hard to see. Yeah, good point. You know, and there's ways around that, you know, just talk to a graphic designer. Yeah, anyway, sorry, that was like the first thing when I got on the page, I was like, what the fucks? So the other thing I'll first say is yet again like the last comment, like where is the artist branding on any of this? Like I get you're putting a saying here but like the artist branding is like knew where to be found here. Yeah, and you know, I really like that logo but Triangle, Financially Faced logo is cool but getting that band name on there, very helpful. Also, it's really expensive. Yeah, I mean, we can talk about that that I know it's very tempting to price high and get support like Matt was just saying that people will buy things to support you but one of the most crucial things to also understand is no one likes being ripped off. One of the reasons it's so important to understand your community is that you should know what other DIY artists are charging for things. And even if that means you make less profit, you kind of got to meet them at their mark. And the other thing is like, I already, so couple things, one, I already know this is a print to order store. Yes. I looked up, yeah, I looked for them. I make things on Spring, like here's a good example. I use Spring because it's actually really high quality garments for things like, for example, my parents, I made a NASCAR shirt of their dog for them and gave that to them for Fathers and Mother's Day and I use Spring because I love the garments, it's very high quality stuff. But one thing about Spring is unlike Printful and Printly, it's much higher prices for the garments. Yeah, and like, you know, you have to find a way to explain that to people and if you're just starting out and your shirts are that expensive, it's gonna really throw people, oh, on the US store it's a lot cheaper than the Euro store, on the Euro store it's like 35 euros for one of the shirts. Well, that's probably, because I bet you Spring doesn't have good distribution, but we should note for the viewers that Matt is in Europe as always. And so, yeah. We're totally in Europe at half the time. Anyway, the other thing I wanna say here. So like, you see this shirt here? So one of the things I don't think a lot of people do enough is when they're making their designs, they go in the store and they don't see what they could do that would make it a little cooler. So here's what I mean by this. If I had this design and I saw it mocked up on a shirt, the first thing I would do is I'd find a really cool dissolve for that yellow so that it's a little higher quality, kind of like a dissolve how it drips off your logo. I would like almost do that drip all around it. So one of the things that I think is really crucial with merch, especially since a lot of you are designing yourselves, is getting good with just making variations. Like just like we talk about all the time of like you got your Spotify pitch right at 25 ways. Cause then you're gonna get to know yourself, you're gonna get to know the best way you can say things. It's the same thing. You like a merch design? Great. Tomorrow make five different ways that you could do it until you have one that's better and more interesting. Play around with different things, get to know it, do outlines, strokes. Look at other people's merch and see what they're doing and try to learn what you can do to improve it. Yeah. As a note on the two final notes on this, right? One, if you're doing a print to order store just because you can have 25 different garment types does not mean you should have 25 different garment types. And second, you got to make sure all your merch in a drop fits the similar aesthetic. Or if you've had a really long career ties into a couple of your aesthetics, like Whitechapel, they have like classic deathcore looking merch, then they have like sleeker, more modern, metal and kind of streetwear type merch. Some of the aesthetics here are a little bit all over the place. I think you can be much better served with like six designs that all fit the same aesthetic. And that was it. Yeah, yet again, paradox of choice. Too many choices actually makes your sales go down. I, you know, it's like one of the things, you know how we always have those things that like we don't want to believe them when we fight against them and that we've realized we were wrong? That was really one of those ones I fought against so many times. And it really became the thing I started to learn is that like, if you know, when I say eight, hoodies don't count and things like that, like if you're having a different thing, but like truly if it's t-shirts, if you're having too many, especially when you're starting off, it's just gonna make people get debilitated. Okay, I should say, I think this is a pretty cool design. You can't read the artist's name as well as you should, but it's pretty cool. Okay, here we are at the God, Andy Negatives merch store. Andy's the best. So here's the thing I really like, limited edition hand-printed shirts. So you're saying strict, like what that tells this type of community, Andy's a pop punk artist, is like he's doing this himself and you're supporting him and like this is how you fund him if you like what he does. And I think that's like the important thing to realize is you can turn shirts into, like shirts are really for a lot of people, they're main income street. Yeah, it's a very common thing in a lot of genres. Some genres it's never gonna happen, but in a lot of genres that's the case. But you have to like emphasize that to people. You have to double that down for people so that they understand you buying this shirt is how I make a living. And doing it limited edition is a really good way to incentivize them because everyone wants to feel a fucking special, except for me who wears Walmart Hawaiians. So let's say this, I think this fucking Andy negative design is very strong, but the problem, we got a little too much of a soft focus. We could like retouch that in the Photoshop a little bit, get it a little bit more crisp. And also that background painting in the bookshelf are a little too close to the colors of the design, so we're not getting as much color pop. More of that neutral background. Yeah, the weirdo shirt, I wish it had Andy negative on it. So whereas this is actually an interesting one. Andy has the thing that he's always wearing this pink bandana. And so this, while we're talking about a neutral background, this background is cool because let's be honest, it's just the bandana that he signed. You can, like it gives, if you look, the bandana actually pops against that lighting. It's also a free giveaway if anyone was looking for a pink bandana. Is it a free giveaway or is it a name your own price? It said free, I clicked through. One thing I would say, so okay, so two quick things. One is that he did the cartoon sticker pack rather than selling like each individual sticker as like a dollar thing, having four all together, that's gonna sell way more, that's way more appealing. Yeah, same thing with buttons. Yeah, exactly. And then also like some of these shirts are real goddamn cheap. And I understand that some of that's like trying to like appeal to your community or whatever, but like, do not price a shirt under $20 guys. Like unless it's like a misprint and it really gross, like. Looks like he has sale marked them out. So they used to be 30 and I don't know if you're not seeing them. Yeah, but he had about 30 and now they're 14. So yeah, he's doing a sale. And that's another thing is, is if you want to move through quantity instead of stuff to really do it, you could sometimes bring the sale down to a low price and move a lot of stuff. And the thing that you shouldn't do without I see a lot of people do. In fact, I literally bought a shirt like this because I wanted it so bad this week is they priced it really low, but then the shipping was outfucking outrageous. This is a common thing. I see this all the time. Yeah. Real fast. This is one of my favorite things that stupid scam music marketing companies tell you to do is they'll be like. The CD. This is like, this is like how you know that like Jesse and I don't fuck with them is they'll be like, give away your CD for free. Just make the shipping, just say they have to pay shipping and then make the shipping also cover the cost of the CD. Yeah. Nobody. Here's a good tip for the viewers. If you ever hear somebody say that you can literally know from there on out you should never listen to a thing they say again that they're a world class moron. Yeah. It's just, it's also CDs are great margins. If you can start selling CDs for real, James, real fast in the comments, the bandanas are free because he's celebrating a hundred thousand month listeners or something, which is cool. Cause like, here's just a quick note. If you're trying to like collect data on mass, give away some free shit. Well, these are my, these are my boys. Give away some free shit. Like people love free. And so like what I'll do with a lot of my bands is we'll be like, hey, free sticker pack. If you give us your email address and then just ship them all out. And it's like 70 cents a pop. Grow your email list by hundreds. Oh boy. Jesse has a lot of incel takes here. I can already, I can smell it on this one. You can just smell the incel on this one. Oh, they're not telling me my favorite thing, the thing that like made me want to be their friend. This band used to sell baby onesies that on the back said shake well. That is really, really, really funny. Also the name of one of my favorite rappers. Very good choice. This band also genuinely has like some of the best Instagram, like funny Instagram content I've ever seen. Yeah, shake the baby t-shirt. We love that. And this is actually, this is a sick design for the genre. Oh yeah, no, a hundred percent. Like I can always get regularly, I consider Matt a friend. I have yelled at him about these mockups before because they're not great. Yeah, the mockup sucks. That's the biggest problem in this store. But I will say like one of the things that we haven't touched on yet is like some of you may be looking at these shirts and going crudger, bro. But when you're into this genre, this is great art for this genre. And I know a lot of us will find the boobs out a little like, chief, it's 2023. But like truly I'm gonna be straight here. Like people were into this genre and that's what they're into. And like this logo and all this stuff, if I was into this genre, what I would say is, oh, I gotta know who that band is because this design is fucking sick. Yeah, and I think that's the thing is like, this is a band who really know their community really, really well, right? And they understand that like, they're making really gross death metal. That's like a gore type stage show. Like it's very silly. It's a lot of fake blood, like, you know, so they lean into that with the merch and it's really graphic and stupid and gross. Cool. The other thing they do that they're very good at that I think is important is they're selling a logo shirt which normally I advise against, but it's a limited edition and it's the only time you're gonna get it in that color. Matt, can you explain why you advise against selling a logo shirt? Because until you're famous, your logo doesn't mean anything to anyone. Like your logo should be on the shirt, but it's not like enough to marry. If you're not like cool in the culture, nobody's gonna wear a shirt that just has a band, a logo of a local band. So I would argue we should say that if it's just the words. So like what we don't mean is the Misfits logo is the Crimson Ghost with the Misfits font. That's their, technically their logo. What you should really be probably clarifying this by saying is if it's just the words, like how this is, it's just this. And also, guys, your fucking thing is cropped off. Like come on here. Let me point out the one thing that is phenomenal. American Razor Grind. So a lot of people aren't gonna get this, that that's like them saying what their micro genre is. If your micro genre is something that sounds cool that you made up but is gonna symbolize something to people who will get it, that can do a lot of work. Like trust me when I say, I managed a band that we sold a half a million shirts that said defend pop punk on it. Because to people who didn't even know what the band sounded like, that was a sentiment they felt. And truly, like if you can put things down that feel like the genre on your merch, you will sell merch to people who don't even like your band and they will become a walking advertisement for you. Yeah. I mean, and this was like, to circle back on this, like that was the whole, like cradle of filth, you know, the, that's sure. Explain what the cradle of filth shirt was. The whole thing started by cradle of filth where bands would have like their logo and design on the front and the back would say something really offensive. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. That was a very big thing. And sometimes, sometimes what you do now is like it's not offensive, but in that style, like the band health has one that says health and then sad music for horny people. I have a morbid angel shirt that says extreme music for extreme people. Okay. They're both ripping off. God, it's a seventies thing. And then no effects ripped it off too with fat music for fat people. Okay. Let's go to this next one since we should try to make some progress since we got a few more to go. So this is from For Realism. There's stuff I like about this. I like that the logos everywhere. I mean, these glasses are very well done. Like in this genre, yet again, like some people outside the genre would be like cringe bro, but in this genre, this is something people are into. Like when I walked through Bushwick at Night by the Raves, I see shit like this. And it's good. So, but what I'm seeing with all of this merch is the same thing I was talking about before. That like honestly, like a drop shadow or something else on this logo, getting a little bit of a splash around it, something like that, around the designs. You would be selling so much more of this if you did some more variations on this. And like maybe these pop more, like getting to know Photoshop better for like three, four hours. These are good designs. They're not great designs because you're not bringing that last 10% to it that it needs. The takeaway I think that we're both trying to push here is that print to order does not need to look corny. Right? Like we've seen a few designs here that were just like the logo on a hard color background just slapped on a shirt. It doesn't need to be corny that way. If you invest the time or you hire a graphic designer. Yeah. I think that's all I got to say about this one. Okay, now we're at Rad Pinkard. That's a great, great, great. This is sick. It's a blotzy cool kid hoodie. Let's take a bit of a better look. I like the new ordnance shirt. Oh yeah, this is, but you know, it's funny. This looks like it's probably an AI mock-up right now. Yeah, it does. This is, so here's another thing we didn't get into. Descriptions are very helpful. This is hilarious. You're going to look so hot in this. I'm pissed. That's great. Showing some personality sometimes in the description is really can help you sell merch because it makes people happy and people buy more when they're happy. Yeah, and obviously having the key details is helpful because motherfuckers have allergies or whatever. Yes. And especially if you're trying to sell a $50 thing, like it's good to have some core information out there. But yeah, like- Yeah, we didn't get- We spent time on those, because it's like one or two sentences each, but it builds so much character. And that was so funny that it makes me want to go read the other product descriptions and spend more time on the website and become more seduced by what he's doing. You know, show off your muscle with my side hustle. All proceeds will be donated to dog rescues. Like that immediately makes you fall in love with this kid. Yeah, and one of the other things too is, yeah, that like certain genres, you have to do this blank product source from Nicaragua, Honduras, or the US because people are really, really, really, really, that's important to them that there's ethical consumption and you got the yet again, this is why you got to know your community. If you see all the other artists in your community and you're like, why do they do this? There's no reason they're doing it. It's because they get put. One of the artists that I, let's call it, I'm a steward of, we will get a million complaints. Like, even though we have all the stuff listed, they want to know if we pat the cow that ever looked at the shirt enough, because they care so much about ethics. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. Here's another good trick though. People love, love, love, love seeing an animal on merch. I know we talked about this on TikToks the other week, Matt, but like, yeah. Oh, look at all the animals. Yeah, putting dogs and stuff on your merch really helps. But yet again, we don't have your name here on this design, so it's doing you no good. No name here on this design. Can't see the name, can't see the name. Even this says rad dogs, but like, it should have your name right by it. I just had my epiphany. Epiphany, huh? Think about how much just having the logo for modern baseball beat the dog helped them, because so much of that band was kind of two dog energy. Yeah, no, I think like, especially if it feels like you, that, what do you call it? It really can do wonders for you. Okay, so here we have NRVS, Nervous, I assume. Nervous, yeah, that's possible too. I like that we have this in the parallel. Here's an interesting one too. No matter how you're printing, it's very important that you get the placement, right? And I can tell you from making so much merch over the years, it actually looks like you placed the logo a little too high on this, and it would be selling way more if it was a little bit lower, because people care very much about their fits. So I do like having this coaster design is very good. It's excellent. Yeah, this design, I see this is what I'm talking about too though. This is like that thing, like how the astronauts a little bit of a different color, whereas knowing to just keep this in monocolor on the magnet, this is great graphic design, and like, it really shows. Even having the outline rim, like the tiny little details go so far. Yeah, no, absolutely, like, they definitely get that. Even, okay, I just want to point this out really quick. This is actually kind of brilliant. On the CD, having it where the art looks pretty good, not awesome, but pretty good, but then having the sort of handwriting style writing on the CD gives it like a very specific early 2000s energy. And like, and you know, I know that nerds are playing kind of pop punk, and like, you know, that was, that's a big part of their influences. So like, sometimes having that merch that like very specifically calls out your style, hugely, hugely helpful. You know, or very specifically calls out your influences. Like you'll see a lot of death metal bands, obituary did a camo hat with the local orange because it's like a hunter cap, right? A lot of death metal bands steal that and gel exhalation stole that, right? Stealing the classic iconography of your genre, really helpful. Even if it's sort of the DIY iconography of your genre. Okay, here's our next one. It is from Socia Asylum. Okay, yet again, these thumbnails are, I know band camp doesn't always give you the best stuff to work with, but this is, I would call this unacceptable at best. Yeah, so like the zoom on this, everything, it's just, it is not working. Like you gotta resize these things and show people how they fit. This design actually looks damn good. It has the name, it's a good design and you've taken a God awful cropped picture of it. And you know, having that design on a few different garments, always a good way to like save money on graphics, but still make it work. I mean, it literally chops off right before you see the whole design. Like this is a A plus design with the F capturing of it. And the other thing too that's messed up here, that's very important is the lighting is not great in really any of these. Yeah, that's a good point. Like getting that properly is super valuable. Yeah, you know, the term that I really, I used to hate it when I'd be in meetings and hear it about like an Instagram photo, like it doesn't pop. Like the most annoying person in meetings always would say that term, it doesn't pop. But truly it's also a real thing that like contrast and yet again, getting a little good with Photoshop. This is the type of stuff that like 20 minutes of messing around and then looking at the before and the after, showing it to a friend, you can do infinitely better and it trains your eye to be way, way, way better at things and recognizing stuff. This is awesome at like, this is I already think this is way too cheap. It's way, way too cheap. I understand that it's a two color print, I think, and whatever. But like, just the aesthetic of having a mustard yellow background in your man's called the mustard chef's kiss. I will tell you this, my first instinct when seeing this one is that this font is a little too, I should say the top font. I actually think this bottom design is sick, but this top font is a little too used by every restaurant that serves buffalo wings and macaroni and cheese in America. And one of the things you want when you're doing merch is you wanna symbolize to people something culturally that they're gonna recognize they're part of and there's graphic design styles in your community, in your genre that you wanna be a part of but also be just on the edge of that you're bringing something new to it. This to me, if I saw it especially because your name is the mustard, I'd be like, oh, well that's the cool new bar in the neighborhood, not the cool new artist I should listen to. And I think it's important because you're already referring to something that's in this world that when you make merch that the font has to hit something off, this one really works. I just, this one is rubbing me wrong. Well, I feel like we're on Shark Tank now the way we're discreet. I know, right? Clearly you're a Mr. Wonderful, buddy. That being said, I think I actually didn't have the same restaurant thought as you did. My other thought is just to circle back because this is so important. That logo shirt, the bottom one, being on like a weird background does not help. Especially when the weird background is kind of interesting. You can't even read it though. Yeah, exactly. And I don't know, I'm like, oh, was there some sort of mustard plug tie in? Oh yeah, I didn't think about that. That's kind of similar to mustard plug, yeah. Yeah, gotta love it. If you don't listen to mustard plug kids, go listen or ruin your day. If you don't listen to mustard plug, you're doing life right. Go home, listen to mustard plug. Mephiskopheles, catch 22. This is awful, awful music. I did one of those bands records, so I'm kind of feeling like an asshole now. So yet again, it's a little bit more I'd sell metal, but I have to say these designs look fucking sick. Yeah. So yet again, you know what we're gonna say about this background, but like, this is a sick design for the genre and we're not doing it justice. See, that's the good stuff right now. Now the background could have had a thing that made it pop a little bit more, but that's the good stuff right there. So the photo's a little too bright. Yeah. Oh, this is good. Putting the arm, cause there's a design on the arm, making sure to show that off very, very well done. Yeah. Absolutely. And so there's another thing here if you want to go back to the main page, just to show the fact that she hand numbered the CDs, shit like that is hugely valuable. I'm sure that took her like an hour while she listened to a podcast, but hand numbering shit, signing everything adds a ton of value to something that's kind of, you know, when you're an unsigned metal band, it's hard to sell CDs on like straight up. But like, hey, if they're hand numbered, if they have that collector quality to them that is extremely personal cause she did it, but also, I mean, maybe Shem did it. I don't know. I'm assuming that she seems like the hustler in a band, but like, you know, the fact that like, there's that personal collector thing to it is hugely valuable to inspiring people to want it. Yeah. 100%. So you know what I'd say here too. So one, this is like a great piece of merch for this genre, but two, putting it on the red leather jacket is awesome because it's like a very bold fashion statement, but like yet again, 10% of sitting in any graphic design app like the most free photo editor on your phone and playing around with the levels. So you get like a little bit more contrast and color pop would do so much for this cause this is a great design, but the way the reflection is off is just a hair off here. Yes, absolutely. All right. As a final note, cassettes sell surprisingly well cause like nobody's actually listening to music on any physical medium anymore. And if they actually do, they're probably an asshole, but cassettes are like a good collector's item cause they feel a little more bulky and cool than a CD anyway. All right. This is yet again the same critique. This is you did not try hard enough on your merch. I don't want to be mean here, but I think this is like the lowest effort. Like I get that you did this gradient thing here, but like yet again, if you'd done a shadow or a stroke around this and then like made the Austin, Texas emo, I do like that you did the Austin, Texas emo thing here, but like there's just like it's not popping quite yet. Though if we had just pushed these plants out of the frame a little bit more to get some contrast so it's not up against this right here, this would have been a good damn good picture. And I love that you did a second picture, but the sizing of the two pictures should be exactly the same. And what is going on? Yeah, I think it's, I think. Yeah. So bathished. The Shopify preview is just not set very well. I was going to say like the Indiana Jones like font. I think that's really cool. And then immediately they speak like, ooh, okay. Like that kind of tells a little bit, but like leaning into that would have been helpful. This is where having, again, this is why like having just the logo shirt, that's just the words, doesn't really say a lot about your band. Saying Austin, Texas emo is cool, but that's small. Yeah. There are ways to help tell that story of Austin, Texas emo, like with a picture or even a big back print that says Austin, Texas emo, like that would have been cool. The one thing I was going to say, by the way, I can now see that this logo is actually better than it is on here, but it's cause you would do have that stroke. But the problem is when you put it on a black shirt, that stroke goes away. So that's the issue here. That's another good lesson to teach here is that I have this problem all the time is that one of the podcasts I do merch for, we print on a million different colors because that's the type of thing that we sell a lot of merch, but we have to change the strokes all the time for different color designs to make them pop. Just for you, it's more in cell metal. Well, you know how much I love in cell metal. I do. Bandcamp really needs to get their shit together with presentations of these things. So yet again, great design, very weird cropping. Yeah. I feel like some of this might not even be the band's fault at this point. Like, like I'm not for these like, low and in particular, I know she's got like a good aesthetic understanding. I feel like putting people designs that have made them look a lot cooler, like especially when your genre has like a very distinct look, like metal dudes look a certain way. Like I have three feet of hair, you know? That makes it feel a lot more relatable. Like with tattoos and whatever, that would help a lot here. Yeah. It's just like all these designs, like I could never buy this because like I can't see good enough. So yeah, I think like that's one of the main takeaways here is make sure people can read your merch very well as well as it can. And it's also why knowing your community and doing your community work, if you look at 20 bands, things like this, somebody's figured out how to do the cropping of these shirts so that they look good. And then you imitate it from them. That's why your community work is such. All right, Matt and I are not gonna do next week because I'm moving and he's got a family thing. But the week after this, we are going to play you our favorite TikToks, or at least some favorite TikToks we've found and then teach you lessons from some of the better TikToks we've seen. Oh, I'm gonna be in Romania while we do that, that's gonna be fucking sick. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Say hi to Dracula for me. I'm actually gonna visit Dracula's castle, I'm stoked. I'm kinda jealous, I have to say. Yeah, cool. All right. Anyway, thank you. Thank you. I'll look for more. Puzzle Nation.