On September 18, 2007, www.Yooz.us went live to the general public. Founder Jim Kim describes the site as, "A community for artists to upload art and have it sold as a T-shirt. Our target market are skateboarders." He adds, "There has long been a strong tie between skaters and original art. This site is an attempt to bring the two worlds together to support one another."
Through the site, Yooz hopes to promote new, emerging artists and help them earn commissions by selling their art printed onto T-shirts. Through the site, artists can upload art, blog and discuss their inspirations behind the art that they create. There are a host of web 2.0 features that will make it easy for them to promote their art. Features include: Facebook, Digg and del.icio.us social bookmarking tags. "The small community we've built is already active," adds Mr. Kim.
Customers come to the site and can purchase the art printed onto a unique, cool T-shirt. With each T-shirt sold, the artist makes a commission that is paid out at the beginning of every month. Yooz is targeting the fast-growing population of skateboarders, snowboarders, and other extreme sport participants, due to this population's affinity for original art and cool T-shirts.
So far, the response from artists and skaters has been positive. "We depend on great art," says Mr. Kim. "If the artists become active in our community website, it's just a matter of time before they start connecting with customers. The response we've seen so far has been great, and it's cool to log-on and see something original and new with each visit." Though only a few days old, the site has already seen a surge of new art from artists all over the world.
Because the art will be printed onto T-shirts for the skate community, the company encourages unconventional art forms, such as graphic, digital, anime and graffiti-inspired styles. All art is printed in full color on a number of different T-shirt colors, ranging from basic white, to navy blue, to black and baby blue. The company prints on 100 percent cotton shirts made from American Apparel. And unlike other sites that custom print T-shirts, Yooz does not hold their artists to exclusive arrangements. The artists are free to sell their art in as many different venues as they'd like. "We just want to create cool T-shirts inspired by amazing art," says Mr. Kim.
About Yooz.Us:
Based in San Francisco, CA, www.Yooz.Us is a web community for artists to upload original art to be printed and sold as a T-shirt. Anyone can submit art. With each t-shirt sold, the artists will make a commission that is paid out at the beginning of each month. The site is focused on unconventional art genres such as: graphic, digital, anime and graffiti-inspired styles. Yooz is targeting the fast-growing population of skateboarders, snowboarders, and other extreme sport participants, due to this population's affinity for original art and cool T-shirts.