Before the SIA Tradeshow (the big snow industry show) in Denver, we threw around some ideas in the office in regards to handouts for Yobeat advertisers, pro riders, and overall cool people. Something to give away in meetings or run-ins that wasn’t just a business card that they threw in their bag and forgot about. We wanted to do something that made an impression quickly and that people would actually look at. We also wanted to communicate visually that Yobeat is more than a snowboard web site, we also help brands create marketing strategies. We thought about basic t-shirts and hats, but everyone does that, and again, they just get tossed in a SWAG bag with other tradeshow goodies, often to be forgotten about.

Yobeat’s traffic has grown tremendously in the last year, so we had to show that we were just as “Pro” as the corporate guys, but still had that DIY mentallity that sports like snowboarding are born from. In other words, Pro, without being too Pro. Since we’ve been doing all of our new apparel in-house, a t-shirt was a good way to promote that, but we didn’t want to be cliché about it. So we decided upon a packaging option we could create in-house that would contain a limited edition t-shirt (we did 60 shirts using our new script design, in a limited gold flake ink just for the show), as well as a limited edition die-cut sticker, a screen printed Yobeat sticker, and of course, our business cards. The shirts and header cards for the packaging were all screen printed in house. Woven tags were sewn onto the shirt for a custom, finished feel, and everything got put together and shipped off to Denver. We got a lot of great response. The general reaction seemed to be “Holy shit, you guys got Pro.” A few brands quickly asked us about the creative direction side of what we do, so it worked well. We gave away all 60 pieces pretty quickly, and at this point I don’t even have one for myself.

The draw to design for me is the actually creation. I’d much rather create something on a small budget entirely in-house if we have the opportunity. This was the perfect opportunity to do that. Had we outsourced these, it would have been too costly, but in-house they were about $3 each. Check out some more details after the jump. The white with gold was a tradeshow only edition, but we may be releasing a gold ink black shirt version in the future (without the fancy kit, though).