Dear Walt Disney Co and Skinny Corp LLC,
Recently Wired.com wrote an article on how awesome it was that Disney was able to utilise 200k+ artists to make their t-shirts relevant to the older, more “hip” crowds again, and provide new takes on old classics.
Threadless pays artists for their awesome designs and ideas, but what about for giving them the reason to have a working relationship with Disney? Sure legal depts and an opportunistic spirit helped you garner the actual contracts, but what made the goliath Disney, even become aware of the up and coming t-shirt company?
TRON, and a young boy that loves arcades.
3 years ago, I designed TRON inspired hoodies for the t-shirt company. They were met with so much success (8 reprintings in a month and an additional SARK version) that Threadless could not keep them on the shelves.
Disney became aware because the Hoodies were being covered by every popular tech, nerd and pop culture website out there, from Kotaku to wired… I even got TRON guy a hoodie to wear!
Some Disney employees contacted me because they thought it was so cool, and they proudly sported them to the TRON premiere and backstage during some interviews with original cast members! How cool is that?!
Then corporate Disney got involved. Initially Threadless was presented with a cease and desist on production for these hoodies. It turned a corner though, into a relationship because Disney thought, “…even though TRON is our intellectual property, we wish we woulda thought of merchandise on glowing hoodies with shoulder and helmet prints.” So you can imagine the flattery I experienced in being fresh out of design school and the popularity of this design was so great, even Disney wanted a piece of it.
From that moment on, Threadless turned into a yet another channel for producing amazing Disney merchandise.
Business-wise, it was a brilliant decision by both sides, and although I feel that providing the catalyst for this relationship was mostly cause for any person to be bitter and think “They owe me hardcore” or “I should have just made the hoodies myself!”, I think I’d rather just be happy for the memory.
Sincerely,
Rolf Nelson
