We are proud to tell the story of the Hope T-Shirt. When Covid-19 came around in March of 2020 it took the wind out of our sails. Almost overnight no new requests came in and ultimately we were left with a healthy amount of time on our hands for a few months. Like many businesses this was quite a shock for us. We enjoy our work and like being busy.
Faced with an unfamiliar scenario, we did what we do best… get creative. Amidst tackling a laundry list of housekeeping items, we wanted to do something productive with our new found free-time. We started with objectives to:
- Utilize our time and talents. Dream up something creative.
- Display our capabilities. Use it to highlight our abilities.
- Do good. Create something that will benefit those significantly impacted by C-19.
With those goals in place we brainstormed ideas. A t-shirt seemed like a great medium to carry our intentions.
We looked for something in our new cultural environment to latch onto. Hand sanitizer became emblematic of the covid experience. Additionally, a word that seemed to dominate the airwaves was “hope”. A dominating factor within any situation where a solution is not evident, is the need for hope. Bingo, the concept has wheels. Now, it was time to turn the creative dial up a notch.
Hand sanitizer kills germs and covid. Hope has the capacity to cure the most vexing of challenges. Thus was born the Hope brand sanitizer bottle. Just like normal hand sanitizer, the Hope brand dispenses hope one drop at a time. To a creative mind the concept is candy in a candy store. Endless play on words present themselves like stars in the night sky.
The front label of the bottle goes on the front of the shirt and the back label naturally goes on the back of the shirt. Like the contents of the bottle, the person wearing the t-shirt becomes like the sanitizer. The person dispenses the hope. SO FUN!
We dissected examples of hand sanitizer bottles and twisted the phrases to match the concept. The design was finished and we were ready to print an initial run.
After a short time of selling the shirts, a connection was made with food celebrity Andrew Zimmern. Andrew is a major supporter of local food shelves and Second Harvest Heartland. We dropped off some samples for him and his crew. Within a few short weeks of them splashing news about the t-shirts they had been sold around the world.
Ultimately, the shirts are being worn across the globe and some greatly needed money was donated to Second Harvest Heartland. It was a great experience to use our creative capacity to do something good.
