The VoraciTee Design Conundrum

One of the central conflicts VoraciTee faces involves the balance between the business aspect (the selling of shirts) versus the social mission (raising awareness through art) of the organization. There must be a focus on producing shirts that people will want to wear while also staying true to the social cause. Obviously, this conflict is central to our design process and with the switch to more of a direct relationship with our partnering nonprofits, the conundrum has only intensified. Since we're now producing designs and shirts wholesale for nonprofits for them to distribute, we've realized that it will be important to accommodate their goals into the designs as well.

The problem is not just with the inclusion of logos and the name of the organizations - something we've never done before - but in preventing those aspects from completely dominating the design. VoraciTees have all had a theme related to the cause they were representing, be it "education", "revival", or "youth activism." However, because of the focus on a thematic design, the shirts are sometimes labeled "abstract" in the sense that their meaning is not immediately discernible. Yet because our goal is to design a shirt that raises awareness of a certain NPO, that ambiguity is no longer considered a benefit but a distraction. Ultimately, the stylized shirt with the logo and the name as the centerpiece is more direct and effective at drawing attention to what the client ultimately values - the promotion of their brand and name recognition. Which leads us to our central question: At what point does the promotion of the cause detract from the recognition of the organization?

As we move toward a wholesale production method where the NPO manages the distribution of shirts themselves, the value of brand recognition for the organization increases. For most, the purpose of purchasing these shirts will be to increase awareness of their name and logo. If the design were to somehow detract from the viewer's ability to take away those two crucial elements, we would be, in a certain sense, producing an undesirable or inferior product.

At the same time, it is extremely difficult to compromise any aspect that makes VoraciTee unique from all other design companies. While it may seem like an unnecessary complication to pursue the thematic design method, it remains one of our central missions. Our organization was founded with the goal of elevating cause shirts from a simple commodity to the level of wearable art with their own unique meanings. Not only that, but the focus on designs that represent the social meaning prevents the labeling of the cause into a one-dimensional catch phrase.

While the juggling act between the representation of the social mission and brand recognition is difficult, it certainly is not impossible. One of VoraciTee's main goals proceeding forward will be to work towards building a complementary rather than divisive relationship between the two. Because they certainly are not mutually exclusive concepts, the promotion of the social cause is ultimately at the center of the NPO's mission and it will be our role to ensure that neither aspect is secondary to the other, but rather mutually beneficial by developing designs that manages to interweave the logo and name with the social cause itself.

-Alex