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OK, this is a two-fold post, as I take issue with the website, which is my usual, but this time I add in frustration over the actual product design.
The first issue is with the website. I received an Instagram ad for Bird Collective and I went to their site to look at their offerings. I immediately liked the state birding t-shirts, but soon found a big issue.
The top 3 shirts in the screenshot below have a hero image showing the BACK of the shirt! The 3 shirts below have images showing the front.
This is incredibly confusing and inconsistent. A clothing company showing different angles of the same type of product is breaking a cardinal rule of product presentation.
OK, so onto the actual shirts. Why is Bird Collective showing the backs of some shirts and the fronts of others?
Because those cute state-themed shirts have this on the front:
Why.
Why does anyone make a cool shirt and put the cool stuff on the back? Bird people are INTO birds, so I don’t think they would take issue with the reason you would buy this shirt being on the front.
In addition, “New Jersey Birding” is not a group you can join, that isn’t a logo that would make sense. It’s just there.
Also, what is the additional cost of printing on both sides? I imagine it would have been cheaper to produce tees only printed on the front.
This is a huge miss. If anyone reading this knows why this would be done, please comment or tweet me and let me know.
In conclusion, here are my recommendations for Bird Collective.
- Find a way to sell the state-themed shirts that is more up-front about the fact that the majority of the design is on the back.
- Create a hero image that indicates that the main design is on the back
- Rethink the design of the state-themed shirts for future production. Identify why the design was created that way to begin with. The other shirts on the site are not printed on multiple sides so switching the state-themed shirts over for future production runs should be considered.
