Designer of the Month: Herrengedeck

Catrin Vogt has only been a designer at Spreadshirt for a couple of months. We’ve been wowed by her approach, so we’ve asked her a few questions about how she comes up with those incredible designs for her ‘Herrengedeck‘ brand.

Catrin is a full-time Senior Art Director, which means she doesn’t have oodles of time to spend on her Showroom. With Herrengedeck she got off to a flying start. We like her, because the uniform, catchy color concept and a very distinct character involving everything from designs to Spreadshop to social media channels. Reason enough to get to know the genius behind the art.

Name: Catrin Vogt

Age: 32

Live in: Stuttgart

Occupation: Senior Art Director

Software: Photoshop, Illustrator

Hardware: MacBook, Wacom Intuos pro

With Spreadshirt since: November 2018

When I visited your showroom, I got flashed with a bright yellow that’s contrasted with black and white. This is all the color you use for your designs. What’s that all about?

I’ve always loved bright colors and strong contrasts. Yellow and black have the most perceptible contrast the human eye can distinguish. I like to keep everything reduced and only set strong accents with one color. I wanted to give my Showroom a unique selling point right from the start. This can easily be achieved, among other things, through a uniform color scheme. And yellow happens to be my favorite color, too.

You haven’t been with Spreadshirt for long at all. How did you get to know us and how does the T-shirt business work for you?

A friend of mine told me that you can earn money with T-shirt designs. I had a look around online and decided to go with Spreadshirt. I wanted to try it out for a while and then maybe move on to other platforms. But this would mean I’d have to keep many different platforms up-to-date, so I’m rather concentrating on my marketing efforts for my Spreadshop and my designs on Spreadshirt’s Marketplace. Returns have been limited so far, but I’ve not been here all that long either.

Since I work full-time in an advertising agency, Spreadshirt is more of a hobby or a side project at the moment. I’m going to be a mother for the first time in April and that’s why I’ve been looking for an additional source of income that I can use flexibly during parental leave. I’ve read that some folks manage to live exclusively on their T-shirt biz. It would be great if that worked out for me as well!

You have a beautiful and very professionally designed Instagram account. It’s evident that you are already quite experienced in this sector. Do you have any tips for beginners?

Instagram is also quite new territory for me. Privately, I don’t use it at all. But my job has a lot to do with social media, so I know how important it is to make a professional impression. What I’ve noticed is that contributions with real photos often go down better than mock-ups or pure product images. That’s why I try to offer a good media mix and sometimes upload small video clips or animations to add variety. As far as colors are concerned, I stick to my scheme on Instagram as well: black, white and yellow. That’s how I create a consistent look across the channels to convey a nice and professional impression. My goal is to invest more time in the future to generate more followers. Of course, I need to make people aware of my Shop to sell my stuff.

View this post on Instagram

Always stay hydrated! ?? Inspiriert von @isobello ? . . . #alwaysstayhydrated #drinkmore #herrengedeck #gutevorsätze #0711 #kessel #statements #newyearsresolution #stuttgart #catlovers #catillustration #catillustrations #totebag #stoffbeutel #totebags #jutebeutel #jutebeutelliebe #katzen #katzenliebe #illustration_best #illustrationgram #ig_stuttgart #stayhydrated #spreadshirt #lineillustration #katzenliebe

A post shared by Herrengedeck (@herren.gedeck) on Jan 6, 2019 at 2:01am PST

Which designs or which products from your showroom sell best?

So far, the spriteulen cup is the product that sells best.

Where do your ideas come from and how do you create your designs?

Most ideas come up in everyday life, e.g. when friends say something funny. Otherwise my designs are quite simple. I limit myself to simple illustrations, mainly of animals – I like cats! I make my animals experience a lot. Technically, I draw the designs on my graphics tablet and then process them in Illustrator.

You combine pretty sweet illustrations with funny puns and sayings. How do these come about?

There’s no reason I can think of other than I think it’s funny. I love slapstick, black humor, animals and pubs. There’s something from each of these areas in my Showroom.

Which of your designs do you like best? Is there a funny or interesting story you’d like to share?

My current favorites are actually the spriteule and the party cats. But that will change again. For example, the Fuck Pisse series came about when a former colleague of mine would regularly burst out into these two-word tantrums. I always found it quite funny, but I haven’t sold any of these as of yet. Maybe you just had to be there to identify with it.

Many thanks for this funny anecdote and your insights. I’m sure the first orders will be coming in soon – lots of success at Spreadshirt!