DVDizzy Forum

From USA TODAY:

<b><font size="4">Mickey and gang now ready-to-wear </b></font>

By Lorrie Grant, USA TODAY

The images of Tinker Bell, Peg Leg Pete, Simba and other Walt Disney characters from the past are being given new life in a creative licensing deal. Also available will be the changing looks of perennial favorites Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck over the years.
Disney is opening its vault of artwork on DisneyInkShop.com, where people can use their favorite image to create customized apparel.

Visitors to the Web site can select from 2,500 character images and from an assortment of phrases associated with that character to create T-shirts, sweat shirts, nightshirts and other tops for $19 to $26 in sizes for adults, children and infants.

A marketing expert thinks this is smart online retailing by Disney.

"It is a low-cost way for Disney to give people a choice," says Erik Gordon, professor of marketing at Johns Hopkins University. "If there are a small number of people who like what Mickey looked like in the Steamboat Willie days (the original Mickey Mouse cartoon from 1928) and want a shirt, the company doesn't have to make a lot of them, store them in warehouses or ship them to a lot of different stores around the country. It's a classic good use of the Web to aggregate demand."

Computer mouse pads and posters will be available in time for back-to-school season. Disney also plans to add accessories and other products. The move by Disney's consumer products division is a major effort to gain value from the Disney archive.

"Disney has always been protective of its artwork because of piracy concerns," says Patrick Haley, manager of new business development for the division. "But technology has allowed this."

Although Disney has a strong presence with licensed merchandise in mass-market retailers, the stores tend to avoid merchandise tied to older characters in favor of capitalizing on broader demand for items from a recent hit.

In addition to historical characters, DisneyInkShop.com hopes to generate sales from goods related to movies re-released on video and DVD, especially classics such as Snow White.

Currently, about $15 billion in Disney products are sold each year. (About $1 billion in sales come from the Disney Store chain, which the company is in talks to sell to The Children's Place.)

Though Warner Bros. and DreamWorks are among Disney's fiercest competitors in animation, neither has opened the doors of its art treasury to sell customized merchandise tied to archival characters.

"A lot of companies are sitting on intellectual property, and it's not current. There are still people who remember the older stuff fondly, and this is a way of gathering stuff that's gathering dust to get income out of it," Gordon says.

Disney and embattled CEO Michael Eisner are under shareholder pressure for results. Disney's net income nudged up 2.4% last year to $1.3 billion on sales of $27.1 billion. Animated films from Disney's Studio Entertainment unit gained 10% in sales to $7.4 billion last year. The consumer products unit licenses the Walt Disney name, characters and visual and literary properties.

<img src="http://www.ultimatedisney.com/mulanbf/disneyinkshop.jpg">

<a href="http://www.zazzle.com/link.asp?associat ... hop.com</a>

That's really cool! I just checked it out and it's the same site that I saw on a banner ad here called zazzle.com. It's really a great idea, I'll have to browse it moer to see how many more characters they've added. If youo guys haven't already, do check it out.

Yeah, I saw it from an ad here in the past as well. I made a few things, and almost ordered one as a present, but came up with a different gift idea, instead. It's very cool, though, and I'm anticipating the addition to their lineup, as Disney apparel isn't so much my thing.

-Aaron

I've been there before and absolutely love it there. The theme for our senior class is A World New World, with each of us being compared to a Disney character (I'm the Mad Hatter, of course!). I plan on ordering shirts with everyone's personal character on it as an end of the year gift. From what I hear, their shirts are excellent quality and well worth the price.

Kelvin, that's awesome! How big is your class, though?? I wish that could've been our senior class theme. In fact, I wish our senior class could have had a theme. We did have spirit week, though, with each day having a theme. I was one of the representatives our class chose to go to the special council to pick the themes for each of the days. I lobbied for a Disney day, but it was narrowly defeated in the vote for the days that ended up sucking and being hated, much as I predicted they would. Anyways, that's very cool.

-Aaron

Since I go to a (very) small school, we only have seven people in our class, so buying shirts for everyone isn't an issue at all. Actually, I'll probably just end up buying six because one of the guys in my class (though he generally likes Disney) has already stated that he doesn't want a Disney shirt (which is good, anyway, because he's the Aladdin of our class and Zazzle only has one not so good clipart of Aladdin).

I think this is a really good idea! I might just go and get something. It's definitely better than making large quantities of the same kind of design that people might not buy. Thanks for the story and link, Luke!

EDIT: DisneyKid - Wow! Your class has only 7 people? I find this truly truly amazing because my highschool is very very big and our senior class has over 700! I think almost 800! That's really cool that you go to a small school and have things like a Senior class theme! We don't have themes, but we do go to Disney World for the senior trip! We have spirit weeks and last year was the first time we had a Disney Day! I was so excited but unfortunately it was on a Monday so practically no one remembered! Only the true Disney fans remembered. I wore some of my Disney pins, one friend had Mickey antennae bobble spring things, and my other friend dressed as Snow White! Hehe, what fun! I remember seeing one guy who had a crown and carried around a giant Dopey doll and had Kaa draped over his shoulders. I think we were the only four who remembered.

oh wow this is great!! (well not for my wallet )
I could easily make and buy at least 10 shirts right now!

Hey everyone,
I found a website that makes Disney postage stamps. Isn't that too cool to be true?! Zazzle.com launched a custom Disney stamps product this past Monday that allows you to add your photos to a postage stamp. I ordered mine today for my father’s birthday and they make great gifts! Zazzle has some awesome designs tools in place for positioning and if you really like it, you can use the site to buy custom Disney shirts as well.
-T

that will be great.

i will love to get them.

Yay! Zazzle offers postage stamps of everyone's favorite Disney characters.

A packet of twenty 37 cent stamps will cost $17 USD.

Has anybody ordered anything from Zazzle.com? They look like a reputable company that sells legal US stamps and other merchandise.


I found Luke's post on Zazzle.com here:
http://www.ultimatedisney.com/forum/vie ... php?t=4486

If you want your orders at Zazzle to support this site and want to admire Luke's Paint Shop Pro work, use this link to buy and use your eyes to view:

<img src="http://www.ultimatedisney.com/images/q-s/shirtsandstamps.jpg" width="140" height="117" alt="Personalize shirts, stamps, and prints with all your favorite Disney characters (even obscure ones) at Zazzle.com. Click for more information!" border="0">

Forget what I just said, I havent´s watched this post

Isidour wrote:Welcome to the forum Thambi, and thanks for the info n_n

1) They posted more than three months and have returned, so they don't really merit a welcome.

2) They posted from Zazzle's computers, which is kind of lame since they're obviously trying to pretend they're just some cool website they're only hearing of.

While I think Zazzle's Disney Ink Shop is pretty cool, and would encourage anyone with an interest to shop there via UD's affiliate link that Renata posted above...this kind of 'excited newbie' advertising post technique is just silly and slightly lessens my opinion of Zazzle. But not enough to abandon having fun coming up with shirt designs you'd never see in stores!

I accidently replyed to the wrong thread regarding Zazzle. I meant to reply to Luke's thread instead.

DisneyInkShop.com: Mickey and gang now ready-to-wear
http://www.ultimatedisney.com/forum/vie ... php?t=4486

Opps. I need more sleep. lol

It's ok. Thanks for the information pinkrenata and Luke!

Has anyone ordered from Zazzle before? My husband did years ago (it wasn't a Disney shirt), and the graphic wasn't colored in- it was a yellow shirt with a red outline of a guy and some text. It's all but totally faded now (if you didn't know there's supposed to be anything on the shirt, you'd think it's a plain yellow shirt). I've been interested in Zazzle for a while, and now I'm getting serious about ordering some shirts. I thought I had asked this question here, but I didn't find anything from me in the Search box. So, if anyone has ordered from Zazzle (namely, Disney shirts), after repeated washings, are they still as good as new?

And, have any of you made your own t-shirts vs. using Zazzle's pictures? I'm interested in doing both.

My complaint is that I don't understand why the whites in the pictures can't stay white when you get a colored shirt...that irks me to no end- my clothing options are limited because of that.

I made myself a Mad Hatter/March Hare shirt at the end of my senior year (mid 2005) and the shirt is still in excellent condition. It never shrunk, and the clipart is still sharp, vibrant, and blends into the shirt perfectly; if you run your hand over it, you'd never even know there WAS clipart added to the shirt.

My only complaint is that with Zazzle, anything in the clipart that's white will be rendered the same color of the shirt. Because of this, my Hatter/Hare shirt had to be ash gray. If I had chosen lime green like I originally intended, both characters (especially the Hare) would've looked possessed. Obviously this isn't a problem with certain characters. I've found that white, ash gray, and pink are the best colors to use for characters with whites in their eyes. I know about the pink because I bought several princess shirts for some of my friends, and the character eyes actually looked fine even with the whites replaced with pink.

I definitely recommend buying from Zazzle. I'm not sure what the deal was with your husband's shirt, but I haven't had that problem. I haven't tried the "Add your own pic" feature, yet, though. My only experience is with their Disney clipart.

Thanks, Disneykid! That's very reassuring! I wonder if there's more trouble with adding your own picture...I created a TBC shirt, and the picture is full color (versus my hubby's red-outline of a picture), and hopefully the technology has gotten better in the past few years)...I'm excited to save up my money and buy some Zazzle shirts!

Also, I'm upset that they got rid of the hooded sweatshirt...they have one for ladies, which I'll be getting a few of (if I buy everything in my wish list!), but they got rid of the fleece one...I could see if there's a child's fleece hoodie, but I haven't looked....*rant done*

Thanks again!

I was curious, so I looked on Zazzle's "Help" page- you aren't allowed to use copyrighted material. I'm not shocked, but that means I can't make a "Black Cauldron" t-shirt, or some McDonald's ones I was thinking about. Oh well...