Tribal ID exists to help people create custom products that reflect their group identity. New technologies make it cost effective to create custom products for nearly the same price as mass-produced goods. These technologies include direct textile printers, desktop engraving machines and digital presses. All of these technologies remove the time, cost and skilled labor that used to be required to customize apparel and non-apparel products. As a result individuals and small groups can now easily and quickly create merchandise that carries their brand rather than mass-produced, impersonal decoration.
Great new companies are emerging to take advantage of this technological change and are offering a growing list of items that can be designed online and produced in units of one, often within a couple of days. These companies are making traditional branded promotional and art items like t-shirts, hats and mugs. But a new crop of companies are taking it a step further and building a wide variety of items from laser engraved computers and cutting boards to individually customized digital cameras.
With the new opportunity to create customized products comes a challenge. Not everyone has the skill, time or courage to develop their own designs. By using the group communication tools made popular by Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and a variety of group sites like Google Groups and Ning, groups of people, typically organized around a passion, can work together to create a look that can be applied to items. By building collections of group-branded products, these “Tribes” have the opportunity to wear or carry a representation of their passion.
Tribal ID makes it easy for groups to create unique items that reflect their group identity.
This blog will chronicle our efforts to help groups find and customize interesting items, and will offer advice on how to build “I have to have one” items.
