Top 10 Ways to Enhance Your Yearbook T-Shirts

Each year, the yearbook club works tirelessly to plan, organize, orchestrate, and finally get those precious annuals out to the masses.

It’s a pretty thankless job (albeit a super fun and exhilarating one!).

But do you know what makes every daunting task just a little bit brighter?

Fun, funky, fantastic T-shirts, that’s what!

Get your own yearbooks T-shirts and spice up your school year with these top 10 tips:

1. Make T-Shirts an Annual Tradition.
2. Create a Crowdfunding Page for Your T-Shirts.
3. Take Advantage of Social Media.
4. Invest in a Variety of Colors and Styles.
5. Have Students Text in Suggestions.
6. Make Your T-Shirts Funny (and Punny).
7. Incorporate Student Art and Designs.
8. Flaunt Your Shirts All Around Campus.
9. Sell Them With Other Fundraising Products.
10. Give the Adviser a Personalized Shirt!

If you’re on yearbook staff, you know there’s no time like the present. Let’s dive right in!

1. Make T-Shirts an Annual Tradition.

Just as football players, cheerleaders, and yes, even band members, get a yearly upgrade in their uniforms, so should the yearbook committee!

Pulling together the yearbook takes skill, stamina, and most importantly— spunk. We’d say that definitely qualifies staffers as athletes.

Think about it this way: sports are all about games. Games are all about strategy and timing.

What takes more strategy and timing than creatively chronicling an entire school year’s events…as they’re happening?

All of this is just to say: yearbook committees deserve to have shirts to commemorate and honor the work they do.

And that’s why your yearbook staff should institute an annual T-shirt fundraising tradition.

Folks who want to buy yearbook shirts can do so throughout the year, and the proud members of the committee can sport them around campus as promotion as well as spirit-wear.

To sum it up: Making yearbook T-shirts an annual event will give your whole school something to look forward to— and your club members something to be proud of!

In need of some help planning a T-shirt fundraising event? Look no further than Booster’s Ultimate Guide to Planning a Fundraising Event.

2. Create a Crowdfunding Page for Your T-Shirts.

How do you bring T-shirts (which have been around for as long as memory serves) into the 21st century?

It’s pretty simple, actually.

You introduce really neat technology, like crowdfunding pages, that help your yearbook committee:

• Keep track of the number of shirts sold.
• Tell your story and customize the way it’s displayed.
• Purchase only the merchandise you can reasonably sell.
• Share and market your T-shirt fundraiser on social media.

If you know anything about crowdfunding, you know that its success is dependent on individuals spreading the word to their respective social networks.

That’s why it’s important to choose a platform that has social sharing capabilities. Donors can support your cause by giving and sharing your campaign with their peers. 

You should also choose a platform with mobile-friendly fundraising pages so that supporters can view your crowdfunding campaign on any device.

As soon as the yearbook committee has created a crowdfunding page through a company like Booster, the members of the club can then start sending the link to their friends, families, and other classmates.

Those friends and family members, in turn, will purchase their very own shirts— and possibly even send the link on to their own friends and acquaintances.

Before you know it, your T-shirt crowdfunding page will have made the rounds throughout the community.

To sum it up: In order to bring your T-shirt fundraiser into the modern day, your yearbook club can create an easily shareable crowdfunding page.

3. Take Advantage of Social Media.

Now that we’ve gone over crowdfunding pages, we can talk a little more in depth about how you can leverage your existing networks to enhance your future T-shirt sales.

Social media is one of the most powerful tools at your disposal, and luckily, the students in yearbook club are already well-versed in how to use it.

They’re Facebook fanatics, Instagram insomniacs, and Snapchat super-fans.

To make the most of this slight obsession, be sure that you’re also on board with the latest trends.

Trends like:

• Hashtagging on Facebook. Once reserved for Twitter feeds, hashtagging has become a standard way of organizing conversations on Facebook, too. In order to have the most exposure for your T-shirt sales, create a unique (but still memorable) hashtag for the campaign.
• Using GIFs on Instagram. Several new apps allow Instagram users to transform their static pictures into moving images (GIFs). It’s pretty stellar technology, especially if you’re trying to capture the brief excitement of a moment. Try employing this method to promote your T-shirt fundraiser.
• Enabling multiple filters on Snapchat. Up your Snapchat game by adding multiple filters to your snaps at once. Being able to add layers of meaning and design to a snap will broaden the possibilities for advertising your upcoming yearbook T-shirt sale.

Of course, there are dozens more tips and tricks that you can follow to make the most of social media marketing, but these are just the most relevant to T-shirt fundraising.

To sum it up: Social media can be an incredibly useful tool to have in your repertoire, and it’s even more handy when you know just how to use it.

4. Invest in a Variety of Colors and Styles.

While you’re busy raising money for and with this year’s yearbook, you might not be thinking about the infinite possibilities for the colors and styles of the club’s T-shirts.

But that’s a mistake for two major reasons:

• Having a variety of colors and sizes will broaden your reach with the student body.
• Giving the yearbook committee the freedom to choose means more creativity all around.

The more colors and styles you provide for those interested in your T-shirt fundraiser, the more likely students will be to end up purchasing one (or two or three).

Let’s say that you had just two colors and only one style.

A few students are pretty enthusiastic about the fundraiser, but they’re bummed because there are so few options to choose from.

Maybe it’s the dead of winter, and they were looking forward to sporting a nice long-sleeved version of the shirt. But your club has only provided a short-sleeved option.

That situation could easily have been remedied by investing in more styles, from winter chic to summer cool— and everything in between.

Not only is it important to have several options in order to interest the most students, it’s also crucial for enhancing the creativity of your yearbook committee.

You let them have fairly free rein when it comes to the design of the yearbook. Why not extend that same freedom as far as T-shirts are concerned?

Allowing the club’s members to have greater freedom of expression with regard to their apparel will, in turn, fuel their creative juices in the yearbook planning room.

It’s a win-win situation!

To sum it up: Providing multiple options for T-shirt colors and styles not only gives your fundraising campaign greater reach, it also enhances the creativity of the yearbook committee’s members.

5. Have Students Text in Suggestions.

If you’ve worked with students for more than five minutes, you know how much they love texting.

And for good reason: texting is convenient, quick, and easy. (Just take a look at Qgiv’s texting statistics).

As you’re planning your yearbook T-shirt fundraiser, you may want to think about combining texting with the design process.

This means allowing students to text in their (serious) suggestions for the yearbook T-shirt designs to a designated phone number.

You’re probably thinking, “But how do we keep students from texting in non-serious suggestions?”

The solution is to provide incentives for the best entries.

You can offer up the chance to win:

• A free shirt.
• An extra hall pass.
• A pizza party for the winner’s class.
• Or whatever other prize you think might be fitting!

When students know that a positive incentive is on the line, they’re far more likely to participate and also less inclined to joke around.

To sum it up: Giving your students the opportunity to text in suggestions for T-shirt designs is sure to yield fantastic, innovative results.

6. Make Your T-Shirts Funny (and Punny).

When your staff shows off their shirts in the halls, you want the other students to remember them, talk about them, and buy them!

That’s why it’s super important that your T-shirts are not only quality (and come in a variety of colors and sizes), they must also be entertaining and fun.

Sprinkle your shirts with great puns like:

• “Crop it like it’s hot.”
• “So fonts-y.”
• “Yearbook: Helvetica good time.”

You don’t have to limit your creativity to just verbal puns; you can also dabble in visual humor.

One great example would be creating a shirt that says, “Get the leading out” with several different levels of leading (space). Those who are in the know about yearbook vocab will find it hilarious, and those who need to freshen up will probably be curious enough to ask.

In any case, funny— and punny— yearbook shirts spark conversations, and therefore, interest in the club itself.

To sum it up: Make sure that your yearbook shirts capture the attention and hearts of both members and non-members by experimenting with wordplay and playing around with visual puns.

7. Incorporate Student Art and Designs.

Art is an integral part of a well-rounded education. It teaches students the importance of patience, the freedom of self-expression, and the discipline of experimenting with different mediums.

Student art is included in yearbooks, so why should it not also be incorporated into the yearbook’s shirt designs?

We mentioned earlier that the yearbook committee ought to allow students to text in their suggestions for the shirts.

As a part of that initiative, you might also want to open the contest up to your school’s resident artists. Chances are, many of them would love to have their work displayed on hundreds of shirts around campus.

In order to harness this amazing creativity, you’ll want to create an adjoining contest to your existing texting competition.

Get the great ideas flowing by offering more prizes for the winner of the art and design contest, like:

• Art supplies.
• An extra free period.
• A featured plaque in the hallway.
• Or any other prize your school administration approves of!

You won’t be sorry you enlisted the help of these future Picassos and Rembrandts!

To sum it up: Allowing students to enter their very own designs and art to be featured on the yearbook T-shirts is another awesome way to get the whole school involved with your fundraiser.

8. Flaunt Your Shirts All Around Campus.

Speaking of getting the whole school involved, yet another marvelous way to enhance your yearbook T-shirt fundraiser is to flaunt the first batch around campus.

There’s no better marketing tactic than peer pressure.

Okay, not that kind of peer pressure. This is the positive kind, the kind that encourages more kids to get involved in raising money for their school.

So how do you get the dominoes falling in the right direction?

It starts with getting the first round of T-shirts shipped early.

Those who ordered their shirts before everyone else will obviously have first priority.

On the day that the shirts arrive, encourage everyone who received theirs early to wear them loudly and proudly for the rest of the day.

The students who haven’t purchased shirts yet will see those who did walking down the hallway or sitting in the cafeteria, and they’ll inevitably be jealous of the cool new swag!

That jealousy will lead them to go out and place their orders immediately. Because, let’s be honest, everyone just wants to fit in, and there’s nothing wrong with that…especially when it benefits your school’s yearbook!

To sum it up: One of the best ways to get more students interested in purchasing yearbook T-shirts is to have the first several students to buy them show them off all over the school.

9. Sell Them With Other Fundraising Products.

A peanut butter sandwich without jelly is just sad— it’s dry and salty and boring. But when you add a little bit of strawberry or grape, the results are truly amazing.

PB&Js are one of the most classic combos in history.

Your yearbook committee can easily replicate that kind of groundbreaking pairing by selling your T-shirts along with other fundraising products.

When you’re trying to sell more T-shirts, it helps to sell tasty candy bars alongside them.

Or maybe your students aren’t particularly interested in candy (what are the chances of that, though?), you could also try selling savory snacks, like beef jerky.

You could also bypass food-related fundraisers altogether by trying out:

• Stuffed animals.
• Scratch cards.
• Tumblers.
• Candles.

Whatever you choose to offer up, having twice the product means having twice the promotional opportunity.

Interested in more product fundraising ideas that would work well with T-shirt fundraisers? Take a few minutes to glance over this extensive list of product fundraising ideas.

To sum it up: Two products are better than one. Selling another fundraising product with your T-shirts gives your campaign double the chances of success.

10. Give the Adviser a Personalized Shirt!

As much as the yearbook committee strives for perfection and works their tails off throughout the year, the adviser is there every step of the way.

On any given day, the yearbook adviser can be found:

• Cheering on the club.
• Giving sage advice.
• Lending a helping hand.
• Stepping back when necessary.

In every sense of the word, the adviser is the yearbook committee’s coach.

Tradition dictates that the coach gets a special shirt or a personalized uniform. It only makes sense, then, that your yearbook club’s adviser should get their own customized T-shirt with their name (or nickname) printed across the back.

A personalized shirt is a sign of gratitude, yes, but it’s also a symbol of camaraderie.

Your adviser has been through the thick of it with the yearbook committee. They deserve the recognition that comes with that status— as well as a reminder that they’re a part of something truly awesome!

To sum it up: Show your yearbook adviser how much their hard work and dedication has meant to your organization all year by giving them a customized T-shirt.

From this post, hopefully you’ve gained some great new ideas for brightening up and improving your yearbook’s T-shirt fundraiser. Happy yearbooking!

Need more ideas for profitable school fundraisers? Booster has you covered with this extensive list of creative ways to raise money all over campus.

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