I recently saw a link on a friend’s Facebook wall that led to a T-shirt company’s website. While looking at the different designs and shirts they have for sale, I thought they were pretty catchy and appealing. Then, I noticed that the initials of their company, which they used as designs or logos on some of the shirts, spelled a word in another language that you would not want written on your clothes. For native English speakers, it would not be something that would strike people right away as bothersome because we would read it as the initials rather than a word. I don’t think it was an intentional choice on the part of the designers, and my guess is that they don’t know that what they wrote has meaning in another language. Then I got to thinking if this would hurt their business at all.
Does the rhetoric behind such an unintentional choice end up having an effect on profits?
A shirt is something producers need to persuade consumers to buy mostly based on looks. Of course, there is a comfort element and the fact that people want the shirt to actually look good on them, but the initial attraction to the shirt comes at a glance. The first impression counts a lot. When designing clothes in general, there must be some rhetoric. Different design elements send different messages. Some of these are textual, like the one in this case, and others can be the result of a certain cut, fit, neckline, etc.
With the shirts I am talking about, the visual element says hip, young, energetic, artsy, clean, fresh, etc. The shirts feature bright colors, clean text that is arranged and bold with block letters, and no pictures. Some of the shirts have symbols, but for the most part, they use simplicity to draw the eye.
They have a message to them, which also helps to add some appeal. The idea to support self-expression and art is a common theme among the shirts and within the company. The positive message is one that makes the target audience support a feeling, and that could appeal to pathos in addition to just the look of the shirt.
However, the text is what could take away from this. People who understand the word in another language as opposed to just seeing the company name/logo could be turned-off to what they would have otherwise considered a good-looking shirt.
I think clothes can have a ton of rhetoric behind them. The particular shirt you are talking about seems especially intriguing. You would think (or hope) that a brand would do a little investigating before producing shirts that can be bought by any multitude of people. I think the responsibility here is on the brand, simply because so many consumers buy products without any investigation. And, truthfully, if consumers did investigation on evvery article of clothing they bought, that process would take a whole lot more time.
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