We’ve teamed up with the lovely guys from Insert Coin Clothing, Dan Long (Head of Comms) and Jon Rhodes (Creative Director), to find out just what it’s like to run a pretty damn awesome t-shirt company.
Can you tell us who there is in your team of awesome t-shirt making?
Dan Long: There’s a fairly big team of us now… we’ve got about four or five people involved in all aspects, from logistics and accounts, but the creative hub is definitely focused around Jon, and I help/hinder him whenever appropriate.
Jon Rhodes: Haha, yes that’s very true. It is a growing team and we’ve got a nice balance of creatives, level-headed business types and number crunchers!
How did you get into the t-shirt business?
JR: It all started when I was trying to find a decent gaming tee about a year ago. Truth was, I couldn’t. I tried, I bought a few, but the quality was terrible. They had no pride in what they were doing. It was all slapped together and churned out on cheap tees.
DL: I think that was the thing that made us do something about it. Jon got sent a tee that was truly terrible so we decided to take a stand, get involved and make some better tees ourselves.
Are you both gamers? If so, what are your favourite games and why?
DL: We do love games – all different ones in fact, so there is always a nice balance on what games are going to inspire us next. As for favourites, I’ve narrowed it down to half a dozen or so that I couldn’t live without… but if you had to make me choose an absolute favourite it’d be between Gunstar Heroes and Shadow of the Colossus.
JR: For me it’d be Ocarina of Time, the original MGS or Goldeneye. Those titles really shaped me as a gamer and I still love them today!
What was the inspiration for the very first t-shirt you launched, and what was the initial response?
JR: The original tees we launched were really well received. We were overwhelmed by the response to be honest! I guess the very first idea for a tee was the Umbrella design… it’s what started off this journey!
DL: The fan response has been phenomenal from day one – and it keeps on growing. We’re really lucky to have such fantastic people supporting us.
How long has the company been running now? What have been the highs and lows during that time?
JR: We’ve been going now for about 10 months – our birthday is coming up in the summer, so expect some biiiig celebrations!
DL: People think we’ve been going a lot longer – or are a lot bigger – than we are, I think. It’s a lovely thing, but strange too. People think we are a massive multinational company, when really we’re still a very young, new company.
JR: As for high and lows, I guess it has been a big learning curve – but nothing has got us down for too long.
DL: The things that have annoyed us are the simple things really. Unavoidable delays that put back the release of our latest tees by about 10 days really grated as we absolutely hate letting people down. We work really hard on making sure that we don’t let a customer down – we’d hate it to happen to us, so we don’t want any of our customers to think ‘I wish the guys had done more’. That is what keeps us going. The good news is, those things are few and far between. It has been overwhelmingly positive – we’ve had tees on The One Show and Never Mind the Buzzcocks, on every 360 in the country and given away with Edge subscriptions. We never would have thought that this was going to happen when we started up.
What has been your favourite tee design to date and why?
JR: I think I like the Zakhaev and Klobb tees most of all. Those are special games and I do have a penchant for wearing black tees!
DL: Aside from the SotC ‘Sigil’ and Calbers tee from MGS (which I wear at least once a week!), I think the new range is awesome and really sums us up. The Afterlife tee is particularly cool – people need to wear more purple!
How do you guys come up with the designs?
JR: It’s a mixture of things. Most of the time, it is just about choosing the games we love and going from there, but that has been changing and more companies have come to us to discuss more official, licensed designs.
DL: It’s been an honour to be commissioned by Sega to make a couple of Sonic inspired tees for the little blue guy’s 20th birthday celebrations. The designs are in Japan as I speak and hopefully we will have the greenlight very soon.
JR: We love getting submissions from our fans and followers too. They really do help to shape what we do in the future, even if the designs themselves are changed and tweaked, and changed again.
DL: We ran a competition on the Eurogamer forums which was really successful and the winner’s design inspired our new ‘Fishing Tournament’ tee – which you can now buy as part of our new range.
What do you have planned for the future? Any designs you can talk about? Any obscure games that might pop up?
DL: Oh man, we have so much stuff we can tell you…
JR: Shh, we can’t tell you – it’s a secret, ha ha!
DL: We have the Sonic licence of course, but we have 12 designs – at least – that we’re going to release this year. The next six – which includes the two official Sega designs – will be out in summer… so it’s not long before people will be able to pick up something else new and exciting.
JR: We’ve got some more obscure and interesting titles in the mix this time. Some are old, some new, but all are fantastic – from games close to our hearts.
Will you do any t-shirts that are not based in the gaming world, for example geek-culture designs or comic book characters?
JR: Almost certainly not, I think they’ll always be gaming related.
DL: Yup, I think it is gaming all the way for us. We might get some cross over with some other guys who make cool tees – MAYBE. But that is in the future.
JR: We might look at something a little different soon, but it will definitely be all about gaming and the overall ‘Insert Coin‘ experience.
How would you plan your battle against robots if there was ever a mass break out and they had lasers shooting from their eyes and killing innocent bystanders?
DL: I think an organised distribution of mirrors would be an important first step…
JR: Yep, then get tooled up and get involved!
Do you have any tips for budding t-shirt entrepreneurs?
JR: Don’t go into anything half-heartedly. It’s a big job making tees… lots of hard work.
DL: Yeah, weirdly, it isn’t something you enter into lightly. You need to work hard, play hard and be prepared to learn a hell of a lot about different types of cotton!
Thank youuuu!
No, thank you – it’s been a pleasure! 
Look out for our review of a very cool Insert Coin t-shirt coming soon! Can you guess which one we’ve been sent?
Check out their great selection over at their website!
I wish the Insert Coin team nothing but the best of luck. They are a company who keep in touch with gamers, they have a great presence on Twitter and they actually listen to the people who are buying their product.
Now, which Tee shall I purchase?
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