There is nothing special about an entertainment franchise selling merch. Every movie studio, TV network and videogame developer opens their own store in an attempt to pluck even more pennies from your purse.
But what if, instead of handing your dollars over to BIG ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY for a T-shirt that a zillion other people also have, you could design your own T-shirt AND sell it AND keep all the money? That’s exactly what we’re doing with the Unioverse.
To borrow from a popular tech magazine:
TIRED: Companies making money off you with merch sales.
WIRED: You making money off the Unioverse by selling your own merch.
If you’ve been following the Unioverse from the beginning, you already know you can do this because we’ve told you. Repeatedly. But now we are at a point where we can show you how to actually do it. After reading this, you can start making and selling your own Unioverse merch today. Here’s how:
Step 1 – Check the terms
Before we get to the fun stuff, let’s clear the decks with the little bits you should know beforehand.
- To be clear, you can download our assets for free.
- You can sell whatever you make and keep all the money.
- There are some Unio-no-nos that you should be aware of before you begin. You can probably guess the basics: no hate speech, no libel, don’t use other intellectual property, etc. It really should not affect your creativity or entrepreneurial spirit at all. Be sure to read the Unioverse Community Content Creations License, and check out our legalese-to-plain-English translation.
Step 2 – Download Unioverse art and assets
OK. With the legal stuff out of the way, the real fun begins! We have already posted a bunch of Unioverse art that you can download (for free!). There are character models of our first Unioverse Hero Reyu, and a ton of concept and environment art as well. Choose what you want here.
Example Downloadable Reyu on Transparent Background
Example Downloadable Unioverse Concept Art
Step 3 – Make stuff!
Once you have your Unioverse art, it’s time to start making stuff! Combine images, cut them up, remix them, re-color them — whatever you like. Just make stuff! T-shirts, comic books, stickers, lunchboxes — really run with it. (Remember to include the Unioverse Community Content logo on your work!).
Here are some examples one of our excellent designers put together:
Once you have a design, there are lots of options if you just want to make something for yourself, friends and family at home (think: iron-on printer paper for T-shirts). But if you want to step things up a notch…
Step 4 – Open your store!
The Unioverse Community Content License allows you to sell your goods, and, because we are living in a technologically marvelous time, there are plenty of places online to turn your creations into merch and sell them.
We went ahead and created a UnioverseFan store on Threadless.com. In fact the good folks at Threadless have a special offer for Unioverse users: Sign up for Threadless through this link and get a $5 gift code! (You’ll need to abide by whatever terms and conditions are required by your store of choice.)
The designs we created are available on T-shirts, stickers, skateboard decks, and — a favorite around here at the office — a Reyu shower curtain. Bonus: If you buy anything through our Threadless store, all the money goes to World Central Kitchen.
Step 5 – Tell the world!
Whether you made something for yourself, or created a full-blown store, let us and everyone else know about it! Tag us on Twitter, share it on Discord, put it on Instagram. We built this franchise to be community-owned and we definitely want to see what the community creates!
One last thing
The concept of a community-owned franchise is entirely new. While we don’t anticipate online shops blocking you over IP issues, that may arise as more and more people upload their own creations. If you do run into trouble, let us know and we’ll look into it.
© 2022-2024