Nottingham Trent University

Mass Customisation and T-Shirt Design

This proposal is to investigate further consumers attitudes to designing their own products (often referred to as Mass Customisation) and designing collaboratively within a virtual community. Although not an entirely new concept, it is only in recent times, with developments in e-commerce, the Internet and with the advent of the Virtual Community that there is a need to re-evaluate the initial teachings of Mass Customisation. This will help in understanding if consumers actually want what it proposes. To follow is a critique of available literature in this area and an outline of proposed research; this will be based on the co-design community of the online t-shirt business Threadless.com.