Oct

War and Peace in the World of T-Shirts

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Banksy, BombG T-shirts, Glennz, Robit, T-Shirt News, chance, coincidence, karma, matchmaking, military t-shirts, miracle, new label, new t-shirts, saga, spreadshirt, story, wonder

Now, I’ll warn you, this is most likely the beginning of a long saga, if not an epic of all t-shirt articles. I doubt you can really call it a review because there’s so much to tell you, so much to explain, and so many twists and turns in the story that the word ‘review’ just wouldn’t do it justice. This is the story of the birth of a new and hopefully very successful (fingers crossed) niche target t-shirt label.

Let’s start from the beginning, the very beginning. Now, if you believe in fate, hey you have to believe in something, then you’re probably not the most ardent fan of coincidence. I’m not, in this grizzled addled brain of mine I like to cling on to the small hope that perhaps some things in life have a purpose, and that on those few occasions you should grab life by both horns and wrestle it to the ground.

Now, human beings are complicated creatures, they have individual lives and emotions, each has their own perception on why we are here and what we should be doing, and that means that a lot of us will never meet and if we do we will never agree on the most fundamental precepts of existence. Sometimes that’s a good thing, it means avoiding wars and most painful experiences in life, but sometimes it can be a real shame, glancing back and realising you’ve missed a great opportunity to help (in some small way) others find their way in modern life and all that it entails.

i want to introduce you to two guys, two very different men, both have a love of t-shirts, both want to find their way in the industry, and until recently neither had any idea of the other’s existence.

Bomb G aka Bombardier Darren Gray has led a fascinating life, here’s how he introduced himself to me and his website www.BombgTshirts.co.uk – “Many people say that a web site name has to be relevant to the products or services you sell, others say it needs to be wacky and way out there… I had this mad idea of a web site that sold pre-designed T-Shirts whilst was serving as a Bombardier in the Royal Artillery, the abbreviation for Bombardier is Bomb and my surname ‘Gray’. I was known as Bombardier Gray, an old soldier who was coming to the end of his time and well known among the senior ranks, I was often referred to as ‚ÄúBomb G‚Äù and as my site sells t-shirts what better a name than Bomb G T-Shirts.”

Coincidentally (or not depending on your belief system) I received another email that day from Mark Freeman, a creative soul with a distinctly superior talent for draughtsmanship. Here’s what he had to say, “I would greatly appreciate it if you would be able to review my website and its designs. The site is relatively new and still within its infancy but includes many of my own original designs with areas to control and customise all products in several of my online shops. My website can be found at: www.rebirth-creations-clothing.co.uk. Please check it out and email back if you would like to include a review of the site on your website. It would really be beneficial for me as I’m only a small time and cannot afford real and valued advertisement. Thank you for reading this, Rebirth Creations Owner, Mark Freeman.”

Mark is a slave of Spreadshirt, a corporation that I have less and less respect for each day, they like their competitors treat their designers like dirt, they take the bulk of the profit, all of the traffic and leave their greatest assets to struggle with responsibility of marketing their designs in a dog-eat-dog world of t-shirt sales. No matter how many embeddable widgets they offer, there’s no disguising the fact you’re at a Spreadshirt site and not an independent t-shirt producers site. What’s more Mark has made a terrible choice of domain names, two dashes and very little marketing savvy has most likely left this site at the bottom of the Google listings for quite a while. Then again take a look at a couple of Mark’s designs, they really are his saving grace :-

Hussie in Hong Kong at Rebirth Creations

Excuse the tiny images, that’s just one of the problems with Spreadshirt – they simply don’t encourage bloggers to feature their products or images, f you want to buy any of the above as Spreadshirt t-shirts visit www.rebirth-creations-clothing.co.uk for more info, Mark also sells products (including sneakers) through Zazzle too – so if you’re after any of these there are your options, there are a few other designs too incase you care to take a peek. My main problem with Mark (apart from the severe limitations of the site) is the fact that this artist has no theme, his collection is too disparate for my liking, but that’s not the point, that can be fixed, taking his talent somewhere that will be appreciated had by now become my priority.

Bomb G (Darren) had a completely opposite problem, the guy is as enigmatic as they come, he has a story to tell, a former war photographer and bombardier who already has a successful online store at www.garrisonpri.co.uk selling military presentations, clothing and accessories. What’s more when it came to creating www.BombgTshirts.co.uk jit took Bomb ages to find the right designer to create a professional set up he could be proud of. It’s a very smart site but it only has one problem, the t-shirts there, for the most part, are kind of sub-standard. He too had a problem with the theme of his label, he had a concept in mind, had the store built and then needed to source the right designers to create the designs he needed to set his site off with a bang. He’s made sales but to be honest (and Darren later admitted the same) the t-shirts he’s selling right now jsut don’t cut it. I’ve picked out a few of the better ones, but in all honesty I’d never normally feature most of these…

actually like this one, Peace Tank is a great piece of graphic design, and in essence it’s exactly the direction that Bomb G should be taking, unfortunately this approach is scant on the site to say the least. Darren commissions designers and for the main part it seems he has little creative control over the project, which is a real shame, because his basic concept of what his collection should be is sound, very sound indeed.

Now, just to prove a point I’m going to show you some of the bad ones (be warned they are so bad I won’t link to them) …

I just can’t show you anymore, it’s not Darren’s fault though, he didn’t design them, it’s down to the lowlifes out there who make money licensing tees, they snag every new t-shirt store owner out there and sell them the same old jokes, the same old dodgy slogan-based tees that places like Busted Tees dumped years back.

Now I hate refusing to review t-shirts, but if I find the quality of either the site or its products are not up to scratch I have to deny them a post at Buy Tees. I just don’t see the point of wasting your time or mine, there are so many great designers and labels out there it really wouldn’t be fair. But something about these two guys made me decide I needed to do a little bit of matchmaking. The fact is they couldn’t be more different if they tried, Mark has a fantastic drawing style and Darren has a lot of business savvy, a great site and a potentially fantastic concept for a t-shirt store, i.e cool military style tees for a Banksy-loving, anti-Bush, post Iraq generation of artistic media-aware trendies.

Take a look at what I wrote to each of them next and beware these are long old emails, the first one is to Mark of Rebirth Creations and before you read these, take a look at the example images I used to convince them of the theme, quality of design and products their alliance could eventually produce.

$Banksy\'s Bomb Hugger$

The above images are of Banksy’s Bomb Hugger, Robit’s ‘Chance of Reign‘ t-shirt and Glennz Tees’ classic ‘Ground Defences‘. I used these to argue my case with both Bomb G and Mark.

Hi Mark

I know how hard it is setting up your own t-shirt label, I suppose it comes down to site design, people expect something instantly recognisable.

Take a look at some past t-shirt sites I’ve reviewed and you’ll see what I mean, they expect a glossy store rather than a blog with a few embedded items.

The thing is I’d usually pass on a review of a Spreadshirt store but I really like your style (drawing style that is).

I’ll let you in on the world of a t-shirt reviewer for a moment (but don’t tell anyone!).

Right now I have you and another guy asking for a review, you have the t-shirt design ability and Mr Gray, well let’s say he’s spent the money on the store design, he buys designs off t-shirt designers. Take a look at his site >> http://www.bombgtshirts.co.uk/ – the store is very slick – but the designs – well they are all over the place – some are well drawn, but there are no real strong ideas there, and the slogans, I don’t like slogans myself. Most people don’t. This guy needs a theme, and you need to make some money from your art.

Hussie, Shadow Tree and Flower With Attitude are incredibly well drawn, I mean top notch stuff, but you also have to find a theme, almost all of the most successful t-shirt designers have marked out a territory, sure they can draw, but you know when you’re at their store because they strongly theme their ideas.

Now I’m just thinking, and tell me if I’m wrong, but you need a visionary t-shirt printer with a great store and he definitely needs a decent t-shirt designer he can rely on – he’s shelling out on designs, and to be honest I don’t think he’s quite sure what market to crack, but I think I can tell what he needs.

I propose this (and if you agree I’ll offer him the same idea). I get you two talking together about ideas, he’s had a really interesting past, essentially he was a bombardier (like a bomber pilot) before he got into tees, and he’s spent loads on his store design but I feel it’s gone to waste. If I could convince him to give you a percentage of profits and you two could agree on some decent military designs – something you both could get into but fitting with the idea of the site, well who knows with a little help from me (i.e a great big review about you two) something might come of it.

I was thinking take a look at the banksy pic – yes it’s a banksy – a famous one – bomb hugger and it’s exactly the sort of thing he needs to kick start his site …

Then there’s ground defences by Glennz (a famous Oz tee designer I’ve reviewed a few times).

Plus another I love by Robit called Chance of Reign.

Now I know what you’re thinking, hey man I don’t want to draw bombs? Sure you don’t, but damn you can draw, and with a little coaxing I think the two of you could move on from the military theme towards all sorts of other ideas, I’d say stick with the military theme for a while and see where it progresses. He was a bombardier after all. Plus the fact that military t-shirts sell like hotcakes and hardly anyone has cracked that market yet.

I don’t know about you Mark but I believe in fate, and if you do and BombG does then I say I get you two talking, I review both your sites, and use this idea of matchmaking a t-shirt printer and a designer for a killer article. You can still carry on with your own projects and so can he, it’s just he’s got a whacking great big t-shirt printing machine and you’re going to grab very little profit from Zazzle, Cafepress or Spreadshirt (I swear, they take so much profit and lead all your customers away it’s not worth it).

So, why don’t I show him how well you can draw, and basically repeat this conversation with him and fingers crossed you two may find yourselves a t-shirt sensation.

Who knows it’s worth a try. Savvy t-shirt buyers just don’t like co-branded stores mate, I know I’ve been there, you can disguise the site all you like but eventually you’re passing all your traffic and most of your profit to a nasty great big corporation, and then who really wins? Not you, not the customer, just some fat cat in an office.

Read this, from Bomb G…

The Name: Bomb G. Many people say that a web site name has to be relevant to the products or services you sell, others say it needs to be wacky and way out there (I read something along those lines in one of your articles) While I had this mad idea of a web site that sold pre-designed T-Shirts I was serving as a Bombardier in the Royal Artillery, the abbreviation for Bombardier is Bomb and as my is Gray I was know as Bombardier Gray, as an old soldier who was coming to the end of his time and well known among the senior ranks I was often referred to as “Bomb G” and as my site sells t-shirts what better a name than Bomb G T-Shirts.

He’s got an interesting background story plus he’s literally set up his printers at an army barracks which has got to be worth a little PR.

Sometimes you have to grab an opportunity before it passes you by, perhaps it won’t work out, but at least you two will get far more publicity this way than if I make a few remarks on each of your t-shirts. Your designs are better, his store is better, it’s just staring me in the face and I have to meddle, you see if you two get it together and make a name for yourselves we all win, you make money, he makes money, you both get famous (kinda) and I get a scoop for the blog, my readers would get such a kick out of this if it worked out I know they would.

Ah well have a think about it Mark… it’s a big bad world out there and sometimes people have to shake things up to get noticed these days – I think this could be far bigger than either of you on your own, who knows I could be wrong, but what if I’m right?

Cheers Mate

Paul

P.S Just say the word and I’ll get onto bombG and see if I can work on him too… must be worth a try?

Now the email to BombG :-

Hi Bomb

Okay I’m going to drop a bombshell on you first of all, I don’t like your t-shirts. Now don’t lose heart, I’ve spent all night thinking about this and trying to work out how I can help you and still get a decent article for myself and I think I have an idea, a pretty big idea as it happens.

You see you have a great personality B, a fantastic story, something I am sure the public can identify with, and with the whole bombardier background linking in to the store I think you could be on the verge of something big. However in all honesty the best concept I’ve come across in a while has been lost along the way somehow. I know you’re buying in designs, but it shows, there are definitely three (at least) different different designers involved and to be honest I don’t like any of their works.

Firstly slogan tees are so old hat, they’ve been done to death and if you ever do have a good idea someone else steals it the next week and you’re stuffed. The airbrush car tees are very well done, but they have a ring of those guys that draw caricatures of people on the beach, and always the same, great big heads and driving dune buggies. All I’m saying is your concept, your theme, your unique selling point has been lost and that’s a massive shame! Even the army t-shirts are a little disappointing, I was expecting to see a store full of the coolest military t-shirts I’d ever come across, something with a twist.

Anyway take a look at the attached pics, one is a famous Banksy called Bomb Hugger, another is called Ground Defences by Glennz (a t-shirt designer I’ve reviewed him a few times), the last is Chance of Reign by Robit (who I have also reviewed). These kind of designs sell like hotcakes, yes they’re militaristic but at the same time iconic even subversive, I swear on my life there is a massive market for this kind of style and no one has really take advantage of it.

I want to keep everything as simple and direct as possible here so first of all take off my banner at the bottom of your site, it looks terrible and it’s ruining the style of the store (just give me a tiny text link somewhere – maybe on the left <a href=”http://buy-tees.net“>T-

shirt Reviews</a> .

Now take a look at another guy’s t-shirts who is asking for a review but doesn’t have his own store (the store design is a mess) >> http://rebirth-creations-clothing.co.uk/designs.aspx

He’s using Spreadshirt and Cafepress and a ton of other awful corporations who steal his traffic pay him less than a dollar and esentially rip him and 1000s of other designers everyday.

Now i’m hoping you’re thinking two things by now, firstly his designs are nothing like I need and secondly – wow this lad can really draw! I mean look at the Hog Kong Hunnie Tee – that took some incredible draftmanship – he’s really going to waste at the moment.

His name is Mark and I’ve told him about you and now I want to show you what I wrote to him and try and convince you two you could work together and essentially have a chance of making it big time in the t-shirt world. Why? Because you both have vision but no overall theme, because you need a designer you can discuss ideas with and rely on, and because Mark needs a visionary t-shirt printer with a strong concept and a professional store. I’ve got him to agree to take a percentage of profits (which you can discuss) but most importantly of all I’ve sent him the same 3 military based images that you are looking at and he’s excited by the prospect. He is ready to defect and create cool military t-shirts for you if you are in accordance – the next part will take sometime to read – I want to keep this open and honest and show you what I wrote to him last night.

Here’s what I said to him…

===============================================letter to Mark==============================================

Originally I repeated the email to Mark here but I won’t make you guys read it all over again!

==========================================end of letter to Mark========================================================

Now if you’re still feeling sceptical remember I can create a far better article (and follow up reviews on your progress) if this happens otherwise to be honest I doubt there will be a review for either of you, perhaps one or two t-shirts, but nothing special. This could be a blog saga for me the story of Bomb and Mark, War and Peace in The World of T-Shirts.

Finally this might convince you – take a look at what Mark wrote back after this long email….

“what can i say!!! u have me convinced, it would be great if you could approach him for me, and i love militiary theme, think i cna make some very swish designs for him, probs quite high spec though, but i love a challenge.
and i hear what ure saying about the fat cat!, still, ive sold a few, but i like ure idea better. get back to me about bombadiers decision. cheers for this, and ure right, this would make a great artticle, people love this sorta thing and havent seen it writtten down in a full review for…..well….ever!!! tlk soon”

Bomb, this is your chance, Mark is on board, you two get chatting, I’ll write the longest article of my life, see what happens, you can both still do your own thing, but I do believe that with a truly talented designer under your wing and a solid military fashion concept BombG has a far far better chance of breaking into the market bigtime!

If you’re willing and ready I’ll begin my monster article asap, it’s all up to you now Bombardier Gray, shall we proceed?

If you want to start talking to Mark straight away his email is xxxxxxxxx or call him day or night on xxxxxxxxxx

Let me know your thoughts soon, are you on board, shall I start the review? It could be the beginning of something very big!

Cheers Mate

Paul

Let’s just say the response (after some initial hesitation on both sides) was miraculous, I’m glad to announce the two are beyond initial talks and are now discussing the details of design and product theme for the future of what I and they hope will be a major new t-shirt label. Fingers crossed I’ll be updated when new designs arrive and have to admit I’m looking forward to what they’ll produce.

In case you’re sitting there scratching your head, I did it for the love of t-shirts, I haven’t got a cut in the company, Darren has said I’ll have free tees for life if this takes off, but I’ve told him I won’t take that offer seriously! All I know is if you’re there at the right time and the right place, what the hell, lend a hand, help give birth to a new t-shirt design house and who knows, the mysterious universe of karma might pick you out one day and give you a break.

Now everyone, whilst you’re feeling hopeful about life and everything in general, go and buy my art haha.

Tell ya mates:

1 Comment to “War and Peace in the World of T-Shirts”

t-shirt printing machine | Bookmarks URL October 27, 2008 at 8:28 am
[...] … screenprinters impose minimum order sizes‚Ä¶.so they can spread the cost of their time to set the machine up over a lot of t-shirts. DTG or direct-to-garment printing came out a few years ago as a way to avoid this set-up. They are essentially inkjet printers but the paper is a t-shirt. The big problem … War and Peace in the World of T-Shirts … [...]