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Word Up To Wordans

admin    T-Shirt Reviews     European tees, French T-Shirts, Wordans, Wordans.com, cafepress, collective, crowdsourcing, designer t-shirts, t-shirt community, zazzle

Antoine the co-founder at Wordans.com t-shirt community gave us a shout at Buy Tees for a review. The site is in many ways a pretty straightforward Zazzle or Cafepress clone, except for a few vital differences. Sure the site design is clearer and friendlier than many of its competitors out there (which there are more than a few now), and yes there’s an English and French speaking version for all the Euro t-shirt fans and designers seeking something just that little bit different than the norm. But what struck me immediately about Wordans is the fact you’ll find no trace of tacky mugs and mouse mats and gawd knows what else their competitors like to dabble in. What’s more they actually have some really decent designers under their wing, and they make sure you know it!

For all the budding t-shirt community stores out there hoping to make their mark, Wordans can teach you a thing or two about how to set the scene and make a unique mark in online urban fashions. Usually the immediate concerns of everything from bottom line profits, delivery mechanisms, and Google rankings get in the way of the essentials that savvy t-shirt buyers and urban fashionistas will always want. Simply to find the best of the best as soon as they hit the store. A fine balance has to be struck between presentation, quality control, and design excellence. Wordans truly know what their people want and they ensure they’re never swamped in a labyrinthian search and browse system of tags and keywords, search terms and subjects in the process.

I’d rather they skipped the Flash-based designer and I’d love to see some larger design formats than the usual, how about some all over printing? I suppose you can’t have everything can you. Asides the rather slow Flash designer, Wordans is as tactile as virtual shopping can achieve (for now – unless they invent a holographic internet), and I personally feel they’re heading in the right direction. Like the most happening ghettos of the most style conscious cities across the world, the development of a style is organic, and evolution however haphazard is always more fun than the megalomania of a business creationist.

This is cute, very street art, and a nice simple idea, Design T-Shirt by Bendesign gets straight to the point and leaves behind the pretentiousness that could’ve have haunted this work. A cool free-flowing style tops off the crunchy iconography for a t-shirt with meat on its bones.

Kinda creepy I suppose but what a refreshing change from all those awfully glib slogan t-shirts, most slogans leave me cold, and sure IANAM does the same, but at least it does it for all the right reasons. With the world’s climate of paranoia and oncoming doom and gloom, I can see this being a hit with the more cynical fashionista looking to make an impact on the old men who run the game called society.

I seem to be picking out all the monotones at Wordans but I do like a wisecrack and this tops them all, New York Taxi is very tidy, quick to the point and rather amusing in it’s own strange little way. I must remember to get a flaming torch the next time I need to hail a cab there, maybe it would help who knows.

I’ve noticed quite a few by Kanari, one of the more popular designers at Wordans, check out these two, Gangster and Hip Hop Baby:-

So there you have it – a real quality act all round – I really like the way that Wordans.com obviously appreciates its designers, they offer a decent subdomain for each store, and by the looks of it plenty of opportunity for designers to customise their own little corner of the web, and Wordans definitely know how to sort the wheat from the chaff. If you’re sick of ‘I Love Some City Or Other’ tees, and flags and hearts and all the usual gumpf then you should really check out Wordans, they are already breaking the mould, one to look out for at the very least.

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10 Comments to “Word Up To Wordans”

• t shirt printing | Printing & Publishing - Printing Products, Printing Machinery Exporters, DVD Movie Exporters and more October 10, 2008 at 3:29 am

  [...] Word Up To Wordans Antoine the co-founder at Wordans.com t-shirt community gave us a shout at Buy Tees for a review. The site is in many ways a pretty straightforward Zazzle or Cafepress clone, except for a few vital differences. … [...]
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  Nick June 10, 2009 at 3:52 am

  Wordans has a nice selection of tee shirts and styles. I buy shirts there all the time… Good customer service too!
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  Sarah September 10, 2010 at 11:17 pm

  Wordans has very poor business skills! I ordered shirts for a festival I was attending, their web-site claimed it would take 5-10 days and it took my shirts over 16 buisness days to reach me. When i cancelled my order they said they would not give my money back and I should have put a rush on my order even though i ordered with more than sufficient time!
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  jaime October 18, 2010 at 3:37 am

  I am worried about entering my credit card number I does not have any information about security how do I know its not a scam??
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  admin October 18, 2010 at 9:45 am

  Hi jaime

  I’ve heard some problems with Wordans recently but not credit card fraud?
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  Jenna February 22, 2011 at 9:09 pm

  I had ordered a shirt, after a month it arrived, and it was poor quality. I had to send pics and wordans admitted that this wasn’t acceptable. I then reordered, waited an entire month before they responded to my three emails, and cancelled my order.

  I now how my 3rd RE-Order in, and its been a month, with no word as to where it is!!!!!!!!

  just give me my money back! I hate dealing with you for the 4th month in a row, 3rd shirt ordered……….

  originally this was a christmas gift, ordered in early november…. and here were are at the end of Feb.

  UNACCEPTABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TO CLARIFY,

  WORDANS CANCELLED MY ORIGINAL ORDER
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  admin February 23, 2011 at 1:31 am

  Sorry to hear that Jenna, if we get word from Wordans on any of this we will write a post.
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  Annonymous March 7, 2011 at 9:55 pm

  So I placed an order a week ago through this site as they are the only ones that carry a racer back tank top like I wanted. I am a competitor in fitness and my sponsor wanted me to get his logo on my shirts. Basically they let me know about three days after that one of the shirts in pink will not be order-able as there was a stock issue. They issued a credit and I reordered in a different color.

  This morning they call me and said there has been an issue with the racer back tanks altogether and that they come out not looking great. Not only did this waste a week that I needed the shirts already but I have to wait for another credit in order to re order a type of shirt that I don’t even want as they no longer offer racer backs. They do not issue any refunds just credits so basically I wasted $80 on product I don’t even want and can’t use. I’m so pissed as this was THEIR mistake not mine. I don’t’ get why that constitutes me getting a credit if it’s their fault. DO NOT ORDER FROM THEM, you’ll regret it!!!
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  SM March 31, 2011 at 8:55 pm

  I joined Wordans recently. I entered their t shirt design contest. They announce the winner on the site monthly. I have yet to see any posting of a winner in the last two months. Also, I requested payment on my sales on Monday & it is Friday & it has not appeared in paypal yet. I am concerned about them being a scam.
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  Anonymous April 21, 2011 at 11:13 pm

  These people are a scam.

  After submitting my order, I received no followup whatsoever, by email or by phone, and my order was never shipped.

  They never contacted me to ask about any questions or anything at all.

  Good thing I used Paypal. I opened a dispute to get my money back from these scamming pieces of trash.