Nov

Word Up To Word Apparel

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cool tees, fresh t-shirts, graffiti t-shirts, graffiti tees, graffito, hip hop tees, hip-hop t-shirts, tagging, urban t-shirts, urban tees, word apparel, wordapparel

Deamn Right! Here’s a fresh young label straight from the street for all you homies out there looking for something laid back yet sharp, slick but with a nice line in self-deprecating humour. Great for a night out downtown, or chillin’ with your bro’s, your first stop should be Word Apparel; created, owned and run by Levi based in Houston, Texas. His style, distinctly ghetto, his humour, toon surrealism with a great eye for colour and a great knack for one-liners. This t-shirt collection is not your usual funny ‘ha ha’ eclectic range of old tired japes you’ll normally come across. As you might (or might not) expect from the freshest of the fresh, there’s a distinct blend of the underground street about Word Apparel. Bold prints peppered with touches of pathos and cheek, backed up by an illustrative edge that any self-respecting graffiti artist would have to lay down his cap to, that’s the order of the day at WP. You should expect big things from this lad, and you won’t be disappointed…

As Levi puts it at his popular Myspace joint, “We are always doing something new, focusing on new items to release, and many more things. So check back everyday, you never know what you could miss out on if you don’t! We have your biggest concerns in mind: Quality, Comfort, a “true to size fit”, and LOOKIN’ GOOD! That’s why we only use the highest quality prints and shirts, American Apparel!“

To kick things off, here’s one of my personal faves:-

This is Dead Grad, this made me laugh as soon as I arrived at the store. I’m too long in the tooth to get away with sporting this fine number now, but if I could I would! I’ve added a quick ghost story at the end of this post for those who love tall tales and eerie happenings. I love the art work, it’s almost a shame I hadn’t seen this on a train carriage, but of course I could never endorse vandalism, however creative. Jam packed with ghetto goodness, I particularly appreciate the trephining detail top left.

Okay back to the t-shirts, you can stop hiding behind the sofa now, hey! Yes t-shirts…

If you’re going to meet a herd of monsters (is it herd?), then at least make sure they’re Happy Monsters. I think t-shirt is a beauty! Especially the highly effective use of two-tone colours, and the skateboarding guy, is that receding hair or flapping ears I wonder? It’s just the sort of t-shirt that will keep all your mates amused for hours, (when they’re under the influence of something or other :p). Even the logo has been incorporated with a great deal of subtlety, well at least it’s compositionally pleasing. I’d like to see a few more of these cornucopian feasts…

If you love ATHF then this one is up your street, Don’t Mess With The Tasties in a really fruity purple:-

Don't Mess With The Tasties @ Word Apparel

Loving the style and colour here, again Levi has managed to work the logo in pretty well here. Usually I’d advise t-shirt designers to avoid making a feature of their logo, however usually with WP, they’ve been blended well into the design. Still, to be safe I always say, unless you have a few million to build your brand avoid plastering logos over designs, that can come later, when you’re rich and famous! Still, this is still a schweet design, though I do like surreal ideas, and I am sure there’s a confectionary company out there eyeing this one up now, it’s a strong, fluid, t-shirt design like many at WP.

So, in conclusion I’d say more t-shirts, more surrealism, less logo and keep doodling Levi, you have an incredibly confident style. Word up to Word Apparel :]

A Bonus ghost story for fans of Dead Grad…

I remember my days at Uni way back when, and apart from the fact I was studying art, I still found the whole cramming process kind of irksome, yes art students do cram. Actually a mate of mine had a near nervous breakdown in the final year, he was dyslexic and couldn’t write to save his life, still with a little help from a few old hippie tutors he managed to scrape through. Anyway, one of the sweetest cribs I blagged for myself in the first year was a rental from a post-graduate turned ‘art technician’ called Tim – no he didn’t wash the brushes. Actually it was rather a technological course as far as art went, he fixed the editing suite; cameras, flickering flourescent lights, and generally helped the cuter female undergraduates with their trickier installations, What am I saying, actually he built them all himself, and hardly got a grope at a drunken basement party for his trouble.

Anyway I took on his place and paid the old codger landlord his pittance, the bedroom had seen better days, but the headache-inducing white emulsion hid the worst of the DIY disasters. So there I was kicking back, watching my TV and thinking about all the possibilities of what could be, when all of a sudden I start feeling eerily cold chills down my back. Assuming the boiler had cranked it’s last crank, I slipped under the covers and crashed for the night.

About two in the morning I heard this shuffling about, there was an ensuite nearby and it sounded like someone had broken in to steal some toothpaste or a box of matches, or my precious TV, brave or as foolish as I am, I jumped up and turned the light on, shouted a bit and stomped around in an attempt to sound muscly. Everything went silent. I guessed it was the goon next door. Every hour or so the sounds repeated, I got up again, headed next door and knocked, banged and kicked for a few minutes. Then I heard a voice moaning and groaning, kind of echoey like someone in a large bathroom, larger than mine anyway. I shook my head and went back to bed.

The next day I asked the landlord who the mofo in the next room was, he stopped, his jaw dropped, and he shook his head and shuffled his feet with muted embarassment. I didn’t have time for that I headed off to college, I grabbed Tim and asked him what the hell was going on. He told me, it was a ghost, a dead student, yes, a ‘Dead Grad’. This guy and Tim used to argue all the time about God, Tim was at that time a devout agnostic, especially when a religious fundamentalist had him by the collar. Eventually it turns out, that god-fearing crazy neighbour had it in his mind he had to prove that his beliefs would protect him no matter what, and thus decided to stop eating or drinking forever. The Fire Brigade had to put an axe through the thick Victorian door a few weeks later, the guy was dead. There you go, a real-life Dead Grad.