Wave T-Shirt at Threadless

(Reader slaps hand against forehead in disbelief) I’m at it again, at Threadless, doing my thing, and what appears to be an extremely unpopular thing at that. I’ve taken quite a few knocks at Threadless.com - I’ve hardly gathered any support and I doubt I’m making friends there. My partner Christina wants to convince me there’s some kind of conspiracy going on there, and it’s all down to writing this blog.

I know it’s far less complicated than that, my designs just aren’t good enough to compete on the world stage, which is fine, I can live with that, or rather I can work with that. Avoid all-out puns wherever possible is my first advice, they don’t seem to appreciate much of that at Threadless, and if at all possible be an expert illustrator, which will probably take another 20 years in my case. Threadless.com is becoming an addiction for me, I’ve got it bad man, have you got a few votes you can spare me buddy? Read more

Hell To Pay T-Shirt

Hell To Pay T-Shirt by Paul Baines

‘There will be hell to pay’ - nothing seems to be free these days, or nothing of value. It seems that everything is going cheap now the recession has started to bite the four corners of the world (someone tell me, was this planet once a cube?). Life is cheap (depending which country you live in on a scale of 1 to 10), so are promises (and that includes all political ones), the earth is running out of every conceivable raw material out there, and yet I can go to Morrisson’s Supermarket (I hate all supermarkets equally btw), and buy enough for a barbecue for four for only a fiver. What’s that all about? This isn’t an ad for a supermarket, honest! Don’t worry I’m not tied into any secret sponsorship deals, but do buy a Lexus, change your long distance provider, let me do an insurance comparison quote for you and drink more alcopops. The point is everything of value is paling into comparison to the all encompassing economic might for crude. Oil is the be all and end all right now, and unlike a few energy crises we’ve had over the past half century, this one is permanent.

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Heightened Security T-Shirt

Heightened Security T-Shirt by Paul Baines

Heightened Security is my very latest design and was heavily inspired by my article on the Heathrow Terminal 5 debacle, not the disastrous opening of the new terminal, but rather the overbearing security and their ridiculous ban of a well known Transformers t-shirt, simply because it featured a cartoon laser. Read the Story >>

It seems that amidst the heightened security and a worldwide (or at least American Government) panic that somehow half the rogue states in the world are about to blow us all up, a lot of emotions have been heightened too. Recently a UK government report, yes it was commissioned by Labour, has given a severe warning to both the police and local authorities across the country to stop the infringement of human rights (as per many EU directives) or have their powers taken away. For the police this will mean no more random stop and searches, most of which have been just about anyone with dark skin (as per the killing of Brazilian man Jean Charles de Menezes on the London tube network) and for the local councils this could mean the end of CCTV surveillance. Hooray! We are the most watched country in the world and the UK doesn’t even have a constitution, we are supposed to be subjects (i.e lessers/serfs) of the Queen. If I’m not a citizen then I’m nothing.

Furthermore I can never agree that it is a necessary evil to remove the rights of all in order to protect the rights and freedoms of those same individuals. I have often discussed the future with my partner Christina, will we sit it out here in Britain or give up and move to Europe where many countries offer far greater human rights and abide by those laws? Furthermore many offer a far greater level of respect and support for artists than we get here in the UK. I have never had funding, or sponsorship, I had a limited grant for university and then nothing, the UK doesn’t support its artists, and now it doesn’t support human rights. I can see a disturbing trend spreading across capital-hungry states of the world, and I am afraid to say it has distinct a resonance of fascism. I don’t mean to be a scaremonger, but the evidence is here already. You can’t legislate the vilification of a minority, you can’t legalise brute force and lack of proper legal representation and due process.

The fact is that apart from the oil crisis, which essentially seems to have begun the day Bush announced he was going to bomb Iraq, the environment is disintegrating before our very eyes, more and more governments and politicians are blatantly controlling the media’s output, we are just about there, a fascist state. Airport Security is a Travel Bug Exterminator.

Heightened Security T-Shirts from only $9.99!

Heightened Security T-Shirts T-Shirts at CafePress.com only $9.99! There are plenty of
other items available organic tees, sweatshirts and hoodies too.

Heightened Security T-Shirt at RedBubble.com available
from GBP £11.94 - USD $23.94

Get Heightened Security printed on any item
at Zazzle.com

Technorati Tags: terrorism, travel, t-shirts, airport bans

Weather Girl T-Shirt

Weather Girl T-Shirt by Paul Baines

Weather Girl is the most popular women’s t-shirt I’ve designed (so far!). I suppose I realised early on in my t-shirt design that a lot of my designs appealed to both sexes when I first started to receive comments on my work, thankfully the majority is positive, and after a while I noticed the sales for certain t-shirts including Weather Girl, Speak to the Hand and Barbie Queue were beginning to outstrip sales (especially at CafePress.com) way beyond the usual.

I hardly sell any t-shirts at RedBubble.com as with most of their members, but I’ll keep the faith and continue to promote them because they produce very high quality work and besides the community there are very supportive, if not a little brassic in the deep pockets department. Fair enough, I never entered this industry with unrealistic expectations. What Weather Girl made me realise soon is that I am creating more than a string of t-shirt designs, I’m actually building a brand. The only problem with brands is that atypically a new label will always take some hefty financing to truly make it a profitable business. Some of the major labels have taken years to get into the black. However one can always hope.

If I ever do find the right people, a decent screen-printer, a fantastic marketing wizard, I’d use examples like Weather Girl to show what a great brand we could build together. In the meantime I’ll just keep working hard to replicate the success of t-shirts like this, and hopefully for both sexes!

Weather Girl. Rain is an emotive thing. I was probably staring at the rain pouring down outside the window when I came up with this idea. That and subconscious memories of cartoons as a child, more than likely a Tex Avery piece. It’s a simple way of projecting the idea of sadness, a grey and hovering cloud over an unhappy character. I simply took the idea one step further, and in my own skewed logic felt an umbrella was more appropriate. Some have commented how French this piece looks, which still makes me wonder, does the girl look French, or the rain, or is it simply feeling blue?

Weather Girl T-Shirts from only $9.99!

Weather Girl T-Shirts T-Shirts at CafePress.com only $9.99! There are plenty of
other items available organic tees, sweatshirts and hoodies too.

Weather Girl T-Shirt at RedBubble.com available
from GBP £11.94 - USD $23.94

Get Weather Girl printed on any item
at SpreadShirt.net

Available at SpreadShirt.net for European customers and even have it printed on your choice of t-shirt here

Technorati Tags: weather girl, rain, t-shirt, art

Big Apple T-Shirt

Big Apple T-Shirt by Paul Baines

It’s funny how places can get nicknames, I checked out the origin of New York’s alter ego, and it seems the term was coined by NY jazz musicians of the 1930s and ‘40s, some say it’s to do with the depression and all the apple sellers on the streets, but I think the music scene would’ve been far more influential than a few fruit sellers. Besides there was some kind of crazy jazzy dance back then called the Big Apple too, so not surprisingly the name caught on.

There isn’t much to explain about the Big Apple T-Shirt except that it’s influenced by famous painting The Son of Man by René Magritte, a Belgian Surrealist with a knack for creating the iconic. You can probably recognise the influence straight away, there aren’t many images out there that obscure a portrait with a giant apple, then again, it could just be an average apple placed close to the viewer.

I have a strange kinship with New York, all it a long-distance relationship, okay yes, in a voyeuristic sense, I do love New York! I haven’t been there, I suppose I should go, my partner has and she enjoyed herself, but she wasn’t ecstatic, I knew why, we’ve been spoiled by a history of film, one tribute after another up until the 1980s when everything on location in New York was actually filmed in Vancouver and other less populated, less memorable cities. I suppose no where can live up to my expectations these days, it’s no one’s fault in particular, just the wealth of filmography that has used New York city as a backdrop to countless stories.

I’m sure plenty of New Yorkers will be rolling their eyes by now, it’s true, how can I tell what New York is like from across the Atlantic, well, I do know that every city I’ve lived in or visited has become busier, more crowded, more congested and more polluted than the last. It’s practical to create a megatropolis in the midst of an Industrial Revolution, even at the beginning of an Information Age, but soon, very soon people begin to realise they don’t need to commute, the oil crisis will speed up the process, and more and more lumbering behemoth corporations will experience a painful commuter burnout. Then we’ll see the rise of the local economy once more, a resurgence for convenience and practicality. Then New York, London and many other incredible cities can make some room, and all we’ll use them for is entertainment, the arts, cultural and historical experiences, trade, and shopping for luxury goods, it’s what they were built for in the first place. In times gone by the only people who lived in a city lived in squalor or owned a serious chunk of real estate. Funny how things always turn full circle if you wait long enough.

Big Apple T-Shirts from only $9.99!

Big Apple T-Shirts at CafePress.com only $9.99! There are plenty of other items
available organic tees, sweatshirts and hoodies too.

Big Apple T-Shirt at RedBubble.com available
from GBP £11.94 - USD $23.94

Bad Stripper T-Shirt

Bad Stripper T-Shirt by Paul Baines

This design was influenced by my soul mate Chris, she’s often commented how very down-to-earth and basic (shall we say?), I am in bed. Well there’s the first problem, it’s not just bed, it’s in our relationship in general. No matter when you’re reading this it’ll still boil down to the truth, that in general men and women aren’t all that similar after all, it really does go far beyond your taste in clothes and what’s hiding between your legs. It’s an approach to life, a combination of nature and nurture resulting in a defined sexuality and therefore a division between the two. Flowers and romance or just a good …

Sure life isn’t that cut and dry, there’s no black and white option, there are plenty of greys in there to choose from. I heard recently that scientists have found a correlation between sexuality and brain mass. Essentially if you’re female or a homosexual man you have a perfectly symmetrical brain, if you’re male or a lesbian woman, then one side will be a tiny bit bigger than the other. Now, as far as I’m concerned symmetry is the be all and end all in nature, a sign of perfection in design, oh dear, I have a wonky brain… :/

Bad Stripper is exactly what you’ll see in the bedroom of most suburban homes across the world. If the wife/girlfriend initiates a little erotic foreplay you can expect a modicum of effort at the very least, but if it’s not and her male counterpart is attempting the ritual, expect to see socks. I’ve been consciously working on leaving the socks in the bathroom so I don’t kill the moment, I can’t understand why anyone could fetishize feet, horrible things if you ask me. Oh well each to their own I suppose.

Lads, do your ladies a favour, I don’t mean perform a Karaoke version of Barry White in a flashing leather thong, no, just take your socks off.

Bad Stripper is available from only $9.99!

Bad Stripper T-Shirts at CafePress.com only $9.99! There are plenty of other items
available ringer tees, sweatshirts and hoodies too.

Bad Stripper T-Shirt at RedBubble.com available
from GBP £11.94 - USD $23.94

American Pi T-Shirt

American Pi T-Shirt by Paul Baines

A slice of mathematical Americana! I’ve mentioned this t-shirt design before when

I’d submitted it to Spread Shirt. It’s simple and straightforward and available from
various fulfilment sites including RedBubble.com, SpreadShirt.com/net and from
Cafepress.com - and yes it really is available from only $9.99!

American Pi T-Shirts at CafePress.com only $9.99! There are plenty of other items
available including American Pi Women’s Cap Sleeve T-Shirt, American Pi Jr. Ringer T-Shirt,
American Pi Organic Cotton Tee, American Pi Jr. Raglan, American Pi Baseball Jersey, and many more!