Blood Is The New Black

I only stumbled this one last night, yes at 3:30am, but luckily I still felt exactly the same about Blood is The New Black after a long sleep and an even longer grey British morning of slogging away at my (f)art. So what’s BITNB all about? God knows, but I love it. It’s like I’ve accidentally bumped into The Velvet Underground of the t-shirt world and I couldn’t be more pleased (with myself :p).

There’s flash. there’s plush, there’s cool, there’s funny, there’s crazy, and then there’s these guys, their style? Well if you can call it that, a ragtag muddle of crazy artists and designers, their style is so way off the scale I’m all out of adjectives (for once). All I can say is they make me feel sick in a good way, not sick with envy, not sick of the sight of anything in particular, but a strange and rather wonderful home sickness for a life I’ve never had.

If only the friends of my youth had been as together (and untogether) as this demoniacal motley crew I’d have probably started a revolution of some sorts by now, oh to be as reckless and carefree as these loonies. Read more

The Art of Rhetoric - Persuasion by Design

RhetoricTshirts.com officially launched on October 4th. An American clothing company focused on if not driven to the core by high-concept design. Their mantra states the use of the medium of T-shirts bears out two distinct design directives:-

Prints inspired by innovative examples of pop art, fringe sub-culture and youth.
Shirts that are custom manufactured from the finest textiles and materials including pima cotton.

In combination these two directives herald a direct challenge to the quality and integrity of competitors’, and t-shirt design and production in the general market. Read more

Alive and Kicking (and Jet Lagged)…

Hey all you lovely t-shirt people, I am in shock, I’ve just got back from a week in Marrakech (yes we had a lovely time thanks) and the first thing I did after a quick cuppa (you know how us Brits like our tea) is switch on the old Macbook and look at my inbox which is heaving. It’s wonderful to be so missed, so appreciated, I’d never realised till now exactly how many people have cottoned on to my obscure little blog, it’s not the grandest of designs, or the greatest of concepts, but I enjoy it, and from what I’ve read it seems many of you out there feel the same. So, firstly thanks, thanks, and more thanks. Don’t worry, I haven’t had another funny turn if you’ve been left hanging out there in the world of t-shirts. Chris and I needed a little break away from the miserable weather here in the UK and Marrakech was the closest, sunniest hotspot we could afford, besides it gave us both a chance to practice our haggling skills, and our School French or what remains of it, hardly Franglais these days, but still funny how much you remember when you’re thrown in the deep end.

Read more

731 out of 50,000 t-shirts

My heart sank when I discovered this site today. It really is a case of reality crashing in though the door and spoiling the dream. FiftyThousandTshirts.com have the noblest ideals, their cause is more than justified, it’s a smart idea and should work to help the victims of last May’s 7.9 magnitude earthquake that devastated the Eastern Sichuan region of China.

Perhaps it’s the design, or maybe a lack of exposure on the net, or even all the disasters around the world since competing for their cause (Haiti for instance). Whatever it is things don’t seem to be going well for Steve Paterson, the creator of the website. Of course I’ll do all I can to help over here, which is the main reason for bringing all your attention to the site. FTT have been featured at numerous t-shirt related sites, blogs and forums, but from what I can tell they’ve only sold 731 t-shirts so far. Read more

Temporary Insanitee?

Okay - it’s true - I had a funny turn back there - but don’t worry I’m better now. I’d just come back from a funeral for a friend of the family, little sleep and the daunting prospect of designing and writing for the day did rather turn my brain to mush. Hey you know artist’s are temperamental, at least I didn’t cut off an ear. So ignore what you’ve read, I’m not going anywhere, I just know who to avoid when I’m feeling low now.

Sometimes you have a day that forces change, mine involved me vowing to create less t-shirts and make more art, I’ll be opening up a new site soon simply called PaulBaines.co.uk - not exactly catchy but you can blame my parents for that oversight. Read more

Stripped Down Design at Take Off Clothing

I got an email from Raymond Koo of Take Off Clothing yesterday looking for a quick shout, I’ve noticed his work featured at a few other review sites which kind of knocked the wind out of my sails, I don’t like to repeat news unless I can get a new angle on it, but I genuinely appreciate what the guy is doing, so here we go.

Koo is a t-shirt designer based in Australia and has eight t-shirts in his collection, but he’s playing with some pretty snazzy t-shirt colours so we can forgive him (for now). Yes I would like to see a greater range of designs, but you can already see the artistic direction Koo’s taking. I’m sure that his range will build over the coming months, a slow burner with strong potential as far as I can see, give him time and I am sure this collection will stand true. Read more