DeathGob Tees

admin    T-Shirt Reviews     British, Death Gob, DeathGob, UK designers, UK t-shirts, indie tees

I have a feeling that the alternative t-shirt label DeathGob is based in Margate in the UK judging by this shirt, however no matter where they are you can tell by their pithy anti-establishment line of humorous tees, bags and badges that they’re British, oh most definitely. Run by five friends who won a car in a local contest and sold it down the pub, got drunk and still (in the end) managed to pull a great little t-shirt company out of the bag, they offer up a hearty portion of cool designs and one-liners that suit a wide range of peeps from your local squatter anarchist to international jet-setter. It’s just that kind of label, you know, it starts off as a tiny little cult label and then everything starts to explode, they have that vibe about them for me anyway.

It’s obvious from the moment you visit the site that these guys (and gals) really love t-shirts, they even offer a FREE Pimp My T-Shirt service, here’s what they do… “We want you to tell us about your most hideously shameful shirts. Send us a pic and tell us a little bit about why it’s so bad, and we’ll pick the worst of the lot and get you all pimp-daddied up. Yes, we’ll take your shirt off you and modify its ass until it becomes the envy of every lounge lizard fashionista the world over, and what’s more, we’ll do it absolutely free of charge.“

Asides a healthy selection of genuinely funny shirts there are a few cool classics, stylised illustrative, even diagrammatic if not a little geeky designs that really shine out for me. Take a gander at this lot…

Jukebox Gold Tee

A classic jukebox design adorns this shirt, oh so retro, oh so cool. It reminds me of greasy transport cafes and old man’s pubs in the 1970s. By the 1980s most places cleared these out and replaced them with CDs. I was working in a bar in Brighton trying to make ends meet as a student and on my first day there the manager was thumping his CD jukebox as it kept skipping, I begged him to let me listen for a while. About 3 years later I heard almost exactly the same kind of sound on the radio, it was Fat Boy Slim. Who knows he might have been a regular there ;P Anyway get the Jukebox Gold Tee for £18 for men and women in a range of sizes and colours.

Mac T-Shirt

I was late when it came to Macs, but not for the want of trying, I asked for a Mac in the 1980s one Xmas and was laughed out of the room. When I first tried to get into the graphic design industry I needed a Mac to get the experience to apply for the shift-work so many graduates slave away through in umpteen design houses around the world. Vis-a-vis: no job = no money = no experience = no Mac = no job. Still what looks like a heap of crap these days was like Manna from heaven back then. Love it, the style is as cool, calm and collected as the content. Get the Mac Tee at £18 for girls and guys.

Truck Tee

Totally old school, probably older than the actual saying “old school”, this fine illustrated shirt is probably my fave tee at DeathGob right now, there are funnier ones for sure, but just for the sake of style I’d stake my claim with the Truck Tee. I love old illustrations, it’s probably nostalgia or a flashback to playing with trucks as a kid, who knows, it’s got me all the same. I’d like to think it was a beer truck just to finish it off :) Get this tee for guys (sorry girls no trucks for you! Complain if you wanna’ lol.) in all sizes and a four colours for £18.

In The Eye Of Eio

admin    T-Shirt Reviews     British, EIO, abstract shirts, art shirts, art t-shirts, art tees

Eio Clothing remind me a little of Das Monk, perhaps a little bigger and fancier, but they seem to hold the same sensitivity for design, with plenty of original art shirts on offer. The big difference is they’re a British brand, a good British brand, which must do a little something to bail us out of the economic slump we Brits are in. Right now the General Election is taking place here, I was going to vote but my postal vote never arrived, so I’m stuffed… anyway on with the tees. Their shirts are worn by a wide spectrum of fans including skaters, the famous, surfers and musicians, rakes and reprobates and as they describe “all beings of superior taste”.  I have to agree, there is definitely something Mark Weaverish about their style. Eio Clothing t-shirts are stocked in countries worldwide and offer an off-the-wall range of designs you won’t find on your local high street, unless that is you live somewhere very very cool!

All of their tees are organic and fair trade so no worrying about putting fashion before doing the right thing here. Eio Clothing is based at the Cultural Quarter in Lincoln, not known as a mecca of haute couture, it’s great to see that the Internet can springboard so many independent brands into the big league. I’d say their house style is something like a post-psychedelic sci-fi, not the sort of sci-fi you’d see in blockbuster movies from the USA, but more like the strange and wonderful TV experiments of Britain in the 1970s, ecologically driven sci-fi made by intellectuals for the pleasure of middle-class intellectuals waiting for the revolution to start, it doesn’t, they vote in Thatcher instead. Shame, shame…

Damn I am straying today. Eio have even given birth to a fledgling label Rakes & Strays who definitely deserve a review of their own in the near future. Anyway check out these retroish, mostly abstract, absolutely arty t-shirts in Eio’s latest collection “Excess is Ok”.

Mountains To Molecules T-Shirt

This tee is designed by the head honcho James Lee – the creative director of Eio and Rakes & Strays. You can see what I mean about obscure British sci-fi, like a graphic from a hippyish UK cold war propaganda movie, this image explores the microscopic and macrocosmic. Who knows if there’s any real science in the design, still, it looks cool! Available for guys in L & XL for £34.95 and there are only 4 left in stock! Get Eio’s Mountains To Molecules T-Shirt here.

Prism T-Shirt

Here’s the explanation for Eio’s Prism T-Shirt… “We took it upon ourselves to disregard science and the actual way light separates and just make up our own interpretation. Made from the broken shards of light and refracted colours, this T-Shirt is the Eio prism, together with the excess is ok spectrum of colours.” I am sure there is logic in their madness. I love this deceptively simple geometric design, it relaxes me like no other. £34.95 in XL, just two left!!

Diamond Fission T-Shirt

Here’s a fascinating subject, the Diamond Fission T-Shirt deals with how volcanoes not only create international chaos for airports, they also create diamonds. Beautiful abstract too, stark, neon, and ever so sliced. Designed by James it’s available for guys in S-M for £34.95 here.

Stars T-Shirt

I should love this one but the cropping is rough, the Stars T-Shirt really deserves a full front panel print or even an all-over print. Hate rectangular borders, love stars, I’m torn. Still it’s on sale for just £19.95 in Small and just one left in Large.

See the rest at www.EioClothing.com or become a fan at their Facebook page.

British Tees at MySoti

admin    T-Shirt Reviews     Brit, British, British T-Shirt, MySoti, UK, crowdsourcing

London-based MySoti.com is one of very few British companies online offering a crowdsourcing t-shirt service comparable with the likes of Threadless. Don’t expect any big prizes for designers, they take a more pragmatic approach to pricing allowing their creatives (from around the globe) to add the commission of their choice to their own products. There’s a good selection of talent at the store and plenty more in the wings awaiting your votes. I really liked the look and feel of MySoti and decided to sign up as a designer myself. They don’t just sell t-shirts, they offer art prints and would you believe it lampshades too? That’s a new one on me, but I did have fun designing my own lampshade and have already submitted it along with a couple of tees for voting.

As a matter of interest I’m guessing the site’s name is based on the (slightly more) sophisticated alternative to the awful netspeak for laughter “LOL” meaning laugh out loud. SOTI means “smirking on the inside”. Then again I could be wrong and it could be a reference to sex on the ice, but that’d be a long shot ;) The site is pretty sophisticated too, with an ultra clean design every little interaction seems somehow smoother and quicker than most stores, fans and designers should find it a breeze to shop, vote or upload a submission.

Here’s my latest submission based on a piece of mine called ‘Pearly King’, basically a vision of an alternative reality where Elvis was born within the sound of Bow Bells. Let the Dick Van Dyke impressions commence!

Pearly King T-Shirt

If you’re a member at MySoti I’d appreciate a few votes! Here’s a few more up for the vote that deserve a boost…

Storm In A Teacup T-Shirt

Here’s a great use of the classic Japanese painting The Great Wave by Hokusai. Designed by Ross Robinson who from his profile photo where he’s wearing a Union Jack tee I’m guessing he’s British, then again featuring anything connected with tea in a t-shirt design is another big giveaway. I love this design, it’s deceptively simple yet beautifully drawn. Vote for it or buy it for £21.56 in all sizes and plenty of colours here – only available in a  men’s style?!

Epic Rock Paper Scissors Battle T-Shirt

This is a superb design by YAWN, I really like this designer’s sense of humour, and they have a really great talent for eyecatching illustration. There are a few more by YAWN worth checking out including Ice Is Nice! and Nerd Gets Hurt. If you fancy voting for any of their designs check out YAWN’s profile. Their Epic Rock Paper Scissors Battle T-Shirt is available for Girls, Guys and Kids in plenty of sizes and colours from £15.59 here.

Marilyn Sane T-Shirt

Probably my fave tee at MySoti right now this is the one that got away from Warhol, well if he’d been into early 1970s British Rock. I actually own a copy of the album “Aladdin Sane” by David Bowie, he was going through his Thin White Duke phase when he wrote it, although the make-up is straight from his Ziggy Stardust wardrobe. There are a couple of cool songs on it but try Lodger, Heroes or Low for the real deal. You can’t get more Pop Art than this shirt, a great design by RikkiB available for Kids, Girls, Guys and Onesies from £21.67 in a range of colours, vote for it or buy it here.

Why not vote for a few more, upload your own or even buy a few tees with a more British feel at www.MySoti.com?

The Rise And Rise Of SwishSwosh

admin    T-Shirt News     British, SwishSwosh, UK, UK t-shirts, designer tees, swishswosh.com, t-shirt community

SwishSwosh.com, one of our favourite new t-shirt communities is going from strength to strength, they’ve just picked their latest winner, 17 year old Sam Leonard with his slick t-shirt design Warning, Paint can Stain, recently chosen by the public as their latest top tee. Sam has now been posted his prize money, and is officially £1,100 richer thanks to SwishSwosh.com! What’s more SwishSwosh have just been featured on Galway Bay FM, if you want to hear the full scoop click here. They even grabbed themselves a headline in Tilllate Magazine run by the self proclaimed world’s biggest night-life community who have featured them in a glorious 2 page spread complete with photos and interview.

This British brand gives new hope to the UK as we are desperately short of t-shirt collectives in the vein of the behemoths of the industry such as Threadless.com, so it fills me with pride (and a little relief) that the label is doing so well so soon. Offering the UK and the world unique and limited edition tees (only 50 printed per design) a unique British slant on t-shirt design is a welcome breath of fresh air for the market. After all, in this case, you can’t have too much of a good thing, and with a slightly edgier slant than you’d normally expect, I’m more than glad to see the quality of their submitted designs unbelievably but truly improve day by day.

In truth I have to admit that my absolute pick of the crop right now has to be Money Talks by Andy Cheung, take a look at this beauty… read more