I love the simplicity of Rob’s t-shirts, almost every one of his designs offers a pithy pun and a surrealist sidelong glance at the world, something I’m sure Threadless would dress down, (I know that from bitter experience), however I’m giving this guy full marks for a great collection of unique and individualistic tees. I suppose I do lean towards his kind of style whenever I’m scouring the net for originality and purpose in the world of t-shirts, Rob has it by the bucketful. I’d love to create a collection as cohesive as this, I do come up good ideas (honest), but stylistically I dart about depending on the topic. That isn’t the way to create a long lasting collection (as does Glennz for instance), Dobi has an immediately recognisable ouevre and he capitalises on it. I don’t, I chop and change, I feel that different subjects deserve different treatments, though Glennz’s ideas and angle on the world are immediately recognisable, Dobi is more subtle, producing ideas from a slightly askew view of the world. I’d say that Dobi must be one of the best at what he does, a subtle design with an even more subtle message.

Dobi’s style reminds of many British Art Deco railway posters of the 1920s, his figures are treated as abstract reference, yet each forms the humanising core tof one subjective context after another. The topics range from the sublime to the comical and strike a tone of cynical reverence for this utterly confusing space-time continuum we find ourselves inhabiting. Mankind at odds and in tune with nature; personal growth and the coping mechanisms of disappointment and triumph, mankind’s stance against the vastness of nature, and how all is eventually conquered by a resounding success or abject failure, or even both, the multifarious outcomes of chance, studies in the surrealism of cause and effect, the logical progression of a karmic cycle, and plain old good fun.

One of my favourites has to be Refraction Retraction, there could be an eco message here but you really can’t tell, but that does seem to be Dobi’s raison d’√™tre, to leave you guessing, however I think this piece works on a far subtler level, almost as with many of the designs at Full Bleed, he’s hinting at mankind’s physical disconnection with nature, his greed and pursuit of material wealth. Nature has been commodified, and now it’s even dangerous, samples of the rainbow are likely being taken away for scientific testing in a secret government laboratory.

It’s not only intelligent it’s an attractively simple image, a quality I always look for in good t-shirt design. Unfortunately this t-shirt is out of stock at the moment, so at least I know I’m not in a minority when it comes to tees that rock. Hopefully he’ll have another batch printed soon, in the meantime you can find out exactly what’s available the minute it’s printed at his MySpace blog at http://www.myspace.com/dobi which he seems to update regularly by the looks of it

This next tee is a beauty too, Identity Theft couldn’t be more topical in the UK at the moment, the government have been accused of breaking European Human Rights codes by allowing every Tom, Dick and Harry out there to do everything from CCTV our every move to Police Stop and Search swoops for terrorists, drugs, and now stolen scrap metal of all things.

The UK is now being forced into using Identity Cards, which will mean no one but the terrorists will be tracked everymoment of their lives, essentially your enemies aren’t going to follow the rules, so what’s the point? Putting all our data on one card is like handing over your money, car and house to a stranger, you’ll never get it back. The best thing we can do is tighten up border security and stop pretending that every time our government contravenes our rights in order to ‘protect the country’ they are essentially losing the support of the people they are supposed to be protecting!

Back off the soap box Paul… The image evokes everything from old Mission Impossible TV episodes (not the film with Tom no), and even the opening title sequences for a lot of original Peter Sellers’ Pink Panther movies. Rob has skilfully evoked a strong feeling of movement in this design, very smart indeed. I’m not so sure about the t-shirt colour, I’d like to see a darker red, or perhaps a blue seeing as theft normally occurs at night, but as far as the actual design goes, it’s a classic. Fortunately this t-shirt is still in stock if you’re after one ;)

Surf’s Up Dudes has another Peter Sellers connection for me, this time it’s the ultimate war comedy (or is that tragi-comedy?), Dr. Strangelove or How I Stopped Worrying and Love The Bomb by Stanley Kubrick.

Unfortunately this one’s out of stock too, it seems that Rob likes to sell his works seasonally, he’s made six collections so far and his older tees are reprinted as and when he feels the need, so in all honesty these are for the main part limited edition releases, which increases the cachet and collectibility of his works, but is kind of frustrating when you want to give him some props to the public lol. Ah well get them when you can I say, you don’t see intelligent t-shirts so much these days, so well worth the purchase (if you can get them!). I think S.U.D works especially well in Army Green as depicted here, in fact I wouldn’t be surprised if this one isn’t a favourite amongst the squaddies and pacifists.

That’s essentially the underlying quality of a lot of Rob’s works, you can see the message, but which way does Rob lean, no one can tell, ah the mysteries of the artist’s mind. All I can say is I hope Rob will keep the t-shirts going for as long as he can, I know he has other projects on the go including a publishing deal, so we may just find that all of his tees will be rarities on the vintage t-shirt market one day. Full Bleed ahead with Rob Dobi I say.

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