Back To Basics – Print Liberation

admin    T-Shirt Reviews     Print Liberation, cool shirts, political t-shirts, printliberation.com, text t-shirts, type tees, typography tees

Print Liberation break all the rules when it comes to t-shirt design, yet their range of tees deliver such a powerful punch, offering a deceptively basic typographic home-made style, which personally forces the likes of people like me to reassess exactly what makes a great tee. The truth is their simple and straightforward designs offer an alternative to the slick graphics and ideas of most of the indie market. Sure, putting it bluntly, they’re as basic as can be, which in most circumstances is a risky position to take in fashion, yet their philosophy works. In fact it shines.

When you buy a t-shirt from Print Liberation you’re buying a message, you’re opting in to an ethos that hasn’t reared it’s head in decades. Big bold upper case fonts declare their ideology like a heavyweight knock out blow to the head. Don’t expect ‘pretty’ or exuberant illustration – that just isn’t what Print Liberation are about. Don’t expect glib and throwaway sentiments either, this brand doesn’t mince their words, this brand is about as close to an ‘anti-label’ as anyone has managed to create in decades. Their home grown basic design ethic is born out of experience and need, not ambition or fashionable attitude. You get what you see, and what you see is the truth.

They offer a range betwixt the big bold and rather glib typography tees that flooded Britain in the 80′s and the highly politicised tees of the 60′s and 70′s psychedelic era. Avoiding the petty thoughts of famous bands of the time like Wham’s “Choose Life” and Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s “Frankie Says“, and taking on a deeper and more politicised line more suited to the revolutionary downturn of the hippie movement. Yet there’s nothing sentimental or amateur about Print Liberation’s presentation, with a total lack of pretension, their designs get to the point straight away. There’s no room for art when it comes to this label’s idea of fashion, their hard-edged design ethic tells you why and how it is the way it is. They never cushion the blow, they never ‘decorate’ the truth with illustration and a spectrum of colour. They think the way many of us think, and in turn, their customers help to spread their message.

Founded in 1999, a moment when much of the media touted the world as we knew it would end, well if the Millennium Bug had had its way, a bedraggled collective of burnt-out advertising executives decided to turn the tables on big government and big business. Using the same talents prostituted to the corporations in the name of profit, they began to brainstorm their way through to a new beginning, an new era of indie urban fashion and art. The message would always be the truth, the mechanism for delivery would be popular culture, and the ideology revolution. You’re either with them or against them, that’s just how they roll, live with it. read more