Rooster King at Bad As Hell Clothing

Here’s the latest at BadAsHellClothing.com - one of my fave crowd sourcing (voter-based like Threadless) t-shirt sites out there. They always seem to produce incredibly unique and striking tees, and as you’re already thinking, yes the entrant quality is high! Still if you fancy submitting a design yourself I’ll tell you about their latest contest in a moment! I’ve given this site a couple of feature posts already so you know you’re on to a good thing, I especially like their latest winning design, very funky, very weird, just the way I wear them Read more

Vintage Vantage Have The Advantage

Now, I don’t normally ‘do’ funny t-shirt sites, there are plenty of them out there and for the main part they all clone Busted Tees style, quality, format, and even jokes to a tee, well no they don’t, because if they did they’d be as successful if not more. But VintageVantage.com have a distinct advantage over many of their competitors in the humorous t-shirt field, not only are their jokes genuinely funny, they actually create stylish shirts you’d be proud to wear, well proud if you’re a cynical nostalgic like me at least. 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.

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Kowtow Bows To No One!

Kowtow are shaking New Zealand’s fashion scene to its foundations. I never thought I’d put the words fashion and New Zealand together, but there’s always a first for everything! My partner Christina spent a good few years of her childhood over there when her father tried to seek his fortune as a landscape architect. It didn’t work out, mainly due to the abundance of other Brits who’d had the same idea at the same time, but what Chris bring back was the memory of a drab and rather conservative fashion sense which she spent her teenage years ripping apart as a goth, a hippy, a raver and so on and so on.

Luckily the current generation of NZ fashion addicts can rest easy, Kowtow.com has it all under control. They tick so many my style boxes, that it’s hard to fault anything about these guys. For a start their designs mix the absurdist theatrics and wordplay of the Surrealists with a highly acute sense of style, something reminiscent of both American underground comics of the 60’s and the early British punk movement of the 70’s. Stylish and funny, gritty and colourful, it’s been fun roaming their collection, there should be something there for all of you to enjoy. Read more

Robit - Built by Humans - Powered by Spirits

T-shirts of a tortured soul? Perhaps not quite, but going on the biography Steve Orlando of Robit Studios is not a happy man, I quote “What is a Robit? A mechanical man with an void in his middle. it’s like a robot only simpler. This particular Robit was created by a four year old. It’s fuelled by distilled spirits.”

I’d venture to say there’s a bitter-sweet theme that runs through all of Steve’s works, a quality I find both reassuringly honest and revealing, especially when put in the context of his fine collection of unique and pithy t-shirt designs. All of his tees are fair trade, 100% cotton American Apparel, hand-printed and highly original for the most part, so it’s well worth taking a gander the next time you’re passing.

Steve’s outlook on life may be on the dour side, but he still has a great sense of humour, I really think he should be British, we’re all like that over here, except the Scottish who are just dour, (I jest, we’re all miserable bleeders over here, especially since we haven’t had a Summer this year (or not one that you’d notice). Talking of the weather… Read more

Lost in the world of Fast Joe

Fast Joe (a.k.a Carlos Arenas) of FastJoe.com requested a review recently, and to be honest I am still utterly confused, really, I think he should do the review because I’m damned if I know what to say. The thing is when you arrive at his site, the design, the strange background story (which seems utterly incomplete to me) and the t-shirts themselves (which almost feel like an afterthought), leave me feeling disorientated and perhaps even a little more out of touch and older than my years. Am I going senile here?

If I was Carlos I’d begin by creating an animated series, ’something for the kids’, a tangible product to hang his ideas on. I don’t like ‘anonymous art’, and I haven’t an avenue to enter his strange, retro, and pseudo-sci-fi influenced universe as promised from the word go. I saw the video, which is strange (to say the least). I loved it, but it didn’t tell me much, and afterwards it felt like a rather brief and frustrating teaser, I was hoping for some kind of explanation to what the hell is going on over there. Read more

Ice Cream, The Recession and The Rising Masses

I was busy building up my database of my t-shirts on the Buy Tees blog, (yes a little bit shameless self-promotion can go a long way), when I received an email mentioning a new Threadless Clone, amusingly named IcecreamTshirts.com. I’ll be reviewing as many lesser-known Threadless.com style t-shirt voter sites shortly, I’ve built quite a substantial list so far and am more than open to other suggestions. In the meantime, perhaps it was their cute and friendly site design, or their laid-back approach to selling t-shirts, or the fact that this is the first dual language t-shirt voter site I’ve come across, whatever the reason, I couldn’t resist designing and submitting my latest work in to their capable hands (I hope they’ve washed them first, I wouldn’t want my shirt to get all sticky!).

For the few t-shirts submitted there (a major draw for any designer competing at the likes of Read more

Option-G and Cole Gerst - T-Shirts to Perfect Life’s Imperfections.

Option-G Apparel is an extension of the design firm Option-G based in Los Angeles and headed by artist extraordinaire Cole Gerst. You may have heard of him already, or seen one of his many designs on posters, paintings or prints. He has been particularly successful in the music world, where you’ll most likely recognize his works. Gerst even produces his own monthly comic strip in the LA Weekly called “LaLa Land” which features his two dogs roaming the streets of Hollywood.

Gerst has a prestigious arts background with a string of successful art shows behind him, having shown his work across had shows all over the USA as well as a retrospective show in Glasgow, Scotland of his rock posters. The t-shirt line was started as a mere sideline, simply another medium to explore his unique view of the world, and experiment with different ideas, whilst having fun with his audience. The instant feedback provided by t-shirt fans helps many creative minds in their quest to hone their skills and find perfection in their art. Option-G’s started selling to the public 4 years and since expanded into a variety of products, even wallpaper would you believe? Cole has a truly unique style, I’d describe him as the Jasper Johns of the T-Shirt World, take this design as a clear example:-

Ghetto Signage

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Epidemic T-Shirt by Linty Tees

I love doodles, I’m not a great doodler myself, I suppose I like to refine the image and boil it down to its bare necessities, to be honest I don’t boil as much as I should with my iconography, but I do with the succinctness of the idea. It seems that the more t-shirts I find, the more I feel I have my own unique style and approach to t-shirt artwork. Most of my designs have some form of message or play on words, a simple subtext if you like, it is probably a habit I picked up at art college, but I’m glad I did. Read more

Graphic Equalizer T Shirt - Beautifully Tacky!

It’s amazing isn’t it? Perhaps just amazingly awful. I’m not usually one for gadgets, read my rant on water-cooled t-shirts! Besides it doesn’t look like it’ll be long before everyone starts selling advertising space on their chest, they’ll probably even be able to detect impressions and clicks and BlueTooth it to the nearest available stockist. Read more