As with the rest of the business world, the t-shirt sector has its “bad apples”, one of the first to come to my attention following an initially positive review here at Buy Tees was Teextile.com. They still remain the worst offenders in poor if not non-existent customer service, sending out t-shirts late, sometimes never at all, and even neglecting to pay their designers. Today I received another comment at my post Teextile – A Rip Off? which highlights all the crimes and misdemeanours of this relatively young venture into the world of t-shirt crowdsourcing. Here’s what the designer Warren Hart had to say on the matter:

“I let them use one of my designs ( SLF ryu shirt ) (http://www.fourninjas.com/shop/product/1006828) to sell in January of 2010. They have yet to pay me a dime for the amount of shirts they sold. In total they owe me about $300. For months I’ve asked and asked for my money and nothing. Just one sob story after another. They were quite rude to me as well. Now they don’t even respond. P.S. Tanga.com have ripped off my design as well.“

A few days ago I also received a comment from a reader complaining about the French t-shirt community site Wordans.com:

“Wordans has very poor business skills! I ordered shirts for a festival I was attending, their web-site claimed it would take 5-10 days and it took my shirts over 16 business days to reach me. When I cancelled my order they said they would not give my money back and I should have put a rush on my order even though I ordered with more than sufficient time!“

Now, despite the awful example of Teextile, perhaps the most crooked and conceited t-shirt community on record (read these comments to see why!), I might be blowing things out of proportion. Although I have a suspicion that most t-shirt buyers experiencing problems with customer service and shipping times may simply be on the receiving end of companies that are a victim of their own success. For every Threadless, Design By Humans, Cafepress and Spreadshirt out there, obversely there are dozens (if not hundreds) of failing t-shirt companies and ‘Print On Demand’ t-shirt sites, and it’s simply a matter of under-manning and underfunding. Without enough staff and a decent contingency fund there’s little most t-shirt companies, or any company for that matter, can do when demand outstrips supply.

Then again, I’d like to see a single instance of say a car designer, a commercial architect, or a governmental advisor in a quango who hasn’t received monies for their services. The truth is that certain t-shirt communities out there are getting a very bad reputation amongst designers, far worse than they will have garnered through a dissatisfied clientèle. Without design, the lifeblood of all t-shirt communities, there is no community, there are no t-shirts, no customers, no profits, absolutely zilch. It seems extremely short-sighted for any company, no matter what they sell, to cheat their own designers, do they think we are all fools?

The time is at hand, I believe, to stand up against the commercial bullies, the cheats, the crooks and the thieves in the t-shirt industry, and the best place to start is with the current worst offenders, Teextile.com.

Above is a button to include on your own blog, site, or social network page if you want to help stop this ever pervading problem. If you wish you can link to this post or http://buy-tees.net/2010/03/teextile-a-rip-off

or not, the choice is yours. I simply think it would be a good idea to make it clear that we’re not going to take this s*** off any t-shirt community again. In the UK we have something called Trading Standards that to a degree can guarantee customer rights, along with our own Statutory rights. In America the best they can offer is the Better Business Bureau which seems to be something of a voluntary organisation with little legal clout and a tendency to ignore those companies that haven’t signed up to their register. Useless.

What we really need is an independent body, funded by all the major t-shirt sites as mentioned before, i.e Threadless, DBH, Cafepress, Spreadshirt etc. This body would essentially provide a seal of approval for new and old t-shirt communities, including a ratings system that is recognised world-wide by the industry and the buying public. The ball is in their court now, who knows, if we all stand together on this it might just happen.

Products of Nature

New Bamboo and Organic Apparel in April

Women’s ‚ÄúEarth Positive‚Äù T-shirt

The Earth Positive shirts from Continental offer a more progressive ethical apparel choice. They are:
1) Made with organic cotton (GOTS Certified)
2) Carbon Neutral
3) Fair Trade Certified (FWF Seal)

Women’s Breathable T-shirt

This sporty t-shirt for women by Alo is made from 68% bamboo.

Men’s Recycled T-shirt

Rough look, yet fleecy-soft to the touch. The new recycled shirts from Anvil are made with 69% pre-consumer recycled cotton.

Organic Shirts with new Colours

The first two are by American Apparel – classic organic t-shirt from American Apparel is now available in the colours pomegranate (women) and cinder (men).

The second two are by Continental Clothing -light blue and light pink complete the spectrum of Continental’s GOTS certified organic cotton products.

So let’s not hear anymore (even from me) about Spreadshirt’s pitiful track record for environmental credentials, they’re probably the best major corporation in the t-shirt print on demand market for green tees right now. Good on ‘em.

If you fancy submitting your own t-shirt design you’re in with a chance at winning one of the following:

* A t-shirt with your winning design. [$30 value] (includes free shipping)

* A Premium Shop Membership at Spreadshirt. [$100 value] (limited to North America – hmm there they go again Spreadshirt ignoring everywhere else.)

* An Aviary premium account. [$99 value]

You can check out the current contenders yourself at Spreadshirt.w1k.com or sign up and get going straight away, or if you’re not in too much of a rush to give the world a belly laugh or two take a peek at these… and remember if you want someone other than yourself to win you should really vote for them :p

Why Do Stupid People Always Have The Most Kids?

Yep, it’s funny to a degree but this must be the worst t-shirt design this year so far – still it makes a valid point, ever seen the movie Idiocracy? You should, forget Nostradamus, forget sci-fi, if you really want to see the future watch it and learn exactly why this t-shirt is so frighteningly pertinent. Funny but honestly, unwearable.

PUBICS CUBE

I know it’s a little basic, a little crass, but Pubics Cube has a great design all the same and it even manages to make me smirk a little, which must be proof of its “funny credentials” – I used to be Rubik’s Cube made as a kid, I ended up buying a cheat book and learning to do it in a minute, by then everyone else had either thrown theirs away, pulled off all the coloured square stickers, or smashed it with a hammer, and of course some nerd somewhere had learned to solve puzzle in 10 seconds or something crazy like that. I’m sure he was using a hypno-ray or some kind of time manipulation device. Still at least mine was never made from pubes.

WWF Superstar

I’m a Brit if you hadn’t guessed, “cor blimey guvnor, how’s your bird’s lumbago?”, anyway, as a Brit the first time I read the three letters WWF together it meant one thing, The Worldwide Wildlife Fund. Yes, that’s how dull British life can be. There was a big hoo hah (as Pacino would say) a few years back when The Worldwide Wrestling Federation fought to keep their abbreviated name, or to be precise the world rights to it, they lost, but if WWF had compromised with what’s now WWE their shows would probably be a little more wild, not be as fixed all the time and the wrestlers could be fed with bamboo which should work out cheaper in the long run. No animals were harmed in the making of this blog post.

So if, and I am sure you can, do better submit your funniest tee here and wait for the prizes and praise and a few laughs to roll in. I am still waiting for my belly laugh.

Anyway, you can say it with flowers, but well she’s probably sick of the sight of daffodils. You could say it with chocolates, but hey, she’s probably sensitive about her weight these days. So say it with erm… a Spreadshirt t-shirt? Well maybe, I don’t know your mother, she might be that way inclined. I sometimes think Spreadshirt resemble Hallmark more everyday, at least they have a sale on to mark the occassion. Roll on T-shirt Review Bloggers Day, in case you’re wondering what I’d like, it’d have to be a manual flatbed screen printing press for my art (A0 and up). They seem to be rather thin on the ground in this part of the world.

Anyway they’re offering 10% off all women’s gear from the 7th to the 13th of March.

Anyway here’s the code:- GREATESTMUM

Here’s the site:- www.spreadshirt.net

Here’s a banner in case you didn’t read any of my verbiage (garbiage more like):-

Here’s the end of the news…

Full-colour promo with 15% off

The winter has nearly had its day and spring is already fighting to declare itself open for business. Time to feed the retinas their yearly dose of unadulterated colour – grant yourself and your customers a budding bloom and make sure you send the spring breeze flying in the right direction:

From 20th February ‚Äì 1st March 2009, you can order any article with a colourful design (i.e. at least one colour that isn’t black or white) and receive a generous 15% discount!

Voucher code: BABYBLOOM

Duration:

This voucher code is valid for orders in all ‚ÄòPartner Shops’ from 20th February ‚Äì 1st March 2009. The promotion is not available in conjunction with other offers or discounts.

Whilst we’re at it you can get a whopping 17% off any t-shirt for Spreadshirt’s Patrick Day promotion! Design what you like and pay less.

Coupon codes:
USD$: WINTER48
CAD$: CADWWINTER48

*Minimum $30.00 order required. Offer available for domestic US shipping only.

Let’s start from the beginning, the very beginning. Now, if you believe in fate, hey you have to believe in something, then you’re probably not the most ardent fan of coincidence. I’m not, in this grizzled addled brain of mine I like to cling on to the small hope that perhaps some things in life have a purpose, and that on those few occasions you should grab life by both horns and wrestle it to the ground.

Now, human beings are complicated creatures, they have individual lives and emotions, each has their own perception on why we are here and what we should be doing, and that means that a lot of us will never meet and if we do we will never agree on the most fundamental precepts of existence. Sometimes that’s a good thing, it means avoiding wars and most painful experiences in life, but sometimes it can be a real shame, glancing back and realising you’ve missed a great opportunity to help (in some small way) others find their way in modern life and all that it entails.

i want to introduce you to two guys, two very different men, both have a love of t-shirts, both want to find their way in the industry, and until recently neither had any idea of the other’s existence.

Bomb G aka Bombardier Darren Gray has led a fascinating life, here’s how he introduced himself to me and his website www.BombgTshirts.co.uk – “Many people say that a web site name has to be relevant to the products or services you sell, others say it needs to be wacky and way out there… I had this mad idea of a web site that sold pre-designed T-Shirts whilst was serving as a Bombardier in the Royal Artillery, the abbreviation for Bombardier is Bomb and my surname ‘Gray’. I was known as Bombardier Gray, an old soldier who was coming to the end of his time and well known among the senior ranks, I was often referred to as ‚ÄúBomb G‚Äù and as my site sells t-shirts what better a name than Bomb G T-Shirts.”

Coincidentally (or not depending on your belief system) I received another email that day from Mark Freeman, a creative soul with a distinctly superior talent for draughtsmanship. Here’s what he had to say, “I would greatly appreciate it if you would be able to review my website and its designs. The site is relatively new and still within its infancy but includes many of my own original designs with areas to control and customise all products in several of my online shops. My website can be found at: www.rebirth-creations-clothing.co.uk. Please check it out and email back if you would like to include a review of the site on your website. It would really be beneficial for me as I’m only a small time and cannot afford real and valued advertisement. Thank you for reading this, Rebirth Creations Owner, Mark Freeman.”

Mark is a slave of Spreadshirt, a corporation that I have less and less respect for each day, they like their competitors treat their designers like dirt, they take the bulk of the profit, all of the traffic and leave their greatest assets to struggle with responsibility of marketing their designs in a dog-eat-dog world of t-shirt sales. No matter how many embeddable widgets they offer, there’s no disguising the fact you’re at a Spreadshirt site and not an independent t-shirt producers site. What’s more Mark has made a terrible choice of domain names, two dashes and very little marketing savvy has most likely left this site at the bottom of the Google listings for quite a while. Then again take a look at a couple of Mark’s designs, they really are his saving grace :-

Excuse the tiny images, that’s just one of the problems with Spreadshirt – they simply don’t encourage bloggers to feature their products or images, f you want to buy any of the above as Spreadshirt t-shirts visit www.rebirth-creations-clothing.co.uk for more info, Mark also sells products (including sneakers) through Zazzle too – so if you’re after any of these there are your options, there are a few other designs too incase you care to take a peek. My main problem with Mark (apart from the severe limitations of the site) is the fact that this artist has no theme, his collection is too disparate for my liking, but that’s not the point, that can be fixed, taking his talent somewhere that will be appreciated had by now become my priority.

Bomb G (Darren) had a completely opposite problem, the guy is as enigmatic as they come, he has a story to tell, a former war photographer and bombardier who already has a successful online store at www.garrisonpri.co.uk selling military presentations, clothing and accessories. What’s more when it came to creating www.BombgTshirts.co.uk jit took Bomb ages to find the right designer to create a professional set up he could be proud of. It’s a very smart site but it only has one problem, the t-shirts there, for the most part, are kind of sub-standard. He too had a problem with the theme of his label, he had a concept in mind, had the store built and then needed to source the right designers to create the designs he needed to set his site off with a bang. He’s made sales but to be honest (and Darren later admitted the same) the t-shirts he’s selling right now jsut don’t cut it. I’ve picked out a few of the better ones, but in all honesty I’d never normally feature most of these…

actually like this one, Peace Tank is a great piece of graphic design, and in essence it’s exactly the direction that Bomb G should be taking, unfortunately this approach is scant on the site to say the least. Darren commissions designers and for the main part it seems he has little creative control over the project, which is a real shame, because his basic concept of what his collection should be is sound, very sound indeed.

Now, just to prove a point I’m going to show you some of the bad ones (be warned they are so bad I won’t link to them) …

I just can’t show you anymore, it’s not Darren’s fault though, he didn’t design them, it’s down to the lowlifes out there who make money licensing tees, they snag every new t-shirt store owner out there and sell them the same old jokes, the same old dodgy slogan-based tees that places like Busted Tees dumped years back.

Now I hate refusing to review t-shirts, but if I find the quality of either the site or its products are not up to scratch I have to deny them a post at Buy Tees. I just don’t see the point of wasting your time or mine, there are so many great designers and labels out there it really wouldn’t be fair. But something about these two guys made me decide I needed to do a little bit of matchmaking. The fact is they couldn’t be more different if they tried, Mark has a fantastic drawing style and Darren has a lot of business savvy, a great site and a potentially fantastic concept for a t-shirt store, i.e cool military style tees for a Banksy-loving, anti-Bush, post Iraq generation of artistic media-aware trendies.

Take a look at what I wrote to each of them next and beware these are long old emails, the first one is to Mark of Rebirth Creations and before you read these, take a look at the example images I used to convince them of the theme, quality of design and products their alliance could eventually produce.

The above images are of Banksy’s Bomb Hugger, Robit’s ‘Chance of Reign‘ t-shirt and Glennz Tees’ classic ‘Ground Defences‘. I used these to argue my case with both Bomb G and Mark.

Now the email to BombG :-

Let’s just say the response (after some initial hesitation on both sides) was miraculous, I’m glad to announce the two are beyond initial talks and are now discussing the details of design and product theme for the future of what I and they hope will be a major new t-shirt label. Fingers crossed I’ll be updated when new designs arrive and have to admit I’m looking forward to what they’ll produce.

In case you’re sitting there scratching your head, I did it for the love of t-shirts, I haven’t got a cut in the company, Darren has said I’ll have free tees for life if this takes off, but I’ve told him I won’t take that offer seriously! All I know is if you’re there at the right time and the right place, what the hell, lend a hand, help give birth to a new t-shirt design house and who knows, the mysterious universe of karma might pick you out one day and give you a break.

Now everyone, whilst you’re feeling hopeful about life and everything in general, go and buy my art haha.

For 20% off all tees include one of the following codes (depending if you’re in the USA or Canada – yes it seems like another corporation has decided to ignore the rest of us).

US: FALL28
CAN: CADFALL28

Make sure that you get your order in by the 31st and they want a minimum of $30 purchases which kind of takes the edge of the whole idea…

So, what’s up? Well I have at least half a dozen requests for t-shirt label reviews which I’ll be sorting out over the week, and a pile of retorts and explanations from both Spreadshirt and Conduit.com which doesn’t surprise me. Essentially I’ve trodden on more corporate toes (as usual). I’ve added a rather self-congratulatory blurb from SS at my latest Spreadshirt-based post and added a few of my latest gripes to even the balance. As for the t-shirt toolbar Conduit essentially want me to retract my post, hey it’s only little old me, who the hell am I anyway? I’m just a blogger, I’m not a computer whizz kid and I certainly don’t make any money from this but I appreciate what they’re trying to do.

Let’s get this straight, I’ve handed over control to Anthony aka Profits of Teefeeds.com fame and although I’m not promoting it anymore I’m sure he can do wonders with it, I’m just not the co-branding kind, it’s probably unfair of me to lay in so hard on Conduit, they offer the best service of its kind out there – as in free toolbar technology – but it isn’t for me – if I receive complaints I have no power to resolve I simply call it a day, be done with it, learn from the experience and move on – that’s my paltry philosophy – if it can be so called.

Anyway if you’re looking for a free co-branded toolbar and are prepared to wait a while (and rant in your blog to get more than enough support) then conduit are your guys. I’m currently trying to recover one of my long abandoned old PC’s so I can dabble with a few toolbar makers, software that will enable me far greater control which is the way to go as far as I am concerned. In truth I’d rather something that makes Facebook widgets but you can’t get everything you want handed on a plate (unless it’s food i suppose).

So to cut a long story short Spreadshirt are lovely, so are Conduit, don’t listen to me, I am not a corporation, what possible effect could my opinions have, I must be wrong, confused, lost in my own oblivion of how the ‘real world’ works… ahem.

It does make me laugh how over-sensitive some companies are though, I mean do they really think I can jeopardise their grand plans? If people disagreed with me (apart from their staff) I’m sure this little blog would be comment bombed left right and centre. Anyhoo…

Some REAL t-shirt news woot!

Spunky.co.uk who I’ve propped plenty of times before are actually selling one of my designs at last! It would be nice to see payment as promised, after all I signed over the design months ago, but I won’t start lashing out until I am definite, vis-a-vis not jerking me around on this. Besides it’s great to finally see one of my own tees appreciated, I hope, plus Spunky have just opened a new store in Brighton (UK) which funnily enough is where I grabbed my Arts degree so my time wasn’t completely wasted there.

Take a lookie at Old School by err well me!

Don’t worry I won’t let the success go to my head, although some dosh for my bank account would be appreciated! Anyway I don’t make a penny if you buy one or not, I sold the design on a whim, so no pressure, buy if you like. Personally I do but I would ha ha.

Anwyay it’s probably going to be a one-off – I’m moving away from t-shirt design and into the highly pretentious world of post-modern art (which suits me fine :p) – I always was a show-off with too much to say for myself – I’ll keep blogging here and promoting t-shirts as art but my unique perspective on the world seems to leave most fashionistas rather befuddled so it seems only right to try and confuse others who deal with confusion everyday – i.e art lovers – a strange and somewhat intense bunch of people who for the main part feel the stranger the better.

So – I will finally get some sleep tonight (never stay at a riad unless you hate sleeping – they are noisy as hell!) and will resume normal Buy Tees service tommorrow – plus I’ll get cracking with my latest work (which has nothing to do with tees but who cares) – called Reigning Men. If you want to see my strange Indoor Street Art check out http://paulbaines.co.uk

Take it easy!

The new license can be found here.

The old license can be found here.

Essentially the differences mean, as far as I can tell, designers will receive no marketplace commission whilst making it far more work and more difficult to get your design to the customer. Why do I say this?

1) Spreadshirt are changing the focus of their website, essentially after a great deal of market research it seems that most of their customers skip the marketplace and head on directly to the Spreadshirt Designer tool.

Therefore for UK users (as an example) instead of being greeted by the marketplace section at http://www.spreadshirt.net/en/GB/Buy-t-shirt/Designs-63/

They’ll be sent directly to the T-shirt Designer at http://www.spreadshirt.net/en/GB/Create-t-shirt/Designer-59/

I’m assuming the same changes will be made to Spreadshirt.com and all of Spreadshirt.net’s other country versions.

Essentially Spreadshirt is slowly becoming an online t-shirt design application, perhaps the world has become a vastly more creative place, perhaps not, I think it more likely that Spreadshirt can make more money more easily this way, and essentially are abandoning the people who helped make them the success they are today. I have a feeling that Threadless.com and other crowdsourcing t-shirt sites have taken a large chunk of their profits too, the only competition they’ll have now are Cafepress.com and seeing as their print size and quality are significantly inferior, the only disadvantage for Spreadshirt is the price. Less overheads, less cost, lower prices? Perhaps not, but at least Spreadshirt will be able to survive on less sales by paying less commission and even attention to their army of designers.

I feel most sorry for those who’ve opted to upgrade their account, I could only ever display three of my designs in my free shop at Spreadshirt, I am glad I never upgraded!

2) They are diversifying the market. They give the example that a kid’s t-shirt with a flower design sells better than a man’s. Well that’s a pretty obvious one, but essentially they’re applying the idea that a specific design works for a specific product. Which for a start means far less free designer accounts I’m sure, imagine only being able to sell 3 designs of 3 styles of t-shirts, less products per design mean less profit. Yes it maybe a better experience for the customer, but unless Spreadshirt pay their designers hand over fist as compensation I can see a lot of them straying away for good.

The designers will pay for these changes with more effort for the same profit.