Man and nature collide in this rather elegant piece of surreal t-shirt design by board culture label Seren Clothing. Available for $18 in sizes S-XXL here.

Anyway, here’s the latest fab tee from Glennz called ‘Puzzled Putter’. I’m not too keen on golf but I do love the M.C Escher twist in this design…

It’s available now in Men’s (up to 3XL) and Women’s (up to XL) in green for $19.95 from Glennz.com

In case you’re curious about the mention of M.C. Escher earlier, don’t worry he’s not the latest rapper to hit the hip hop scene, he’s not even a golfer, he’s a dead genius… this is ‘Relativity‘ by M.C Escher. If impossible geometry is your thing, as I can tell it’s Glennz’s, then check this out:-

The greatest coup in the t-shirt world is hidden away at IF’s site, if you read their ‘about page‘ you’ll find the briefest mention of their mysterious “Director”, a 70 something √ºber intellectual, supposedly the son of the founder of the Dadaist movement. Now without a name it’s quite tricky working out exactly who they mean, there’s still some debate about that. Checking it up at the UK’s Online Tate Gallery Archive and I quote “The founder of Dada was a writer, Hugo Ball. In 1916 he started a satirical night-club in Z√ºrich, the Cabaret Voltaire, and a magazine which, wrote Ball, ‘will bear the name ‘Dada’. Dada, Dada, Dada, Dada.’ This was the first of many Dada publications. Dada became an international movement and eventually formed the basis of Surrealism in Paris after the war.” He did also create the Dada Manifesto. So I’m guessing it’s Mr. Ball they’re referring to.

Oh… wait a minute, ironically Encyclopaedia Britannica thinks differently and credits the creation of the Dada movement to Tristan Tzara (original name Samuel Rosenstock) a Romanian-born French poet and essayist. It’s all rather confusing, I’d probably have to throw Emmy Hennings, and a few others in to the mix if IF actually do mean the founders of Cabaret Voltaire, an anarchic show that spawned this highly influential movement in art history.

All I know is that a guy (or is it two?) called ‘Philip Nick’ are down as the admin contact(s) for this domain. Their address is in San Francisco and seems to share the building with a company called Wildflower Linen who funnily enough print linen. Okay I’ll mark this one down as a mystery (I do hate mysteries though) and get on with the t-shirts (lol).

This is one hell of a tight collection, I’m not too keen on use of font-based texts scattered here and there at their store, I’d rather see them drawn as vectors. However it doesn’t really detract too much from what must be one of the most challenging series of tees on the market at the moment. IF are definitely my blood brothers in the world of design, they’re not after mere effect or illustrative beauty, each work commits to a concept and portrays it as concisely as possible.

I see a lot of similarities in theme and context with my own works, for instance ‘Live Out Of Your Imagination‘ has some tried and tested overtones of Ren√© Magritte’s The Son of Man, and they’re not the only t-shirt designers to take inspiration from Magritte. I myself designed ‘Big Apple‘ a while back, although I had transported the iconic man in a bowler hat to New York (obviously).

As mentioned earlier, I’d rather they drew their text. You could compare it to creating dance music, if you’ve ever had experience in producing ‘beats’ you’ll realise that after a while perfection is depressing. To re-introduce a little humanity into a digital dance track, you have to add mistakes, swing the beat, slide the notes, bring back the imperfections in which so many music lovers subconsciously find solace and solidarity on an emotional and physical level.

Our brains are enormous super computers, we have an incredible imagination, however our subconscious intellect will on occasion throw a proverbial spanner in the works, leaving many feeling ‘cold’, and essentially removed from the ‘art experience’. Text and image, oh woe is me, I spent 3 years debating the allegiances of these two at college; typography is an art in itself, language can evoke both logical enquiry and emotional response, but an over familiarity without question can breed indifference. Still, a very minor criticism that could easily be fixed.

I enjoy their surrealist touch, the way that IF seems to wander into areas that most t-shirt designers wouldn’t consider, the fact that they’re trying to “go all metaphysical’ on their audience makes laugh somewhat, it’s exactly what I’ve been accused of by certain critics, design and art are two very different animals, I love to blur the imaginary border between the two. It’s a great tradition, from Hieronymous Bosch to Banksy, and a whole heap of others in between.

What IF and I have in common is that we don’t reject the illusory for the sake of any Pseudo-Modernist credibility. All artists with a passion for photo-montage deal in the differences between pictorial and abstract expression, perfecting composition by chance event or even plain old persistence of thought. Without the luxuries afforded by the traditional painter (for example), we glean the truth from what is essentially history’s abandoned imagery.

I particularly appreciate the crosshatched hand and pointing finger in “Parallel Universe” – I am reminded of Terry Gilliam‘s early Python animations, the Hand of God pointing down on what could possibly be our own parallel universe. Yet again I’m not loving the font, In fact I don’t think this even needs text. I’d rather see a black hole, a worm hole, a vortex in the bottom-right corner. I think that’d be enough explanation.

This must be my fave tee at IF, and if I did ask for a free sample t-shirt for every review (you wouldn’t believe how many reviewers are on to that con) then I’d be asking for this one. I love music, it’s my second love after art and design, okay make that my third, my first has to be my woman Christina (digging in my ribs as I write). However I’ve had an extremely sketchy past as far as music goes. I spent a year learning to create, mix and produce from home, I even attended a course at Point Blank in London for a few terms, but I couldn’t hack it as a long-term career.

Producers seem to see less of the sun than artists, you can’t record production sound in a room full of windows, you have to insulate the walls for a start, cardboard egg boxes or sponge foam (if you’re rich). If you’re really rich you’d probably get someone else to sit in the dark and bark them instructions from the beach patio. I digress, my point is this is an invigorating design, it actually lifts my spirits a few notches, which is a feat in itself. I remember the love of music for nothing but the music, it was a high old time, everyone jumping to everything, even a car alarm, but these days it’s all bills bills bills. I couldn’t have made it in music, I’m not cut-throat enough, I’m not as obsessed with perfect beats, and in all honesty I’m too dour to meet and greet. I had a few near misses at Garageband.com, a lot of pats on the back and encouragement, but deep down I knew I wasn’t going to rock anyone’s world. At least I can manage to recapture a little of that excitement in my designs, and I appreciate how well IF have managed to do the same thing in I Believe in Music. Yes, yes, the text is perfect in this!

If you’re looking for something like an outer body experience whilst you’re t-shirt shopping on the net, you should try ImaginaryFoundation.com, it’s what they’re here for!

Weather Girl is the most popular women’s t-shirt I’ve designed (so far!). I suppose I realised early on in my t-shirt design that a lot of my designs appealed to both sexes when I first started to receive comments on my work, thankfully the majority is positive, and after a while I noticed the sales for certain t-shirts including Weather Girl, Speak to the Hand and Barbie Queue were beginning to outstrip sales (especially at CafePress.com) way beyond the usual.

I hardly sell any t-shirts at RedBubble.com as with most of their members, but I’ll keep the faith and continue to promote them because they produce very high quality work and besides the community there are very supportive, if not a little brassic in the deep pockets department. Fair enough, I never entered this industry with unrealistic expectations. What Weather Girl made me realise soon is that I am creating more than a string of t-shirt designs, I’m actually building a brand. The only problem with brands is that atypically a new label will always take some hefty financing to truly make it a profitable business. Some of the major labels have taken years to get into the black. However one can always hope.

If I ever do find the right people, a decent screen-printer, a fantastic marketing wizard, I’d use examples like Weather Girl to show what a great brand we could build together. In the meantime I’ll just keep working hard to replicate the success of t-shirts like this, and hopefully for both sexes!

Weather Girl. Rain is an emotive thing. I was probably staring at the rain pouring down outside the window when I came up with this idea. That and subconscious memories of cartoons as a child, more than likely a Tex Avery piece. It’s a simple way of projecting the idea of sadness, a grey and hovering cloud over an unhappy character. I simply took the idea one step further, and in my own skewed logic felt an umbrella was more appropriate. Some have commented how French this piece looks, which still makes me wonder, does the girl look French, or the rain, or is it simply feeling blue?

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[tags]weather girl, rain, t-shirt, art[/tags]

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

Ghetto Signage reminds me of the whole ‘Outsider Art’ craze that hit the gallery system a few years back, although this is miles away from what you might normally associate with that scene, I still think the choice of subject matter and the application of design fits well with my own low-art ideals. From Marcel Duchamp to Andy Warhol to Jeff Koons to Banksy and beyond, I have always had a deep affiliation with artists who can drag street iconography screaming through the doors of any respectable gallery.

I personally chose to begin designing t-shirts in an attempt to do the same, but from a rather different direction. Paint, canvases, exhibition space, agents, you name it, if it’s part of the cycle of an artist’s professional career, it will either be expensive, exclusive, or both. T-Shirts allowed me a foot in the door of the art industry, I’d always had artistic pretensions, but the path to a successful artist’s career is a long and hard slog.

I was kicked out at the first year of my Fine Arts Degree course for daring to argue that kitsch, television, cartoons, comics, design, architecture, mass-media imagery were all as valid as any work by the Conceptual artists of the 50s, 60s and 70s. Somehow I must have eventually won the argument because I did in fact return the next year and finally graduated. The course was called ‘Alternative Practice’ – the reading list included Foucault, Eco, Baudrillard and other weighty writers. Everything I read seemed to back up my argument. Now my instincts have been proven right, art cannot escape mass-culture and vice-versa.

99 Cent Shopping Spree

A retro masterpiece! 99 Cent Shopping Spree has been executed with aplomb in the truest 1960′s vintage styles and colours, and even the faux-naive drawing style I’d expect from an old supermarket poster or plastic wipe-free kitchen apron at that time. This is the sort of talk that had me temporarily booted from my degree course, because it’s the sort of detail that only a design obsessive; a low-art fanatic, and a sucker for junked commercial imagery can truly appreciate. I love it, I wouldn’t wear it, I lean a little later on towards the late 1960s for that same retro buzz, but I can totally feel the Stepford Wives vibe from this t-shirt from here.

YouTube

This is a classic, YouTube, the words are written in ‘tube-form’ as it were, I have to admit I always have adored wordplay, ever since I first found myself trawling through books of Surrealist Art as a kid I knew they were on to something, although I have to let the ‘Dadaists’ take some of the credit. Essentially I’m a collage artist at heart, or as some prefer ‘photo-montage’ – the thing is (yes I will commence to show my age) – when I first started my Art ‘A’ Level there was one computer at the Sixth Form College and it was mainly used by administration for keep accounts, teachers’ pay, student maintenance grants (don’t get excited- even then it was never more than a few hundred quid). I was attracted to Gerst’s work by the painterly quality of his work, something I find difficult to replicate in digital media. It’s a little like the rise and fall of dance music, at first it was amateurish and fun, and then it professionalism brought a sterility to the sound, until a few bright mavericks began to experiment to the degree that imperfection became the watchword and led to more and more DJs replacing decks and software with drummers and musicians, and finding themselves in a band again. In other words, art rocks!

My Space

In one word hilarious. I love the anti-lifestyle pitch here. Life isn’t clean and highly organised, and a lot of social networkers are finding it more and more difficult to live up to their online reputations, both good and bad. I know people who spend their lives on MySpace and Facebook, tracking down old friends, uploading photos of their last drunk gathering at the local pub, reading biographies that would put the most exaggerative curriculum vitae to shame, and adding comments that are guaranteed to show bias in one direction or the other. You’re the greatest, you’re the worst, you’re amazing, you’re awful. Real friends don’t keep in touch this much, for the most part they’ve had their fill of full-on in-your-face friendship and time it for the right mood, or at least the weekend. Friends are great, but it’s partly because they’re awful. They’re messy, or they have an affinity with O.C.D, they care too much or very little, they’re funny or deep, they have their uses, but then again they can hog time and all function therein. Can’t live with them, but can take them in large and small doses. Imagine a mate knocking on your door every half hour and sticking a Post-it note on your face whilst singing a line from their other mate’s song he just wrote that completely rocks, honest.

Cole Gerst has vision, it’s nice to see he’s paying as much due care and attention to his t-shirt creations as he does with the rest of his artwork, I’m sure you have to agree, Coles’ brain is a damn sight more interesting space than MySpace. I relish reviewing work of this quality, a fellow cerebral in the t-shirt world is a rare find, if you’re looking for the wild side, then this is it. Take the Option, G.