Digging That Mathiole

admin    T-Shirt Designers, T-Shirt Reviews     Art Nouveau, Mathiole.Matheus Lopes Castro, Threadless, mucha lucha, t-shirt designer, wrestling

Mathiole aka Matheus Lopes Castro has done it yet again and won himself another place of pride at Threadless.com with his latest and rather beautiful t-shirt titled Mucha Lucha. Which is no surprise to those who know of his work, he’s currently has 20 designs in print at Threadless.com which is rather phenomenal in itself. What’s even more impressive is his scope for ideas and styles, many of his tees vary wildly from each other, and for those not in the know it’s not always to tell who the artist behind the design is, perhaps a sign of supreme artistic confidence, but definitely a great habit creatively. If you want to delve into the world of Mathiole I’d recommend his Flickr page which is jam packed with beautiful illustrations. Anyway here’s that latest winning t-shirt design…

Mucha Lucha Tee

Now come on, you have to admit it, this is bloody beautiful! Matheus has taken his inspiration from the work of Alphonse Mucha – a celebrated Czech Art Nouveau painter who became famous for his highly stylized, immensely recognisable illustrations and posters. He spent most of his life based in Paris, and the exposure he received from a series of World’s Fairs meant he was able to showcase his talent for architecture and sculpture too. Mathiole has captured Mucha’s style perfectly in this tee, it’s, dare I say it, almost too good to just wear. This guy should be getting commissions for vast scale murals as far as I am concerned, and yes I mean murals, real murals, made from ceramic tiles. Anyone need any Art Nouveau architecture restoring? This would be the guy to talk to I guess. Now here’s the best twist of all, Mathiole’s mashed things up a little with a hilarious reference to Mexican masked wrestling too! Here you are, seeing as it’s Saturday let’s have a cartoon :D

So there you are, art historical references, retro kitsch culture, and a totally blinding piece of design – get a slice of mondo exuberance in the form of a Mucha Lucha tee for $18 in S-2XL for guys and girls here. Hoodies available too!

Whilst I’m at it, paw over these beauties from the hand of the master tee maker that is Mathiole…

Ecstasy Tee ($19 at design by Humans)

Butterfly Effect Tee ($30 at Imaginary Foundation)

E.x.ecutioner Tee (Sold Out)

Yep I know it’s sold out but I had to include it, this is one of my faves by Mathiole. If you dig this guy’s art check out all these links:

http://www.mathiole.com/

http://www.threadless.com/profile/445545/mathiole

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mathiole/

Ruby Red Tees

admin    T-Shirt Designers     RubyRed, Star Wars T-shirt, funny t shirts, funny tees, graffiti tees, redbubble, shirt woot, t-shirt designer

I’m doing it again, breaking my own rules by featuring this designer as he doesn’t own his own indie store, however I have to give Roger Denyer the graphic wizard behind Ruby Red Design the kudos he deserves, besides he’s based near me on the coast in Brighton so call it community spirit if you will. During the week he works as Senior Designer for an international media company based in the UK. He’s responsible for the design and branding for many exhibitions and publications. T-shirt design provides an all together different kind of creative outlet. However Roger likes to spend his spare time designing t-shirts, he enjoys the freedom of creativity and the lack of corporate pressure involved in creating tees. “If I like what I create, I sell it, there’s no client to disrupt the flow.”

RubyRed t-shirts have won prizes at many t-shirt crowdsourcing sites including Teefury, Shirt.Woot, Ript Apparel, Goodjoe, TeeInvaders, many of which have evolved into top selling lines. Here’s a couple of my fave available tees by RubyRed right now at the Ozzie tee community RedBubble:

AT-AT Anatomy Tee

The AT-AT Anatomy tee reminds me of Moist Production‘s posters such as his creation (Hello) Kitty Anatomy. An extremely popular tee, you can get this hilarious shirt at $30.71 / £16.16 in all sizes and colours here.

Space Race Tee

This shirt is just superb, I’m actually working on a new piece myself which features a Space Hopper, so I can totally relate. I was even at the UK premiere of the very first Star Wars movie showing at Leicester Square in London in the 1970′s, this shirt is just about as tailor-made for me as they get. If you’re thinking is along the same lines you can buy the Space Race t-shirt for $30.71 / £16.16 in all sizes and colours here.

Soft Inside T-Shirt

Ouch! This t-shirt bites, but in the best possible fashion! I’ve seen dodgy Chinese toys on Watchdog, featuring dangerous springs sticking out the neck and a bit of bad stitching but this is a new one one me. You’ll never look at a soft toy in quite the same way again.You can buy the Soft Inside t-shirt for $30.71 / £16.16 in all sizes and colours here – but do watch your fingers :p

Graffiti Bombing

I absolutely love this one, wordplay taken to a new level, expertly designed with some very nice half tones and a great image over all. Get your graffiti bomb (in t-shirt form) in all sizes and colours at $30.71 / £16.16 here.

You can keep up with all things RubyRed at his blog – keep an eye out for more of his tees – he’s everywhere!

Ride The Stormy Tees With Matthew Skiff

admin    T-Shirt Reviews     410BC, A Rocket To The Moon T-Shirt, Anticlothes, Dead Serious, Matthew Skiff, Medusa T-Shirt, Piknyc, RANDR, Shred Clothing, Skiff, emptees, t-shirt designer

I mentioned Matthew skiff in a recent news post on Randr‘s new limited edition tees and as soon as I’d hit the publish button I knew I’d need to blog a lot more about this designer’s particular talents. You can find Skiff just about everywhere on the net, if there are t-shirts involved he’s most likely been there, done it, designed the t-shirt, won the prize or commission, spent the money on more fuel (usually pizzas), and started on yet another superb illustration before sundown. Here are just some of the places you’re likely to bump into Skiff:- Emptees.com, Shred Clothing, Dead Serious Clothing, Mad Creepy, 410BC, Anticlothes, Pyknic Clothing and a whole load more, not forgetting the enormous amount of bands he’s worked alongside, producing everything from tour posters to tees to merchandising to covers. Check out his client list for some idea of how well respected Skiff is in this industry.

What’s more you’ll be able to seek out his work at Myspace, Flickr, Twitter, check out his boards at Popdeck, and even read his rather cool blog. So no excuses, if you can’t track him down for a commission or a little fan worship now I’d unplug the ‘puter and veg out :/ read more

Take Your Medicine It’s Good For You – Medicated Clothing T-Shirts

admin    T-Shirt Reviews     cool t-shirts, cool tees, illustrator, indie t-shirts, jamie marshall, medicated clothing, medicatedclothing.com, t-shirt designer

Jamie Marshall, an established illustrator and t-shirt designer has just released her latest philosophically cynical design for the world’s perusal – The Choice Was Not Hard is currently available at the incredibly popular Shirt.Woot.com t-shirt community and store.

If TCWSH tickles your fancy you can pick it up at http://shirt.woot.com/friends.aspx?k=6415 but hurry it’s only on sale for a few weeks and her die hard fans are snapping them up as we speak! So what is ‘The choice Was Not Hard’ about? Well it seems pretty self-evident to me, we all have to make choices in our lives, some of them good, some of them bad, for the most part (if we’re really being honest here) most human beings opt for immediate amusement, satisfaction, titillation or plain old convenience. read more

Tom Burns is on Fire!

admin    T-Shirt Reviews     Loiter Ink, Tom Burns, Tom Burns t-shirt designs, communist party threadless, loiterink.com, t-shirt designer, threadless.com

Tom Burns is probably my only other t-shirt hero out there right now, as you’ll know from the praise I’ve lavished on Glennz before, I am a complete and utter sucker for well conceived, beautifully drawn, corny one-liners. I know I’m probably in the minority, it isn’t what you’d call beautiful art, it just does the job. Perfectly.

Take a look at the history of graphic arts, advertising, poster design, Modern Art in general and you’ll see the same approach. It’s the backbone of any conceptualist artist’s oeuvre – you gotta’ have a sense of humour! Without that essential ingredient you’re left cold, or even confused. I’m not apolitical, if anything I’d probably be classed as a ‘lefty’ by most Americans, but essentially there’s more to it than that. I live in Britain, and it isn’t all that great, but we’ve learned to live with it because however dire the situation, we can still find humour in most situations, however tragic. Or rather we used to before the worldwide media and the rise of political correctness got in the way. My point is this, Tom Burns understands the world of the cynic, the lampoonist, the subjective rewards of critically appraising the tiniest details in life to undermine the greatest. It’s a revolution my friends and Tom’s not just burning down the roof, he’s on fire! read more

Full Bleed Ahead With Rob Dobi

admin    T-Shirt Reviews     Connecticut, USA t-shirts, art shirts, fullbleed, original tees, rob dobi, t-shirt art, t-shirt designer, unique t-shirts, vector designs

I knew it wouldn’t be long before I’d have to bring your attention to Rob Dobi and his Connecticut-based designer t-shirt label Full Bleed. Last year Rob focused a lot more on band tees and commissions, however now he has his own label up and running, although I’d ignore the home page – it says ‘Summer collection ’08 Coming Soon’, and to be honest I think we’re already there, although you couldn’t tell by the British weather :/

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. read more