It would be great to put my money (if I had any) where my mouth is, but I’m worldly weary enough to know that miracles rarely happen, but if somehow I did make it through with this design you can bet it would put a big smile on my face knowing that I had my readers on my side. After all if I am a t-shirt reviewer I should at least try and prove my worth. What’s more if I make the grade expect some freebies at Buy Tees!

Still expecting egg on face all the same hah…

Naked Eye T Shirt

Naked Eye T Shirt by Paul Baines at Threadless.com

You’ve got seven days to vote if you’re so inclined, any promotion for my submission is also totally appreciated! Fingers crossed for a good score anyway ;)

http://www.threadless.com/submission/253344/Naked_Eye

but come on, if you are going to buy a slogan t-shirt, at least make sure it’s so whacked out and beyond the pale that even the freakiest trendsetters out there will stop, stare and drop their jaws in reluctant respect.

If you’re so far ahead of the latest trends and fashions that either:

1) You have a time travel machine and use it regularly to scout out the latest bands.

or

2) You think you can travel through time but are (perhaps) a tad insane in the membrane.

Then you’ll probably love this t-shirt available at Threadless.com by Evan Ferstenfeld quirkily titled ‘I listen to bands that don’t even exist yet‘.

If you also find yourself hearing voices this might be a good time to see a doctor :/

“When you buy a T-shirt, what do you get? A bit of warmth? A bit of cool? How about real change? When you buy Lightning Fast clothing, you’re helping transform communities. That’s because we channel 50% of our profits into projects that are proven in helping children and families escape a cycle of poverty. At Lightning Fast, we’re about combining the love of cool with the love of change. It’s a virtuous circle. You get great design on organic, fairly traded clothes. And people from Romania to Swaziland to South Africa, UK, are given a hand to build sustainable lives.”

I had a brief chat with Steve on the phone and was very impressed by the aims and objectives for LightningFast.com – for a start LF donate a whopping 50% of their profits to charity which in all honesty puts many other charitable t-shirt companies to shame! What’s more Steve who runs LF and is also involved with the Lightning Fast Foundation (LightningFast.org) doesn’t take a penny for his own wages – he earns an independent income and works for free at LF.

Now, here are some of the causes they promote and support.

Bulembu, Swaziland. An abandoned, HIV-hit town ripe for rebirth.
Bulembu, a town in Swaziland with heart and vision, is redefining and rebuilding itself. Abandoned by the mining industry, citizens were driven out and left with nothing. A community further ravaged by AIDS, orphans and babies are abandoned daily. Yet, business and social development entrepreneurs see potential in Bulembu and its spirit. They see a self-sustaining, thriving community. Today, they are bringing health, orphan care, education, commerce and hope back to Bulembu. With Lightning Fast, you are investing in Bulembu and breathing life back into this community. Connect with the town at www.bulembu.org

Palm Tree Centre, S. Africa. Orphanage and foster home in Kwa-Zulu Natal.
A vision of Mrs Ros Visagie is to extend her already successful fostering service by building a home to raise children orphaned from parents dying from AIDS. The home will provide a safe, secure environment for children from damaged backgrounds to develop into fully functional members of society. The key ingredients are: family love, discipline and awareness of their ethnic birthright. Today the land for the new home has been bought. The Lightning Fast Foundation will financially support the building project.

Oradea, Romania. The first generation of gypsy children have been educated.
Poverty and lack of education is rife in Romania. But it is the vision of Alastair Forman, a church leader in Farnham, UK, to draw alongside the people of Oradea to help them out of poverty, poor health, spiritual depravation and ignorance. This is done through financial and practical commitment to support Romania pastors and their families and to enable Mustard Seed Romania to develop programmes for orphaned children and teenagers, destitute elderly and those living with disability. The relationship is 8 years old and already seeing the first generation of gypsy children receiving education. Lightning Fast is committed to directing profits into the transformational work being done by Alastair, his church and the pastors in Romania.

LF go so much further than most charitable t-shirt stores it’s almost impossible to encompass all they do in one review, however here’s a few more facts:-

• Extremely Ethical, Fair Trade, Organic T-Shirts. Where possible, at every stage of the process, LF ensures that people and the environment are always put before profits.
• LF pay a fair price for all outsourced products whilst ensuring that all producers get a good wage and good working conditions.
• Sustainability is a watchword for LF, ensuring all theirs and related practices do not compromise the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
• By 2015 Lightning Fast’s aim is to build eco-factories in their partner communities in order to directly help clothes makers.

Here are some more images of their latest t-shirt designs including Fast Boy and Tattoo :-

For the sake of objectivity I wouldn’t say these are the most exciting designs I’ve ever seen, although as far as charitable tees go they are some of the best. If more t-shirt designers were as driven by humanitarianism as they are by monetarism perhaps we could witness a zeitgeist in charity t-shirts, something I’d be willing to be part of. After all we can’t all be rich, and seeing as so many of us on this planet are so poor, perhaps the time is right for more designers to wear their ethics on their sleeves.

I believe that what Steve needs now is a lot more attention and offers of help from everyone involved in the industry. Perhaps LF could run a t-shirt design contest, I don’t think anyone would expect a prize considering the circumstances, and besides there is always the fame, glory and of course great karma from helping out at LF. I think Steve should approach the biggest names, such as the designer Glenn Jones from Glennz.com, the t-shirt crowdsourcer Threadless.com and the ginormous T-ShirtForums.com for a legion of industry big-wigs to get this show on the road. Famous designs, famous designers and a whole heap of promotion is what is needed next.

If you want to help Steve and his cause then either buy a t-shirt, promote the site as much as you can, or offer up your best designs, I’m sure he’d appreciate everyone’s support in this. Now get down to LightningFast.com pronto.

ThrivingInk.com seems to me, more like a community than a t-shirt label, even if you don’t fancy buying a t-shirt right this minute there’s plenty more to do at their site. Check out the artists section or keep updated on all the events they attend and organise. Their community section features plenty of places to see their machinations on the net, and gives you a chance to hook up with the people behind the label. Hook up at Myspace.com or Facebook.com or check out their videos at YouTube.com or you can keep up-to-date on all their latest exploits at their blog – well I say that but actually it seems a little neglected :/

Here’s a video of one of their latest photo shoots…

Now let’s take a look at some of their goodies…

Here’s a rather wonderful design, The Big Omnipotent Eye t-shirt by Ryan Alamillo offers a portrayal of the Hamsa Hand, which in many cultures (Hebrew, Islamic etc.) around the world, acts as a protection against the Evil Eye. A very clean work with a nice range of tonal greens – colours may slightly vary depending on the print as all are hand-screened on 100% sheer Jersey Cotton (American Apparel).

Fleurtation by Ken Marshall. In Fleurtation, Ken was heavily influenced by the drawings of Gibson girls from the early 1900′s, he also has a penchant for the abstract. He wishes to evoke an expression of freedom in his work, freedom of expression and freedom from oppression, a noble aspiration for us all.

I really like this design, it really drew me in, but Cathedral t-shirt by Dom Macaluso has the following blurb (which has left me a little confused)…

“Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.” (2 Corinthians 5:1).

Does that mean it’s religious? (God forbid). I’m guessing Dom’s theory is it doesn’t matter if we destroy the world, because we can all find a place in the afterlife. Phew!

Okay, I love Tracks t-shirt, again by Dom, it’s pretty simple in a way, a close up of railway tracks, but the all-over print sets it off to a tee (boom boom). Yet again he has a quote from the Bible for us. Hmm.

“I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free.” (Psalm 119:32).

Oh well, I suppose I’d call myself an agnostic, I mean I’m not stupid, there has to be something more to life than this, i.e a greater consciousness, an intelligent source to the beginning of everything. I don’t necessarily mean “The Big Bang“, that’s probably a rupture from a parallel universe in our infinite multiverse, but something had to make a decision.

Even science is catching on to the idea that on some level a decision must have been taken, a conscious act performed, a beginning. It’s hard for us lil’ humans to decide the wherefores and whys to the meaning of everything, it’s like an ants nest making assumptions on the machinations of our human society. There’s plenty more out there to back up my theory, enough examples of prediction, remote viewing, even unexplained ghostly apparitions throughout history, but it doesn’t actually prove anything. It would be convenient to think everything is going to be fine in the end, but I don’t know. Humans have a habit of hoping for the best yet doing their worst. I’d rather Dom and the rest of us concentrated on making the life we know exists a little better first, we can only hope. Then again perhaps this is purgatory? Or even hell? Ooh scary!?!

Okay back to reality, get on down to ThrivingInk.com now and see the rest of the collection and don’t forget the coupon code for a 2 for 1 deal until August 31st- CUST2 - go and thrive!

I know it’s far less complicated than that, my designs just aren’t good enough to compete on the world stage, which is fine, I can live with that, or rather I can work with that. Avoid all-out puns wherever possible is my first advice, they don’t seem to appreciate much of that at Threadless, and if at all possible be an expert illustrator, which will probably take another 20 years in my case. Threadless.com is becoming an addiction for me, I’ve got it bad man, have you got a few votes you can spare me buddy?

I’ve studied the winners at Threadless time and time again, and even my favourite designers barely scrape through there, some of the final scores are hardly worth writing home about, but they lasted the trial of fire, those five impossible days when all you can think is how long will this one last, and will it even scrape past 2 in the scores let alone 3. It’s like placing a bet, in fact it’s exactly that, you’re gambling on your own talent, your own ideas, and your own ability to conceive the design to your utmost ability. The rest seems to be up in the air as far as I can see.

I suspect there maybe a handful of haters out there who would rather this loud-mouthed know-it-all would give up the goose and retire from design for good, but I am sure that most just genuinely following their own personal tastes, and they’re nothing like mine.

For instance, two of my latest designs to fail miserably at Threadless were Ballbearers, which was not one of my greatest works and Face Book which as far as I could tell was a good concept and well executed, however it’s still a pun, of which I’m convinced Threadless voters have an aversion (to put it lightly). The irony is the corny one-liner Ballbearers faired far better than Face Book which leaves me stunned, nevertheless, I’m sure I can find a lesson in here somewhere. More sexy? More funny? Louder colours? Perhaps I can’t, this isn’t a science, it’s one great big artistic mystery of transatlantic proportions. Who knows, there’s not a system for predicting lottery numbers either, if I could tell you the formula for Threadless success I’d be using it myself by now.

Nope I have no magic answer, I’m sure past winners would tell us ‘persistence is the key’, well that and a truck full of talent. Al I can do is wrack my brains and grab a mouse (If I actually earned some Threadless bread I could buy a graphics tablet lol), and get cracking on my next highly derided design, whatever it maybe. Which is what I’ve been doing for weeks now, so here’s the latest instalment of failure in the saga that is my obsession with Threadless.

Wave

I thought I’d try going back to basics, no message, no twist as such, and only the slightest hint at a pun, Wave is what it is really, a wave…

A slice of mathematical Americana! I’ve mentioned this t-shirt design before when

I’d submitted it to Spread Shirt. It’s simple and straightforward and available from
various fulfilment sites including RedBubble.com, SpreadShirt.com/net and from
Cafepress.com – and yes it really is available from only $9.99!

American Pi T-Shirts at CafePress.com only $9.99! There are plenty of other items
available including American Pi Women’s Cap Sleeve T-Shirt, American Pi Jr. Ringer T-Shirt,
American Pi Organic Cotton Tee, American Pi Jr. Raglan, American Pi Baseball Jersey, and many more!

American Pi T-Shirt at RedBubble.com available
from US$23.94

Get American Pi printed on any item
at SpreadShirt.com.

Also Available at Spreadshirt.net for European customers and even have it printed on your choice of t-shirt here

I had a very friendly exchange of emails with Taylor at DBH who reassured me that my style suited their site’s creative ethos to a tee, essentially the mistake I had made was nothing to do with the quality of my work but rather the placement of the images on their t-shirt template. My advice is the less coverage a design has over the spread of a shirt, the higher you should mount it. I notched my design up a few inches towards the armpits and resubmitted the design with a resounding success. I’ve even completed a second design – see the image below!

Unfortunately no one has voted for Eggheads yet! I’m going to have to take a closer look at how DBH works their voting system, but I have a sneaking suspicion that yet again it is all down to having a very popular site or an unlimited advertising budget, or a few thousand Facebook mates (none of which I have yet), to push your designs to the top where are DBH users will even see the damn thing.

If and that’s a big if, I ever get to the stage where I could run a similar site to DBH, (although I would only offer organic fair trade tees), I’d like a script that would make sure each and every accepted design got a fair crack at the whip. In plain English, I have a big problem with successful marketers scooping up the prizes at all these Threadless clone sites, I mean shouldn’t creativity come first above all else?

Anyway enough of my grumbling, I’ve been foolhardy enough to design and submit yet another work to Design By Humans, it’s called “Amsterdamned”, and if I had the marketing budget to back me up I think this would be a hit with their voters…

Amsterdamned harks back to the old Bob Masse psychedelic festival poster designs of the 1960s, not sure what the message is here, I’m sure it isn’t so much ‘drugs are bad m’kay’ as ‘too much of a good thing can be a bad thing’. I went on a trip to Amsterdam with around 90 other art students decades back and I had never seen so many stoned people in one place in my whole life.

The hoteliers, the bar managers, the shopkeepers, obviously all of the coffee shopkeepers, the prostitutes and even a few policemen (by the looks of their pupils) were all stoned. I suppose ‘passive inhalation of second hand smoke’ could’ve explained the cops, but in essence the place was too high, so far gone it almost took the pleasure out of partaking oneself (I said almost). Over a decade later I visited the city again and actually took in a few art galleries and museums that time – ye I am getting old. People were far less stoned in general, they’ve had a crackdown on the coffee shops since then, over half were closed down I’ve heard. Nevertheless I can call this work a nostalgic jaunt, a hark back to more innocent and rather mellow times, when hippie ideals came before business and profit. Even if they were all stoned.

I’ll keep you updated to my progress on this submission to DBH, as and when or if it is accepted. Who knows perhaps it’s just too controversial – ooh!

We’ll call Eggheads a tester, I’d just written about my fave tees at DesignByHumans.com last night; my eyes were bleary, my fingers trembling with the possible onset of RSI (fingers crossed ouch), a strong coffee by my MacBook and a strange vision in my head, banging at the insides of my eyes, pleading for the possibility of escape. It was an act of kindness (for my own sanity), yet looking at the design in the clear light of day, and with a clearer head, I have to admit, this is one twisted t-shirt design.

I must’ve have been subconsciously picking up some scientific verbiage from a documentary channel (I use the TV others might use the radio), something must’ve climbed in there anyway. It has finally hatched and now I’m starting to regret it. Perhaps I should put it out of its misery, I give you EggHeads…

Here’s my profile at DesignByHumans.com – It really was a very simple sign up process, I didn’t even have to fill in any of my details at first. Once I looked at my profile I realised I needed to, but apart from that easy as pie. I would recommend that you submit gif or jpg images for the contest, unless you’ve submitting a very simple graphic I doubt that it’d pass their upload size limits, just 750kb for the full image, although make sure you have a spare version stashed away with at least 200dpi resolution should you win. I somehow doubt mine can compete, merely on the scale of the image, it was too late before I realised how much of the t-shirt they’ll let you spread your image across. I will probably do a few more for DBH and test the limits of scale and colour there. Fingers crossed I’ll win something there one day, who knows? Genius could jsut be round the corner.

If you’re as twisted as me and want to see people wearing t-shirts depicting cartoon genetic experiments then vote for EggHeads!

Read the comments for the latest news -yes I’ve had a rejection – yes I’m in talks to find out why – will let you know soon!

Following in the footsteps of writer Jennifer Baumgardner, who, in 2005 designed her “I Had An Abortion” T-shirt in conjunction with the release of her documentary to make a political statement about abortion rights, Heather aimed to bring worldwide attention to the plight of rape victims.

Last year the supermarket giant ASDA banned the sale of a t-shirt from all their UK stores featuring the slogan “If at first you don’t succeed, buy her another beerÔøΩ” – which I myself would find offensive and I’m pretty open-minded in general. The vast difference between the ASDA t-shirt and Heather’s and Jennifer’s is their positioning amongst a generation of political awareness and social change.

I believe the age of “political correctness” is in the midst of rewriting its rulebook, I can understand how all three of these t-shirts could offend some, if not the moral majority as a whole.However I do believe it is vital to make a distinction between those that use “shock tactics” to forward a valid argument or social comment, and those that merely shock for the sake of it. If you want offensive t-shirts there are plenty of t-shirt stores doing their utmost to shock and sicken you, TShirtHell.com being at the top of the hit list for the family friendly lobbyists, (incidentally T-Shirt Hell had tried to place a “political statement” advertisement in Rolling Stone magazine in 2004 but were refused.)

The point is the USA has a real constitution (unlike the United Kingdom), it provides the right to free speech for every USA citizen, I am not quite sure where the rest of us in the “Free World” stands on this, I’m sure it all depends on what you say, who you know, how much money and influence you have, and your lawyer, or am I simply being cynical? Whatever my rights, I am sure I have the freedom to condone the rights of all people to draw attention to the plights of minorities; the dispossessed, the suffering, the poor, the physically disabled and many more worthy causes. For all their talk, for all the promises of politicians and short-term frenzies by the media, this is democracy in action -a slow and steady viral campaign, from the ground up. One person after another buying a t-shirt for more than the sake of style and fashion, for a change in the way society thinks, and ultimately behaves.

A true democracy must at least have tolerance for a variety of different views, tastes and opinions. However I can understand how many communities will have a terrible time accepting this, this is not a family friendly society but a society of individuals, many of whom with vastly different perspectives on life and how we should live it. Political, sexual, class and age differences can weigh down any debate with a stream of misconceptions and cultural misnomers, a torrent of “isms” and a long period of begrudging diplomacy to at the very least undo the damage done by those involved. Hence most communities cannot solve their problems only ignore them and hope they go away. It maybe upsetting for the children, the religious, the highly-sensitive and the elderly, however I suggest that Heather and Jennifer have suffered far more in comparison. I’m not a religious man, however I am sure there’s probably quite a lot of texts in the Bible suggesting showing compassion to the sufferances of others – or am I wildly off tack there? If the moral majority cannot show compassion I can understand why those who feel wronged, misunderstood, or neglected by society, would be angry enough to try and shock their contemporaries.

There is a grand tradition of politically charged imagery, it’s called ART! From the moment man/woman picked up a piece of chalk and scribbled on a cave wall, we, society at large, became witness to the graphic and painful truth that is the human experience. If we don’t share we can’t learn, if we can’t learn we cannot progress, if we can’t do that we will regress back to a puritanical time of misinformation and religious dogma. The choice is simple really, learn not to be offended by others’ suffering and even show compassion and possibly offer a positive contribution, or shutdown society now, turn off the lights and hope all our problems will go away. We need to face the truth, even if it does hurt, we don’t have to wear it, but we can’t expect those who have suffered to stay silent, this is the information age, no one stays silent unless it’s enforced by an undemocratic government. The worlds’ history shows a silent deference to the upper classes, the powers that be, monarchy, military leadership, political masters, cruel dictators and tin-pot despots.

We can’t turn back, we have to understand that this world is getting smaller everyday (6,677,602,292 humans by my last count), to avoid more and more war, and to react to natural disaster quickly and effectively, to ensure that we will still be able to trade globally in the future, to bridge cultural divides, we all have to learn more tolerance. This isn’t Burma, this is the Western World, we should know better. If we keep censoring everything, art, information, belief systems themselves will go the same way as personal privacy, consumer rights, and the power of the voter. Most of us are currently experiencing a glut in democracy, if the masses rose now, the governments would fall to their knees and do whatever we asked. But in all honesty we’re a completely different race than a few hundred years ago, people hardly muster up a march let alone revolt against their oppressors, besides we’ve seen what a mess that can get you in. As an old and wise man from Ireland once told me “Evolution not Revolution.” Evolution is natural, yes it is messy, but it works after a lot of trial and error. Revolution, well it’s practically a big fight and whoever wins can have a go and running things for a while, and if they’re no good they’ll have another and another until someone has the bright idea of bringing in military rule, and then everyone has to shut up. No more offensive t-shirts true, but then again no more free speech whatsoever, no more Church on Sundays for those who didn’t like the t-shirts, no more freedom of any kind.

Britain is one of the most homogeneous, culturally and ethnically diverse countries in the world, if not the most. We are a small island, only around 850 miles long, there’s over 60 million of us now, and that’s rather crowded. Most of us live in or near London, its the one city most American’s have heard of, it’s a second home to Aussie backpackers looking for bar work, it’s a financial powerhouse of the world (or rather it used to be), and all in all it’s a tolerable place to live (especially if you’re rich). The point is London has seen it all and then some, we’ve had punk, we’ve had riots, we’ve had the GLC and Thatcher in our time, it is a place of extremities of all genre. An offensive t-shirt in London would hardly lift an eyebrow, Londoners will walk past bank robberies, dead bodies, burning buildings, they won’t stop, unless to join the “staring competition” or take a photo for FaceBook. They don’t care. I know that most of New York wouldn’t care either. Most Western cities have a far more tolerant attitude towards shock tactics, mainly because the advertisers, the filmmakers, the pop stars, and the government have been there first.

If the Government commissioned a poster campaign to raise awareness of women’s rights and included “I’ve had an abortion” and “I’ve been raped” in their slogans, the media would jump on it for a few days, a lot of highly moralized people who’ve never seen the posters or read the literature would vociferously write in letters of complaints, perhaps the government would even withdraw them. But in most modern western progressive cities, most inhabitants would hardly notice the campaign. We are numb, that is the truth, our culture has been bombarded with everything under the sun these last few decades. TV has exploded, the Internet, drugs, music, film, massive collective events, political change, technological advance, environmental deterioration. We can’t help it, we’ve been overloaded with choice and bloated with opinion, we can’t take anymore, so we’re shutting down our public receptiveness.

When you’re young you want to stand out, but when you get older you just want to maintain the status quo. If we marked it on the evolutionary ladder, our race is a child, but as far as our instincts are concerned, society moves forward at the speed of a beached whale, its sick of conjecture, its immune to shock and horror, it simply wants to move to a gated community and watch cable and play golf all day. Soon those who have ruled the moral majority, those with economic power, those who have insisted on keep the social and economic models of our society “post-war” – even though we have entered a new century – these will meet their mortal end. However much power and status can make a person believe they are immortal, or at least their ideas and teachings are, they haven’t factored in the current and ongoing cultural malaise of a selection of generations with little more to identify with than politicians, celebrities and sports stars.

I was born in the late 60′s, I saw through the tail-end of an age of hippies turning into punks and skinheads that finished the decade with race riots and mass strikes. I’m sure every waking moment of my childhood would’ve seemed offensive to many parents today, I wasn’t sheltered from the facts, people suffer, people get angry, people want justice. It is the inalienable right of every free citizen (I am no subject of the Queen whatever she may believe) to protest. International anti-terror laws have been the undoing of many of our individual rights for privacy, congregation, behaviour and protest. We can either continue to encourage our governments to censor the world and his wife, or create a civilized debate without resorting to prejudice or in some circumstances, war. The power of image and text is as abundant today as it ever was, it has created religion, history, governments, even countries, but it is simply the instigator for debate, not the cause of a problem in society (which will always reverberate far deeper than fashion and politics), and it is certainly not the solution, but it is a vital bridge.

Most people in Europe, excepting the predominantly Catholic states, are humanists first, human rights are sacrosanct, and even though pro-lifers can debate the moment of consciousness in a foetus, the majority accept the human rights of women over their own bodies. For the main part religion doesn’t even enter the debate, or rather it does and is finally ignored. Religious beliefs are a personal system, the system of law is public, those who have suffered must be given the opportunity to seek justice, those in crisis must be given a supportive environment in which to make their own life-changing decisions. What we can’t do is tell people what to do with bodies, with their minds, with themselves, if they truly believe it has a positive effect on their lives. We can only protest, when the words or actions of that individual, public body, or corporation affects others physically and to their detriment.

The tricky thing about all this is that I have a lot of trouble with a lot of t-shirts, t-shirts that reduce us all to a common denominator so low, so bereft of compassion or understanding, it really does make me wonder what will become of us all in the years to come. Rather than censor this information, I am including links to t-shirts that offend me, not for the purposes of public titillation, but to show others that the only way to change the opinions of others, is to treat them as intelligent human beings with the capability to make their own moral choices.

Abercrombie & Fitch – Racist Asian T-Shirts

In 2002 thousands of complaints were sent to Abercrombie & Fitch over their racist t-shirts (largely from Asian-American college students, who were ironically one of Abercrombie & Fitch’s primary target groups for these products). By April that year A&F withdrew the items from their stores nationwide and discontinued all sales.

Abercrombie & Fitch justifications were scant. It used the argument that it had already had great success with sexist and Irish-American humor t-shirts in the past with no complaint. I think this is exactly where Political Correctness begins to stumble. You can easily as well find sexist t-shirts aimed at women that are “technically” denigrating men. The same goes for a long tradition of t-shirts poking fun at the British in both Ireland and America! The point is if there is a tradition of toleration, even friendly rivalry, there is probably a lot more common ground than say the English and the French would like to admit. At the other end of the spectrum you have incidents like Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that published 12 Muhammad cartoons in September 2005. A clear case of cultural divide, we have a tradition of lampooning religion, whilst Muslims and Buddhists don’t. The older the religion the more likely that the congregation will find humour in their own beliefs, I doubt that comedy would’ve ever been created without the enormous assistance of the Jewish faith and culture. Putting it as bluntly as possible, many Western cultures see everything as everyone as a target, if there’s a joke to be made, we make it.

Members of the Asian-American community offered a variety of reasons why they found the shirts offensive:

• The shirts “trivialize an entire religion and philosophy.”
• The shirts portrayed “Asian Americans doing menial work, something that early immigrants had no choice over.”
• The shirts used racist imagery from a newspaper published a century before.
• The shirts’ use of Buddhist iconography is an insult to the central Asian culture and belief system.
• The shirts employed negative stereotyping, i.e Charlie Chan and other Western stereotypes.

Nonetheless it took a long time for all the stores to pull their stock, in the meantime the public furore hit the media and 1000′s of Americans rushed out to buy the last remaining t-shirts. Many citing that they couldn’t see the problem with them, simply that they were “funny t-shirts”. There’s a distinct lack of cultural or even individual empathy in society today, perhaps there never was any, I just hope one day that the majority can begin to picture the other side of any arguments dear to their social consciousness’s heart.

Abercrombie & Fitch probably lost more customers than they gained, I doubt they would ever publicly attribute any corporate losses to the debacle, and besides the consumer has a very short memory, far less than any voter, a few snazzy ad campaigns and I’m sure A&F were back on track as usual.

Here’s another poorly thought out design… The Controversy over UK Football T-shirt slogan

A sports store has been criticised for selling a T-shirt bearing the slogan “Always Kick Ahead – Any Head” alongside England football strips.

In 2006 the Sports Soccer store in the Chequers shopping centre in Maidstone, Kent UK began selling this. Now I know Kent pretty well and there are plenty of people there who wouldn’t even need the encouragement, but there’s a long tradition in the UK for football hooliganism. sure it has vastly improved since the authorities banned those convicted of football violence from travelling to foreign games. (Although football violence has now caught on in Russia in a big way).

The store insisted the item was available nationwide and intended for rugby players (although it was displayed right next to the England Football Strip at the time). This is an example of reckless t-shirt design with no regards to the consequences, but I bet my bottom dollar that most of the world wouldn’t see a problem with it. It is a cultural divide, if your country has a history of violence in sport you can envision the problems it causes. It isn’t offensive until there’s blood running down the streets of the next European city to host the Cup.

Then of course there’s the recent Obama/Curious George t-shirt controversy, you can read the post here

I’d hate a world of earnest yet unyielding political correctness, silence isn’t some golden cure to the troubles of our times, we have to look at the root cause of the problem, cultural indifference, lack of empathy and sympathy for the common man, misunderstandings in history as well as political differences of the present. We really have to learn to tolerate each other, and if it means making t-shirts to test those boundaries, then I’m all up for it.

Put your money away and grab some of these freebies!

I’ve collated a list of the latest t-shirt freebies, vouchers and coupons currently available on the net, take a look at the list below. If you have anymore links to contribute please post a comment and let us know! I’ve missed out any that seem to charge inflated postage or require subscription for the deal as to me that doesn’t really count, after all you don’t buy a car to get a free seat cover. If you do order one of these post yourself wearing it and give us all a laugh. Btw try and use a freebie email unless you want newsletters from all these sites in your inbox!

BustedTees.com – T-shirts as low as $5.99.

Free Travel T-Shirt – Just fill in their form and
receive a free travel t-shirt from TravelUSA.com

Free T-Shirt from HELP Systems – don’t ask me what it looks like -
I have no idea however I assume the word “help” will be on there
somewhere :p

Free T-Shirt from ExtremePCGarage.com – fill in their questionnaire relating to
their TV show and receive a free tee! Kinda slow loading Flash intro for the dial-ups.

If you live in Colorado USA you can pick up Free T-Shirts (12 different designs) by filling out a quick form at LetsTalkColorado.com at 10 different pickup points across the state. they have some funny slogans too including “My Other Home is a Cliff Dwelling”, “Get to Know the Locals”, and “I’d Rather be in an Art Gallery”. Nice Ringer Tees in subtle shades too!

VistaPrint.com print a a lot of stuff including t-shirts!

Thinking of joining The National Guard? No? Well you can still get your free National Guard t-shirt here.

Jamaican record label Eight76 Records are offering free t-shirts and other record
label freebies/discounts if you fill out their form. I’m presuming it’s a reggae stylee t-shirt ;)

Do you love posting in forums? I mean really love it? You better! Post 50 (yes you heard right gulp…) posts at VaJoe.com‘s military forum and receive their funky army style t-shirt for free (excepting a lot of forum posts – it used to be 10 posts – at least the t-shirt is some compensation for the repetitive strain injuries you’ll get from posting on this military related forum.

Petrix.com always have free t-shirts on offer for USA and Canadian householders. No shipping costs as far as I can tell. They offload unwanted print runs, sometimes their maybe design flaws. Usually they are computer related.

Sign up to LocalGeographic.com‘s newsletter and get entered into their regular draws for free science related t-shirt

Not quite sure what OneMillionFreeT-Shirts.com are up to but it seems to be a long-winded stunt to raise their profile and increase advertising revenue. Don’t worry, you won’t have to pay a thing. They say for each form filled they will promise to send out a t-shirt if and when they have filled all their advertising space. I’m only including this as an example of what I believe to be a scam, I’m not arguing that they are giving money to charity (although I have no idea which!). My problem is with all these online schemes that make wild promises, but once you read the small print you realise that they make impossible conditions. If you introduce ten million people I will buy you a Rolls Royce, if you invent a time machine I will paint Mt. Everest pink, f you do something impossible I will do something impossible with the proceeds. Ah well won’t do any harm signing up with a freebie email addy, just don’t expect that t-shirt to arrive anytime soon!

Free Molson T-Shirt for US citizens (over 21′s Only!). If you don’t like this one send it to me! Great design this one, actually well worth getting yours if you already drink bottle Molson (12-packs) – otherwise read the number off a box at the supermarket ;) Watch out though the offer ends 10/31/08.

Embarcado Technologies are offering a rather snazzy free t-shirt to all programmers who fill out this form. They want feedback on their database tools (so if you don’t know what they are I wouldn’t bother – you’ll also need to download their free 14-day trial db tools to know what they’re on about).

This offer is only valid for residents of:

• Australia
• Canada
• France
• Germany
• New Zealand
• United Kingdom
• United States

JobSeeker.net (USA Only again) are too lazy to build up their FAQ section, submit a question and if they accept it you win a free t-shirt!

International Trucks are offering free t-shirts too! Just sign up to their newsletter. (No Longer Available!)

Are you a network professional using APC-MGE? If you don’t know you probably aren’t :p
– if you know what it means get your free Polo shirt here

Get a free compressed t-shirt, just add water and wait! Yep it’s a promo
from CubeBix.com, a gamers site with a cool slant on giveaways.

Big Fibs are offering this free t-shirt

If they accept your lies! Yes submit your biggest fibs
and if they like them they’ll send you a free
Big Fibber T-Shirt!

Here’s a very limited free t-shirt offer from CleanAirCongress.org.
Although you can’t get it at their main site – only here.

You have to be a resident in “Orange County and the urban
portions of Los Angeles, Riverside or San Bernardino
counties in the State of California”. Just sign up for their
cause (hey it’s a good one!) and they’ll post you one of their
cool tee shirts.

Thinking of studying Computing at Hull University, UK?
Even if you’re not they say to send them an email with a bit
about yourself and why you deserve a shirt, and they will see
what they can do. Send your pleas to:-
freeTshirtplease@wherewouldyouthink.com

Free Funny T-Shirt. Cool funny Perpster.com offers this…

for filling out a quick form. May charge a small fee for European
shipping, free to USA and Canada.

Get 10 friends (gulp) to join the games/vids trading site Nintari.net
and get this t-shirt for free

Get a Free T-Shirt and a Free Pot Noodle! (Only available in UK) from IAmSad.co.uk

Sucky Shareware T-Shirt for free here

LakeLand Printing are offering a free
sample custom t-shirt (your slogan!)
printed and mailed same day here

If you love Mazeg.com gamers site you can get this
very very boring free t-shirt…

Two free iron-on transfer tees from Dove Soap.

Free T-shirts – Sinister Corporate Encouragement for those with low esteem.

If you want some better free t-shirt designs check these two from me!

Free Boycott Beijing Olympics 2008 T-Shirt Transfer Design.

Free Camden Rocks T-Shirt (Camden, London). 6.5 MB download

Remember if you find any yourself add them to the list (just add a comment
with a pic if possible and a link obviously!)

Free T-Shirt – From Mark Copeland and his band. Supplies are running low — you might end up with a CD instead. (US)