Look, “drugs are bad m’kay”, but perhaps now and again the world produces a special individual who manages to convert THC to adrenaline, or perhaps he’s from the planet Krypton, or maybe he doesn’t inhale, no scrap that, he definitely inhales. Whatever I say it isn’t going to get around the fact that the greatest Olympiad in history is bang on the pot. I suppose the government anti-drugs agencies out there could argue that if he wasn’t a stoner he could probably fly or swim faster than the speed of light, but really, this must be leaving a few doctors scratching their heads.

I mean Phelps has been awarded the World Swimmer of the Year Award in 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2008 and the American Swimmer of the Year Award in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2008. He’s won a total of 48 career medals so far, including all of the Championships in which he has competed: The Olympics, the World Championships, and the Pan Pacific Championships, and in 2008 Phelps even won the Sports Illustrated magazine “Sportsman of the Year” award. Hmm… perhaps weed will replace steroids from now on, who knows.

Anyway, take a look at T-ShirtBodega’s offering marking this most inauspicious event, well it’s probably auspicious for all the bongheads out there, but I’m sure that the US Olympic committee would rather we all brushed this fact to the side and focused on the fact that even though he’s the greatest sportsman ever, even though he’s a total pothead, “don’t do drugs or you will end up trouncing the Olympics and walking away with 8 gold medals”.

The Olympian tee features the name “Phelps” surrounded by a plethora of multi-coloured hash leaves. White crew features 100% ringspun cotton. Garment washed for a super soft, worn-in feel. $20 in sizes small to xxl available here.

Be Like Mike features a bong in the font and printed in super skunk green. White crew features 100% ringspun cotton. Garment washed for a super soft, worn-in feel. No shrinkage. In sizes small to xxl available here.

Here’s the lowdown on Teeshirt Bodega:-

TB run their own t-shirt printers in Salem, New Hampshire and offer a range of funny tees and bags for men, women and kids via their online store at TeeshirtBodega.com and a retail store in Manchester, New Hampshire. In case you’re wondering, a bodega is a Spanish market or convenient store and the site is called Tee Shirt Bodega because they’d like to project a down-to-earth image of an urban corner market, so chill and take a trip to your friendly local tee store, wherever you are! BTW take a look at their hilarious blog some time at Teeshirtbodega.wordpress.com.

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!