The T-Shirt Blog

T-Shirts by Koko

Posted on November 3rd, 2007 by Alex.
Categories: Artsy
Tags: koko, gorilla, animal, t-shirt

Most t-shirt makers limit their offerings to shirts made by human designers.  I’ve had a nagging feeling that gorillas could make better tees than 80% of t-shirts you can find on Cafepress.  Aside from her love for painting, Koko the gorilla understands over 2000 words of spoken English and responds using sign language.  “Bird” is Koko’s depiction of a blue jay that used to visit her and perch on her back.  The t-shirt is available in a limited edition run from Kokomart (scroll down to the bottom of the page).

(1 votes, average: 3 out of 5)  Loading ...

End of Threadless Sale

Posted on December 13th, 2006 by Alex.
Categories: Artsy, Bargain Basement
Tags: threadless, funkalicious, tees

Wow… time sure goes by fast, and the 30 day sale at Threadless is coming to an end. The sale’s apparently been extended till 11 AM this Thursday, so that means you and I (and anyone else who might want to buy some shirts) have approximately 1.5 days to get our $^!# together and wade through Threadless‘ catalog of brand new , newly reprinted and older tees, as well as newly offered long sleeved shirts and hoodies.

For those of you who aren’t entirely familiar with Threadless or their famous sales, they are basically one of the most popular and best known t-shirt retailers around. They hold on-going t-shirt design competitions and have a constant stream of new quality designs. Their shirts do well enough at a regular price of $15-17, but once or twice (or thrice) a year they hold a $10 sale, and not just to sell off inventory either - they continue printing and reprinting tees throughout the sale. With that said, on to my picks:

It’s winter time in the Northern Hemisphere, and I’m definitely partial to designs that come in a hoodie and/or longsleeve version in addition to the classic tee. This design oozes 80’s retro, and looks good on a cozy and warm looking sweatshirt.

I *heart* t-shirts with stuff printed in non-standard places. In this case it’s simplistic autumn leaves looking particularly good on an off sheer girls’ long sleeve, or a regular’s guy’s long sleeve tee.

To me Threadless is all about designs like this one, slightly off the beaten path, with a fine arts sensitibility, and an element of irony.

This one actually made me smile and go ‘aww’, in a non-verbal sort of way (since I don’t talk to myself outloud). I am also beginning to suspect that a lot of Threadless‘ design submissions are recycled art school homework. This illustration would definitely get an an A+ from me.

Not sure what more can be said about this terrific design, but here are some more T’s worth mentioning:

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(4 votes, average: 2 out of 5)  Loading ...

$10 Tees

Posted on October 24th, 2006 by Alex.
Categories: Artsy, Bargain Basement

I just got an email from Threadless announcing a sneaky little two day sale - almost everything is $10 until Wednesday morning.

Holy cow, we’re having a quick 2 day $10 sale before the sale to get your blood pumping. If you like to get an early start on the holidays, start your gift buying now!

This includes a lot of the new releases I wrote about recently, as well as the older favorites. Some t-shirts have been reprinted and overall it seems like there is a bunch of shirts I haven’t really seen before. Here is some [affordable] eye candy:

(3 votes, average: 2 out of 5)  Loading ...

More Threadlessness.

Posted on September 30th, 2006 by Alex.
Categories: Artsy
Tags: artsy, shirts, t-shirt, illustration

Threadless released quite a few new tees in the past month and the results are as expected. The winner of the Nextfest design competition has been announced, and the rest of the designs include this cool art deco-ish premium tee, the usual emo fare, and a shirt I just don’t get. There is also further proof that Threadless is made for art students, by art students. The best of the bunch, however, is this striking illustration entitled “No More Bento.”

I’m also starting to like the shirt that looks like a bathroom wall, ever since I realized it has two sides, and a “NO SPANKING” sign on the lower black.

They also brought back “What Would McGyver Do?” one of the few Threadless tees that a fratboy would actually be caught wearing.

Threadless did the right thing by taking down the “I’d give my left arm to play drums for Def Leppard” slogan tee. It wasn’t terribly funny, whether you are familiar with the actual story, or not (more on t-shirts that shouldn’t have been made in my next post).P.S. Take a look at SplitTheAtom, a new Brittish company which seems to have a very similar setup to Threadless.

(5 votes, average: 3.8 out of 5)  Loading ...

The best t-shirts on the internet!

Posted on September 9th, 2006 by Alex.
Categories: T-Shirt Central, Artsy, Shop Reviews
Tags: t-shirt, reviews, tshirt, blog, threadless

It’s only fitting that I start off the T-Shirt Blog with a post about one of the most beloved t-shirt retailers on the web. In case you’ve never been to Threadless, they run ongoing t-shirt design competitions, and sell the best, most popular submissions as voted on by viewers like you. The end result is a constantly evolving, limited edition collection of unique designs, all reasonably priced at around $15 each. Here’s a round up of the ten most popular designs on Threadless (based on the number of submitted photos), so you can see what you are missing out on:

My one and only Threadless tee actually happens to be “Flowers in the Attic,” the one with the butterflies. Can I get some props for being completely unoriginal and getting THE most popular shirt on the site? I might also go for this svelte going-out tee next.

Stay tuned for more cool tees, and possibly an in-depth search engine keyword analysis of this domain name.

(7 votes, average: 3.14 out of 5)  Loading ...