We Blog Indie T-Shirts
So I was tagged by Rangga for this game of blog tag. If you want to know some stuff about me (I promise to try to make it interesting!), read on. Otherwise, don’t… but if you don’t I’ll know it, and I’ll cry myself to sleep.
Continue reading ‘Seven Things You Probably Never Wanted to Know about Me’
If you haven’t been following innerTee lately, you’ve missed a few things. They updated their Artists Program both to simplify the art submission process and to reflect the fact that, for the time being, all submissions are to be submitted under one of the current themes. The current theme is text balloons, with a pot of $200 and up to five winners! That link will lead you to the discussion board for the theme, where you can see some works-in-progress.
They’ve also recently released the art elements of their inaugural theme, which was robots. The designers were Dan, myself, s4ndm4n, and Miles, who all collaborated before submitting the final elements. (Click through the images below to view closeups of the art elements and to mix them yourself.)
Here are some closeups of a few of the robot art elements to give you a better idea of what they look like for those of you who don’t like following links:
There have been a lot of creative uses of the ‘bot elements so far (which you can browse through here, among all of the shirts mixed by innerTee’s users), but Roboptimus Prime, mixed by Miles, is one of my favorites that really highlights the flexibility of innerTee’s mixing system and the new robot elements:
Continue reading ‘On the State of the 1st Released Design Theme (Robots!) & the Current Design Competition Theme at innerTee (hint: they’re good)’
Kindred are in the habit of releasing strong new t-shirt designs with little or no fanfare. Well, they certainly deserve some!
In their large and growing series of movie tees (which includes the Planet of the Apes t-shirt that I mentioned before) are two new gems: Last One to Sanctuary Is a Sandman! and Time to Make the Donuts.
The former, Last One to Sanctuary Is a Sandman!, you either get or you don’t get; it’s a direct reference to Logan’s Run, the 1976 sci-fi film based loosely on William Nolan’ and George Johnson’s novel of the same name. If you haven’t seen it, you should!
The latter, Time to Make the Donuts, refers more obliquely to a less obscure movie, Soylent Green. Even though this design may not be an obvious reference (although the dump truck full of people and the little green squares should be familiar!), the tagline ought to ring a few bells: ‘This shirt is brought to you by Soylent red and Soylent yellow, high energy vegetable concentrates, and new, delicious, Soylent green.’
NB: Unfortunately, neither of these 70s sci-fi movie tees will be available until the end of June. Fortunately, the end of June is nigh!
Link: [Movie Tees at Kindred]
Expensiveness: $24.95
Seeing as how we’ve recently blogged about some typeface-centric tees, and in fact one of them specifically mentions today’s featured typeface, I figured I’d let you all know about this new documentary I read about in the Tribune this morning. It’s called Helvetica, and it’s a film that talks about design, visual culture, and typography by taking an in-depth look at the history and use of this seemingly unexceptional font.
Yes, it’s a movie about a font. To some of you, that might not sound very exciting. However, I know that all three Bonanziers have at least a passing interest in the subtle art of typography; in general, I think a lot of people are secretly fascinated by the subject. At the very least, you’ve probably spent a few lazy hours perusing some free font site, downloading every third font you see because it looks cool and you might just get to use it on some poster or handout in the not-too-distant future. And who hasn’t spent untold minutes cycling through an endless multitude of fonts in Word or Photoshop, patiently looking for just the right one?
So a movie about a font doesn’t actually seem that crazy at all. If I’m right about people and typography, then the film taps into our secret curiosity about this somewhat mysterious art.
And what does this have to do with t-shirts? Admittedly, not too much. Not directly. But we here at Fantastic Bonanza are concerned with visual culture and graphic design in all its forms, be it web design, typography, or t-shirt design. As evidenced by the shirts I mentioned at the beginning of the post—as well as plenty of others, including Threadless’s entire line of Type Tees—there’s clearly some interest in typeface design amongst the t-shirt crowd.
Helvetica is being shown today in Chicago, but seeing as how I only just heard about it, tickets are sold out and I won’t be able to see it. So if you are interested in seeing the film, you should check to see if it’s coming to your town any time soon in order to avoid being stuck in the same unfortunate situation as myself. Regarding American cities, there will be screenings in San Diego, Cleveland, Seattle, and Washington D.C. in the coming months. If you’re more interested in locations outside the U.S., it looks like the film will be traveling to Thessaloniki, Dublin, Melbourne, Vancouver, Cologne, and no less than three (3) cities in beautiful New Zealand. They also have a big list of other cities that are supposedly “coming soon!” at that site I linked to. Or you could just wait until fall, which is apparently when the DVD is going to be released.
I’ll leave you with a link to some clips from the film on the off-chance that your curiosity has been piqued. Enjoy!
Okay, this is might be approaching the absurd: more eyes! Maybe we should change our subheading to ‘It’s our Official Bloggy Thinger about t-shirts with eyes on them, and occasionally other stuff’. Anyway, this time it’s among the six new releases from I-Manifest, whose new designs are quite strong.
Unlike previous eye designs that we’ve featured, the eye in Monocle (also available on dark gray) is not merely one element among many, but the focus of the piece. My favorite of I-Manifest’s new tees, however, is Urban Decay.
Besides the strength of the design overall, the subtleties within Urban Decay really set it apart. The print itself seems rather muted; on sunny days, however, you’re in for a surprise.
Thanks to the wonders of photochromatic ink (which is like those color-changing sunglasses), what look like very light gray plants bloom into a brilliant purple when exposed to sunlight (or any UV light source, really). I think this is a great instance of technology used in a non-gimmicky, artistic way.
Link: [I-Manifest]
Expensiveness: $32
Eyes seem to be pretty popular as of late. And we’ve seen brains on tees before, too, though perhaps not quite as much. Now, if you had suggested the idea of combining the two ideas onto one shirt, I would have told you you were mad. Mad, I say! Well, it looks like Florian Baumgartner has proven me wrong:
If you look closely, you’ll see that in addition to the eye and the brain, 11 legs have been thrown in for good measure.
Link: [Florian Baumgartner]
Expensiveness: €15 (which is just about $19.97)
P.S.: Joe tells me I’m being paranoid about the Illuminati. Maybe I am.
P.P.S.: Or maybe… Maybe he’s one of them!!!
This sale is just too good not to repost (even though it’s already on T Junction, which you should definitely be reading for discounts on t-shirts!).
Split the Atom, an ongoing t-shirt design contest à la Threadless, are having a 50% off sale for an unspecified limited duration, bringing their prices down from £15 to £7.50, which is about $14.75. On top of that, global shipping is only £2.90 (or about $5.7), which is quite reasonable!
They have some great shirt designs, and I picked up Tormented Typewriter. Comic Sans is the font we all love to hate, so this is the perfect shirt for any design or typography nerds.
Link: [Split the Atom]
Expensiveness: £7.50 (normally £15!)
[via T Junction]
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