Welcome to T-Shirt Tuesday on Wednesday. Sorry for being a day late, I had the choice of blogging or missing a homework deadline, I picked the responsible avenue.
Before I get to the featured shirt of the week, I got some news and noteworthies from the t-shirt collecting world. First, a web design/digital artist type guy launched a new company called Around Shirts. The site sells shirts inspired by places. While each of the five designs at site launch are basically the same design with a different location’s name (e.g.: Tokyo, Los Angeles), the premise and about us page suggest some neat designs soon to come.
Kingdom Comes, a Finalist in the DBH $10,000 Contest
Design by Humans has lately been rather underwhelming in regard to new designs and promotions, but last week broke that trend with a quality release and continued it this week with announcing contest winners. Released last week and still available is the bold Shark with pixelated teeth (terrible name), and also the mellow and chill I Love Hitchcock. They have been running a few contests lately, and the winners for the Unity Through Art contest were announced today, with my favorite, entitled We just started with art, taking second place. The DBH Logo is used in that shirt, and I always liked that logo for its lively feel, which means that this shirt is on my list for that reason alone. Also in DBH news, the big $10,000 contest has its 10 finalists chosen and they are up for a vote on DBH right now. My favorites are Black Hole Sun (below) and Kingdom Comes (above), but go out and vote for your own favorites!
Black Hole Sun, finalist in the DBH $10,000 Contest
Other items of note:
- Enclothe has a minor sale going on right now. Only 30% off two tees, but that is deal considering that if I had the money I’d get their shirts like Axis Mundi and Ghost Ship at full price!
- A new company for me, with a BOGO free sale going on right now, is Reverie. They have a small and great line including this one called Promise.
- Marc Ecko, the man behind the Ecko brand, seems to love Star Wars, or at least loves exploiting the money of Star Wars fans. He has created some beautiful shirts based on the Original Trilogy. They are expensive, but amazing works of art. Check out the Marc Ecko Star Wars collection.
- From their about us, “[fivehumans] create hip, fashionable t-shirts so you can support your cause in style!” These guys make stylish shirts that advocate a cause, like child welfare, cancer, diabetes, autism and more, and then donate a percentage of the proceeds to related non-profit groups. The shirts cost about average to slightly higher than average and worth the money, especially with part of the money being donated.
- And finally, as Andy at Hide Your Arms puts it, a shirt “that further dilutes political discourse in the USA”: the V.I.L.F. shirt. No comment.
The Element Mosaic Text Shirt
This week’s featured t-shirt is actually a mass-market shirt (gasp!) by Element Skateboard Company. I am not against mass-market clothing, but I avoid it for two reasons: most brands carry an image about them that I don’t want to associate myself with–for instance Abercrombie portraying an image of preppiness and cockiness, or Famous offering a raw inner-city rough around the edges feel–and second I hate seeing people wearing a shirt I also own–or worse, that I am currently wearing. But when a work of art comes in the form of a mass-market t-shirt, I won’t not buy it, so this shirt was quickly added to my collection.
This photo, in black and white, excentuates the textures by the mosaic text.
I’ve owned Element shirts before. I like the brand because its image of promoting social responsibility through the skate (aka, generation y) subculture. The brand often has artwork that is primitive, natural, and oraganic in design, so when I am feeling earthy or enviro-friendly their shirts find their way onto my back. This Element brand tee isn’t exactly organic, but it is a sweet design and I picked it up without hesitation.
If you remember last week’s feature, you will recall my discussion on typographic designs making great shirts. This one is no exception. The picture to the left shows it in black and white, and it still looks great! The text, in a newsprint type font, is of the company mission statement. The blocks of text are cut up and mosaicked into a visually stunning design. It is an awesome shirt, and worthy of the recognition of being one of my featured shirts of the week.
Element Mosaic Text Detail