Of the Graffiti kind

Lets hope we can get something as creatively inspiring as this inside the new Spreadshirt HQ

OLP closed it’s doors to submissions late on Sunday night. With reports of a submission rate of 5 logos per minute in the closing stages, it has taken a little while to get all the entries approved. In the end there were 2808 logos submitted, and so far 13 entries have made it to the grand final (there may be a few more from the final weeks shortlist, which will be decided today).

But OLP.16 is not over! In the next few days we will release a survey where you will be able to give your opinion on what should be the new Spreadshirt logo. More details to come soon…

Tomorrow, Spreadshirt UK will present at the September MiniBar, socializing over tech DIY fun and new start up ideas.

MiniBar is a social evening in East London which offers people a chance to snaffle some free beer while discussing p2p, Creative Commons, web applications, social networking and general Web 2.0 (3.0) mayhem & fandango. Larry Ryan will give a presentation on the Spreadshirt concept, and we’ll bring along some shirts, too.

At the MiniBar you can find people who will help you making your next project work. They like to call it “useful fun”. Usually there are 250+ of the finest famousest digerati and tech investors such as Esther Dyson (angel investor in Flickr and delcious), Mark Shuttleworth (Ubuntu), to tech journalists (Guardian, BBC), bloggers (OpenBusiness etc), Open Source developers (Drupal, Ubuntu), web designers, Creative Commons enthusiasts, web entrepreneurs (last.fm, eCourier, Tioti) to many coders, media artists and other generally useful, interesting and hyper connected people.

To join us tomorrow visit the web invitation (there are still places available) and for more information go to the Minibar site.

Theres not much to say about this, other than its really great. You remember those old flipbooks from when you were a kid? Hundreds of panels painstakingly created so that when flipped then you got literally seconds of enjoyment! Well, this is the t-shirt version (apparently it used 150 shirts) by Erberts&Gerberts a chain of sandwich shops, and its brilliant:

Via Notcot.org

Theres a making of video in the full post

continue reading ‘Human Tshirt Flipbook’

Here are a few things I’ve been meaning to post for a while now, all collected in one time saving post. Its the sitcom equivalent of a clips episode…
continue reading ‘A little roundup’

Fair play to the guys and girls over at Busted Tees for doing this brilliant one-take lip dub…Just a normal day at the office. Who’s ready for the Spreadshirt version?!

Lip Dub - Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger from amandalynferri on Vimeo.

We’re now into week two of the Soil Association’s Organic Fortnight, a two week celebration of all things organic, reminding us all to do something that benefits our health and the planet. The fortnight runs until the 16th of September, and the theme this year is to “Wake Up to an Organic Breakfast.”

My immediate thoughts were “Get me one of our organic shirts – I’m going to eat it for breakfast, people!” After that initial wave of excitement passed I quickly remembered that this is impossible. For now. (I’m all for the idea of edible shirts…Or even a breakfast cereal that’s made from little mini-shirts?)

Until that genius idea comes to fruition, I came about this cool Marketplace design from FluffyLikeRazors that ties in well with the Organic Fortnight on one of our Continental Organic shirts:

Yet more proof that organic isn’t just for hippies, it’s for wealthy businessman crime fighting superheroes too. 

It’s well worth checking out the Soil Association’s site which includes resources for some nice organic recipes and a game where you can forcefeed Gordon Brown.

Some of you may have seen some news stories over the weekend questioning the ethical practices of some of the clothing manufacturers we use. We believe the accusations leveled at one of our suppliers to be inaccurate. We’re happy to answer any of your questions about this, and would like to reinforce again that our core values include social and environmental responsibility. You can read our official comment on this in the full post. You can also join the discussion in the forum
continue reading ‘Spreadshirts Statement on Ethical Manufacturing’

Slate also takes on “zombie brands” - reinventing the un-cool brands of days of yore. Unearthing the brands that lie deep in our psyche seems too good to miss. Companies use the brand for a mash-up: “same name, different product”. Including: Tab Energy, Ford Taurus, Radar mag. And Vanity Fair, which has in the last decades come back with a vengeance (and just recently launched over here in Germany. You can listen to the article as a podcast.

Slate.com takes on the growing American Apparel machine. The news: “American Apparel was taken over by Endeavor Acquisition Corporation, which plans to open 800 new stores around the world, in addition to the 145 that are already in existence”. The writer, Lucinda Rosenfeld, asks if the American Apparel enterprise will maintain its edge, unlike the Gap another company that soared, and then fell, on cotton basics.

Rosenfield makes three AA categories: “hideous”-chique, risque-chique* and boring-chique** (”wardrobe basics as luxury objects”). And then tries to weigh, not as successfully as the triumvirate, global economics in a couple of paragraphs. If you really care, Yahoo has an article with more speculation with numbers.

*Inspiring my personal favourite line of this piece: “body-conscious fashions for people who are younger than you and who get laid more often”. I was afraid of that.

** That’s what we stock, with an emphasis on the chique.