You may count me among the lucky, my first name that is. In this edition of “Mark your Word” we are going to deal with first names which have also been submitted for word marks. To be clear, we are again dealing only with EU and German law.

You gather a few of your mates together, perhaps you are planning a stag or hen night, and you want to design some shirts for the occasion. You put the order in and what happens: some of them were rejected because those names have been entered as word marks. Poor John or Sandy (both word marks) would be (hypothetically) shirtless for the occasion. I can completely understand people getting up in arms: “That’s MY name. I can do with it what I want and no one can stop me!”

Yes and no.
continue reading ‘Mark your Word II – More on European Trademark Law’

It’s been burned, washed, stoned, dipped in acid, discarded and rediscovered, even shot.

I am probably not the only one out there who has trouble keeping up with their Google Reader. So when Tobias asked me if I had recently checked American Apparel’s “Daily Update” blog, I scrolled down to come across a link to NY Mag’s Fall fashion piece by Hugo Lindgren entitled T-Shirt by Darwin.

The article deals with the well-known and oft-mentioned James Dean-sian beginnings of the t-shirt, but focuses much on the recent developments of the tee, much of them coupled with new techniques and technology. Many have perhaps heard of stone-washing, garmet-dying, faux-fading, but the article goes into detail about some innovative and very interesting techniques: continue reading ‘Evolution of the T-Shirt’

On Monday, laFraise revealed the 12 designs which made it into the second round of the €15,000 Contest. From the 4,000 submissions, 800 were approved for the contest – but to then choose 12 from the 800 was certainly not the easiest of tasks. These 12 were chosen based on their score, the amount of pre-orders, the community’s comments, the design’s overall quality and laFraise’s personal taste. And now these 12 are up for another round of votes.

The winner of the contest will become the proud recipient of one of the biggest prizes ever awarded in t-shirt design contest history. Here is your chance to take part in this historical event and perhaps help your favourite win big-time. Time’s a-ticking - voting ends on Monday!

These finalists and other selected submissions will also be on display in the West Berlin Gallery from 11th to 27th September – printed on canvas - a great tribute to the often overlooked artistic value found in t-shirt design. The winning design will appear on 120×120 cm, the 11 other finalists on 80×80 cm. and 40 additional contest designs on 40×40 cm.

P.S. The design above is my favourite of the 12 - but, I could also imagine wearing this one. What are your favourites?