One of the things we started talking about at Spreadshirt last year is passion because people often order t-shirts for things they are passionate about. At first I thought - I am not that passionate about anything that I would order a t-shirt - but over the past year I have discovered a few things that I am really passionate about. One of those things is Wordpress - the more I talk about blogging - I always recommend Wordpress as a blogging platform - mostly because Wordpress has made it very easy for me to share info about Pittsburgh and t-shirts.
Another thing that I have become very passionate about is This American Life. This American Life is a weekly radio program on NPR, each week they offer 60 minutes of stories about all sorts of interesting things. I started listening a little over a year ago and I have become a huge fan. Listening to This American Life has helped me to see the value of story telling and I have come to look at blogging as a way pf telling an ongoing story. My first blog, IheartPGH, is an ongoing story about Pittsburgh. This blog is an ongoing, sometime rambling, sometimes silly story about things happening at Spreadshirt.
I live about 45 minutes away from the Spreadshirt production facility - while I am not the biggest fan of driving - I secretly enjoy the trip because it gives me the opportunity to listen to an episode of This American Life. I even went to see the live season premier of the This American Life tv show. Both Wordpress and This American Life are things that I would like to have on a t-shirt (or tote bag - I am really big on tote bags). So I am super super excited about the This American Life t-shirt contest. I have had a few good t-shirt ideas in my head for some This American Life t-shirts. The winning design will be the thank you gift for the next pledge drive and the winner gets $1000. Check out the rules here - you can submit up to 3 designs. If your design isn’t the winning design - I would still like to see it because I will probably want to order at least 1 of every This American Life design I can get my hands on.
This American Life not only makes you value storytelling, but the poetry of everyday life (American or otherwise). With shirts and designs it would be easy to do something satirical and cynical. To honour the show my design would have to be more optimistic and earnest, a tougher but welcome ask.