I found this blog through a link on Hide Your Arms. Congrats to Hide Your Arms on their mention in the Guardian. One of the other blogs that this Guardian Article linked to is the Banned T-shirt Blog - Banshirts.com. (PLEASE NOTE - some of the t-shirts on Banshirts.com are graphic and contain nudity and language that is not family friendly - probably not a good site to check out if the kiddies are around). This is an entire blog about t-shirts that have been banned, since we like to follow t-shirts in the news I thought this would be worth a look.

As I have mentioned here frequently - t-shirts are a form of self expression - I think the idea of banning t-shirts supports the idea that people are using these shirts to express something. There are some really interesting articles posted on Banshirts.com.

• Transformers t-shirt banned at airport
• Iraqi Death Toll T-shirt Banned at Mall
• I Need a Man or a Date T-shirt Banned at Gym

I can maybe see why some of the schools would ban some of these t-shirts. Some of these other shirts don’t seem that offensive and I am surprised they created such a controversy.

With the Presidential campaigns in full swing the democratic and republican national conventions are just around the corner. There have been quite a few stories in the news about the protesters that are planning on attending each of the conventions. Protesting is a form of expression, we are big on self expression via t-shirt here at Spreadshirt. We want to know if you have any protest t-shirt designs in your shop?

Convention Details:
Democratic National Convention, Denver, CO - August 25-28, 2008
Republican National Convention, Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN - September 1-4, 2008
Here are some blog posts and articles about anticipated protesters:

• Demonstrators prep for GOP convention
• Thousands of demonstrators expected at GOP convention
• Denver Police Brace for Convention

Today is all about Pittsburgh and hockey. Normally, I am following CNN for the presidential campaign news, which has been getting kind of boring in recent weeks - lots of talk and nothing really changes. But today is all about hockey. I am not usually a big sports fan but if you are going to sit down and watch some hockey, last night game was the game to watch. Detroit was ahead 3-2, they had the Stanley cup in the hallway and Pittsburgh scored in the last minute to tie the game and send it in to overtime. Pittsburgh and Detroit played 2 full 20 minute periods over overtime with out one goal. Pittsburgh finally scored in the 3rd overtime and the Stanley Cup series continues.

So I created a few new shirts for the hockey fans and added them to my shop. I would love some other ideas for text to celebrate the hockey season. This blogger has a nice post about being a hockey fan, which brings up an interesting question do you need a t-shirt to be a fan?

I went to a local bar to watch the game last night - one of the cool things about Pittsburgh sports fans if that on game day - everyone dresses up in team colors.  I noticed quite a few people in Penguin’s t-shirts last night.  During football season - almost every one in town is in some sort of black and gold on game day.

I didn’t get to see the first playoff game but thanks to my grandfather I was reminded that this play-off game was also t-shirt newsworthy. Even if you are not a sports fan, it is hard not to get wrapped up in sports fever here in Pittsburgh. I know I have mentioned that football is a big BIG big deal in Pittsburgh. Every Sunday is like a little city wide party when it is football season. Well it is hockey time in Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh Penguins are in the playoffs - each hockey game is a chance to gather with friends (or strangers) and enjoy some city pride.

To boost the excitement of the home games the Penguins have called for a whiteout. The team handed out white t-shirts to all fans that attended the game last Friday. I must say it does create an amazing visual effect to have all of the fans in the same color.

(Photo: PittsburghHockeyNet.blogspot.com)

I was really curious to find out what is printed on those shirts but I couldn’t find a close picture of the t-shirts so I had to head to ebay. These shirts are already being sold as collectors items.

Not to be outdone, philly had all of their fans in orange.

This blogger commented that Penn State fans wore their own white t-shirts and Penguins fans are being handed t-shirts.

The white out was successful and the Pittsburgh Penguins are headed to the Stanley Cup playoffs.  Time to create some Stanley Cup T-shirts!

If MTV can rock the vote, then we are going to t-shirt the vote. We are big fans of using t-shirts to express yourself. There are a lot of people expressing a love (or hate) for the presidential candidates. Here are a few things happening in the world of Presidential candidate t-shirts…

• McCainiac - Bryant has created some great gear inspired by McCain’s appearance on WFF. Check out his blog, Errorless.com, and shop.
• Hillary Presents - PROJECT T-SHIRT - move over Heidi Klum, it is time for team Hillary to create the best new runway fashions. Hillary Clinton is holding a contest for people to design her next t-shirt. Entries are due May 15, 2008 at 12:00 AM EST. More info at HillaryClinton.com/tshirt (Check out the comments on this post for some t-shirt slogan ideas - many of these would look great in white text on a color shirt)

I posted about this back in August - during PodCamp Pittsburgh (which was attended by a few of us from Spreadshirt) a number of smart, geek loving people created the term Bacn. In short BACN = Email you want - But not right now.

The term BACN took off like hotcake (breakfast pun intended) and started popping up around the web every where.   According to the blog TechBurgh bacn has made the pages of the Feb 08 People magazine.  Congratulations to the bacn crew on this prestigious accomplishment.

Check out the official bacn website here: Bacn2.com and of course bacn t-shirts too -http://bacn.spreadshirt.com

Click here to see a video about BACN - Spreadshirt’s own graphics guru Jesse is the guy on the left.

Bacn? Yes, Bacn. If you are an internet junkie, like we are, then you may have heard of this new term bacn.

BACN = Email you want - But not right now.

Bacn has made its way around the internet and back - check it out even BoingBoing has a post on the popularity of bacn. The term bacn was coined at PodCamp Pittsburgh earlier this month and Spreadshirt’s own graphic designer extrodinare Jesse was part of the team who devised this brilliant term.

And of course you can order a bacn t-shirt from the bacn Spreadshirt shop.

Official Bacn website: www.bacn2.com

Our friend Rick from MacMerc was less than inspired by the keynote address at last week’s WWDC 2007 (WWDC is Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference).I think his summary of the keynote is hilariously wonderful…

Stevenotes have come to be seen as another “Christmas morning” for the Mac faithful and today’s address at the 2007 WWDC in San Fransisco amounted to a lot of socks and underwear and a sweater knitted by a distant aunt; useful stuff, but not the treasure trove of Star Wars figures we were hoping for. No toys.

So he created this shirt:

Then the bloggers took notice…

Like Nicholas from Crunch Gear, who wrote a blog post about Rick’s shirt.

Jason, from Gizmodo, saw the shirt on Crunch Gear and thought this shirt could apply to many keynotes

Thought yesterday’s WWDC Keynote was the worst keynote ever? Show your disapproval with this Worst. Keynote. Ever. shirt. Hell, just buy one and wear it to every keynote you go to from now on—even if it’s not a Jobsnote—just for a pre-emptive screw you to the presenter. Bonus points if you wear it to your own keynote address.

Podcasting News isn’t sure that this was the worst keynote ever, but Rick’s shirt inspired them to ask the readers if they thought this was the worst shirt ever.

TrickyTree agreed with Rick and dugg the shirt.

What is interesting about this shirt is that it inspired other bloggers, some who agreed with Rick, some who didn’t, to share their thoughts on the keynote.

What has your shirt inspired? Is there a t-shirt that has inspired you to write a blog post?

I know something is hot when I find it on TechCrunch and when Brooke, my friend/trend watcher, sends me an email about it.

Check out Reactee (Tech Crunch article on Reactee). A t-shirt maker/website. Your create a t-shirt with a message and a code word, you wear your shirt. When someone texts your code to the Reactee #, they will get a text reply with a message entered by you.

I just checked out the gallery and tried sending a text message to 41411 with the code anythingk - immediatly I got a message back

anythink.org, relaunching soon

The comments on the TechCrunch article are quite varied, some think Reachtee is super cool, other people think it is too novelty.  What do you think?  Would you want a t-shirt that people let others connect to you via text message?

One of the cool things about Spreadshirt is that we connect the online stuff with the offline stuff. So much of the web is all on the web. Spreadshirt allows you to take some of the best parts of web tools and create a t-shirt, which is totally off-line. My friend Brooke, who is a maven of style and all things cool, sent me this link to dork magazine this morning. dork magazine has some cool stuff and is worth a look. The article Brooke sent is about T-post, which takes this online offline collaboration a step further. T-post is a t-shirt subscription service - every 6 weeks they send you a new t-shirt based on something in the news. I really like the idea of artists interpreting the news.