I came across this great short film “Rebel With a Cause” by Kristian Labusga, which is now competing for the Politicool Award in this year’s Bitfilm Festival. The film spans the journey a t-shirt takes throughout its lifetime and the “ecological backpack” which a t-shirt ends up accumulating along its way.

It’s just 200 grams of cotton – their story is reflected in their design and each one has its own little story to tell.

That story is much heavier than that initial quote suggests and this film visually takes us through the story of a shirt and the impact it has on the environment. I’ll let the film speak for itself and I invite any comments.

P.S. You can vote on this film and others in the category here.

Jerkass Clothing Company offers a vast smorgasbord of hilarious to knee-slapping t-shirt designs geared towards anyone from the college-aged crowd to those who never really left college. The site is broken down into four categories: Too Cool for School, National Lampoon, Coast to Coast State Slogans and Vintage Tavern & Bar T-Shirts. That means you can get anything from a lederhosen-wearing, bier-stein holding Hans Solo shirt to fictitious and suggestive vintage bar shirts, while dissing your (least) favorite state along the way. Jerkass even has a page dedicated to Milwaukee-based shirts, based on the site’s Brew City-born creators and their takes on regional sports.

Jerkass does a great job mixing in current pop-culture themes you might have seen on SNL or in an 80s movie with witty, original designs. Their use of both Digital Direct and plot print designs highlights the advantages of our different printing techniques. The “Founder and Lead Dance Instructor”, Richard, introduces his story on his site, but I thought there were some questions left unanswered. Richard’s interview:
continue reading ‘Jerkass Clothing Interview – The Man Behind the Humor’

At first glance Zoo&Co The Drawing Lounge might come across as a shirt shop for young’uns with its vibrantly colorful designs reminiscent of Saturday morning cartoons. Perhaps it was that very fact that made the shirts “grow” on me, and there is much more to discover and enjoy upon closer look. What really impressed me was their ability to create complex, colorful and detailed designs even with the “limitation” of 3 flex/flock colors. Shadows, outlines and contours in one color, fillers in another and a third for accents are puzzled together seamlessly. For a relatively young shop, they have a great selection of animals, celebrity caricatures and creatures – all well integrated into a skillfully designed site. Zoo&Co in Interview:
continue reading ‘Colorful Critters, Creatures and Celebrities – Zoo&Co Interview’

I am ordering this shirt now! First of all, a welcome to Spreadshirt.com to our shop partners thank you for setting up a Spreadshirt shop here in the US so I can order one of these shirts.

Peter has just posted about his Spreadshirt.com shop on his blog TheWavingCat.com (which is a great name for a blog, one of my favorite restaurants has one of these waving cats on the mantle by the door).

IworkfortheInternets.com has some great pictures of their completed shirts more pictures on Flickr here. And Peter has just posted this picture of “the shirt in the wild” which was taken at the Communia Conference.
Photo by Juan Carlos De Martin, (jdcm on Flickr), released under Creative Commons (by 2.0).

Spreadshirt Show Off is a series of blog posts where we feature people showing off their favorite Spreadshirts. Have a Spreadshirt you want to show off - email me lpa - at -spreadshirt.com.

Ever since I saw the post on Fashionista called Street Walker - where they stop people on the street and take pictures of their outfits I have been trying to get up the nerve to stop people on the street and take pictures of their t-shirts. Jana beat me to it. She posted this great picture and story in our fantastic Spreadshirt Flickr Group (Everyone is welcome to post pictures to the flickr group - we want to see your shirts!!!)

One good thing that came out of being forced to check my (mostly legally sized) carry on last week with evil United was meeting this lovely couple. They are just married and happily on their way to Hawaii for their honeymoon. They were a bit surprised when I asked her if she got her bag on Spreadshirt. (It is our eco-tote in black with hot pink flex!) Her husband was bummed he wasn’t wearing his shirt… I let him in the picture anyway. His shirt also says “Marriage is sexy”. Fun font she chose. And thanks to them for indulging me with a pic! I hope Hawaii was all you dreamed!

Congratulations to the Happy Couple!

Shirt Walker: See a great shirt on the street? Take a picture, ask permission first, and send it over to me to post as our next Shirt Walker!

As I have often said, I love learning about our shop partners - this is another great one. Man Zero is the blog of Tim Agne who writes about video games for MLive. Tim has created a Man Zero Spreadshirt shop and even has a picture of one of his shirts posted on the Man Zero blog.

It is from his post that I also learned about video game shirt day which seems to be a regular feature on this blog. Maybe we should create an annual video game shirt day!

Spreadshirt Show Off is a series of blog posts where we feature people showing off their favorite Spreadshirts. Have a Spreadshirt you want to show off - email me lpa - at -spreadshirt.com.

The top selling designs at Spreadshirt.com in the past few months has been a design from Spreadshirt shop partner Amorphia Apparel. Amorphia Apparel has also received lots of press and blog attention for their great t-shirt designs. All of this is the work of Jeremy Kalgreen, founder and proprietor of Amorpia Apparel. So we thought it was time for an interview. I called Jeremy up to talk shop. When I asked for a photo Jeremy sent me this awesome Spreadshirt-esque self portrait (I think it would make a great t-shirt design too). I really enjoyed talking with Jeremy. Here is what I learned about the man behind the t-shirts…

The History - A New Skill Every Summer
Jeremy told me that he didn’t start with the intention of creating a t-shirt business. He just wanted to learn a new skill. Each summer he decided to learn something new - so he taught himself to screen print and designed t-shirts just to wear himself. Screen printing is hard work, so Jeremy started to look for a printer and that is when he found Spreadshirt and he was happy with the selection and print quality that we offer. Then he needed to make some money so he turned on the shop feature of Spreadshirt and that is how it all started.

Amorphia Today
What started as 1 t-shirt shop has grown into 3 successful shops. After success with Amorphia Apparel, Jeremy decided to set up a shop dedicated to science - thus WearScience was born. He also has a shop called Teach the Controversy. Jeremy wanted to try out a shop that was focused on one theme rather than an assortment of t-shirt designs. So far, so good as the science designs have been very popular.

Jeremy’s Favorite T-shirt
“I can’t really choose, but perhaps today I think Ill have to go with Roach Celebration”

So you must have been a Scientist?
Nope. He just liked the science idea. The science design came together and “it just worked.” A lot of other people have liked the science idea too.

How long does it take to design a t-shirt?
Jeremy says the idea percolates for a while, once he has a grasp on the design he estimates it takes about an hour and half to create the vector and another hour and half to add it to the website.

Advice for Spreadshirt Users
Jeremy suggested that if you want to sell t-shirts you should stick to shirts you would wear. Jeremy recommend that you avoid designing for trends and what you think is popular. His advice is to design things that you would like to wear and then find those niche groups that would also like your shirts. When he was getting started he would post his shirts on MySpace to groups that he thought would appreciate the designs. Jeremy credits Spreadshirt’s flexibility for helping him start his business. On the advantages of print-on-demand - “Spreadshirt gives you the freedom to experiment” and “There is no real cost to just trying things out.” Jeremy commented that Spreadshirt allows you to “learn as you go” rather than having to know all the rules ahead of time which has made it easy for him to get into the t-shirt business. As for pricing - Jeremy says he likes to keep prices as low as he can rationalize and that $15 seems like a fair price for a t-shirt.

Famous T-shirts Sightings
Jeremy has sent his t-shirts to the author Harlan Ellison and he created a design at the request of a band to wear at the SXSW music festival. Marta from Gnooze is wearing an Amorphia Apparel t-shirt in this video.

Just wanted to show off another shop that is powered by Spreadshirt!

Ustream is the leading internet broadcasting platform. Ustream’s proprietary technology powers an easy-to-use, web-based interface, allowing anyone with a camera, computer and Internet connection to broadcast live to the world. Integrated with a host of interactive tools including chatrooms, co-host, and shout meter, Ustream’s platform delivers real-time, social experiences on the web. Since its beta launch in March 2007, Ustream has grown to 360,000 registered users broadcasting 8,000 - 10,000 live shows a day. Ustream.TV is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and is privately held. For more information, please visit: www.ustream.tv.

Check out the Ustream.tv shop here!!!