Bountee ( UK)

Had a nice email from Steve from a Uk based shirt company called Bountee. Steve seems like a great bloke. His sites pretty sweet too. It has a great concept.

Basically to cut a long story short, Bountee are using direct to print methods to produce their shirts. This is in layman's terms is sticking a tshirt through a printer, sceptical??? Don't be, I've touched one with my own hands and it's pretty effing good. It enables Bountee and their customers an enormous amount of freedom. Customers can create their own designs just how they want them and then sell them through their shop. Seeing as they print their shirts to demand there is no excess stock and therefore no risk. If nobody likes a particular design it doesn't matter, they havn't lost out and they don't have tonnes of stock lying around. I'm sure the customers and designers love this too, it gives everyone a great deal of freedom. Anyways, I would advise you to check them out, theres something for everyone on there, that's the beauty of it.

I posted up a couple of my faves, the top one being the Peter Saville/Joy Division inspired 'D.A.N.C.E' by a designer called Progeny, and the other below called 'Progress Marches On' by a chap with the name Steve218. I'm sure you will have your own favourites.

http://www.bountee.com/

Christmas T Shirt Giveaway - Tshirty.net

Introducing the brand new (hopefully annual) Christmas tshirt giveaway from tshirty.net. This is perhaps the easiest contest to enter......ever, and has some really great prizes up for grabs. There are contributions from Origin68, Awesome Creatures, 2 Smart Monkeys, Odd Hero, Crack Smoking Shirts and Crazy Tee Shirts. I encourage everyone to let your friends know as well, because with 7 different T-Shirts for the winner, I’m sure they can spare a few for you.

The contest is up and running, so to enter simply submit your name on the web page and wait for Lady Luck to do her thing.

http://www.tshirty.net/christmas-giveaway

Origin68 (Manchester)

Once again, true to their word, Origin68 have delivered on time. Their plan for world domination through featuring a new tee every month is going to plan. This time it's Man Made Earth. The first in what they describe as a series of designs highlighting man's continued campaign of destruction against the planet. Deep stuff. So expect more. Probably in another month.

It's a valid point. Is there anything we havn't put a price on yet? Search on the internet and you will see that it's now even possible to buy a plot of land on the moon? Like who fecking owns the moon in the first place in order to sell it on??!! That's what I want to know. Complete Madness.

So yeah, see for yourselves....

http://www.origin68.com/manmadeearth

Extraverage (Hungary)

Howdy folks

Just a short piece of news for you from Karoly Kiralyfalvi/Extraverage who we have featured before. The website http://www.extraverage.net/ has been face-lifted.
Neat new layout and menu, fine-selected content with new additions, new downloads, plus fresh stuffs in the webshop. Moreover there are 2 brand new shirts available for purchase!

http://www.extraverage.net/

Big Chief (Italy)

You have to check out big chief based in Italy. They are a young Milan-based digital communication and graphic design company founded by young passioned and inspired people. They make these quality little dudes that you can construct yourselves from card. Easy as. They do different styles and keep adding new ones so you can get yourself a nice little collection of these fellows. I think I would like to see them do some different shaped characters as opposed to re-dressing the same chap. Either way, they look great sat on your desk.

Download them here: http://think.bigchief.it/toys

Jordan Atkinson

Not so much a t shirt brand as a graphic designer who has branched out into t-shirts. I see from his portfolio that he has done a few tour shirts for a few well known bands. I just like the style of these, specially the frankenstein one, nice little frankie goes to hollywood pun going on. Beats those shitty 80's massive text relax rip-offs I keep seeing everywhere. You know the ones I mean, those really tacky looking ones with 'born in the 80's' on. Utter crap. Nothing gets my blood boiling quite like those. So many great shirt designs out there yet people still choose to wear that shit. Anyway yeah, back to the shirts 'ey. I'm not a big winehouse fan, it's a nice print though and to be fair she's got a good set 'o pipes. I put it on there anyway.

You decide.

http://www.jordanatkinson.co.uk/shop.html

Le Filtre Du Monde (Spain)

Not come accross this brand before. They sent me a nice email on the off chance that i may do something about. Well, good news for them, I have. I have to say that i quite like this shirt. I like the colours and i really like the name and the concept. It's titled Sinergia which translates as Synergy: interaction or cooperation of two or more agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects. So as far as that definition goes it works pretty nicely.
Sinergia is available here:

http://www.lefiltredumonde.com/lfdm_en/

People Like Us (Australia)

Strewth mate! Stumbled accross these today. Unexpectedly. Great tees. Theres more than a few designs on their site that i would happily part with cash for.

I have decided to post my three favourites. The top one is called Farewell to My Concubine by Kenneth King, I'm not sure the image on here will do it justice but theres some super sweet details on this baby. I'm not a big fan of white tees either but this gets my vote. In the middle is Fresh Air by Chalermphol Hanchakum. Nice colours, nice print. Butterflies, swirls and pretty faces, always a nice combo. Maybe an overdone style but this works for me. And finally is Monstrocity by Jan Avendano. They are some cool little monsters. Nice hand drawn quality to this one which i like. Too many of those digital vector monsters around these days.

For more beauties of a similar nature see:

http://www.peoplelikeuscollective.com/

Origin68 (Manchester) - More Designs

Seems like the Origin68 boys are keeping themselves busy. They appear to be going from strength to strength and have added 2 more designs to their small but perfectly formed gallery. Still no sign of those free refreshments promised on the site though!!

The first is titled Come Get Me (it reads " come get me you bastards"), as far as we can make out it will suit folks who like green, deer, the countryside and abusive language. Its a nice simple design with a good message.

The second is Grizzly Bare, a collaboration with a band from Leeds called.....yes you guessed it....GrizzlyBare. We don't know much about the band but we had a look at their myspace http://www.myspace.com/grizzlybare and they rocked. Double result.

Find origin68 stuff here:

www.origin68.com

Commune

New shirts from commune. Seven of them to be precise. Thats alot. If you havn't checked their label out before then nows your chance. They have a nice back catalogue for you to get your teeth into.
To quote them "Alrighty! We're back! Check out our new range, isn't it beautiful?Have a look through, I bet there's something you like.Mmmm new artists, new tees, all is good with the world."
Have a gander at their site here:
http://www.communallove.com/

Collapse Design - Sex Drugs, Helvetica, Bold.

WARNING - Not for threadless lovers.

Maybe I've made a sweeping generalisation here but from the time I've spent on a certain threadless site I always got the impression that their beloved hardcore fans always had a disliking for shirts with text on. Why? What is the dealio with a bit of text. I happen to love text....it makes words.

I am particulalry partial to a spot of helvetica too. Helvetica is always a crowd pleaser. I guess it's the Le Corbusier of the font world. Simple, understated, and timeless.

So to sum up here...........any shirt that has the words sex and drugs on it in the helvetica font is a winner in my book. Even the packaging looks super cool. Smash them in at

http://www.collapse-design.co.uk/pages/tshirts.html

Absent Without Leave

Yes folks We've been away a while, but were back. Oh the joy. Not sure what the intensity will be like, we will see. Since we have been away the inbox is brimming so thanks to all who have sent their stuff over. Keep on sending, even if we don't respond instantly we will get round to it eventually.

French Loser_New Designs

Brand new designs in from our friends at Frenchloser. Theyre french but they're certainly not losers. Well, at least i hope they're not. I guess they could be....... Maybe they pride themselves on their loserness. Who knows.

The shirt on silver is called 'Headache' designed by Drew Millward, t'other is called, yes you've guessed it.....'Miami' designed by Theoze. Nice prints. Like the colours. We all need a little colour in our lives.

http://www.frenchloser.com

Concrete Hermit (London)

Found this site a few days back. Nice website, nice designs, nice ideas, hairy faces. Based in London they work with the best British and international illustrators and artists to produce original products. Concrete Hermit have been around for a while, since 2004 I believe but they are still as fresh today as i expect they were when they first appeared on the scene. They set out to create a platform that promoted interesting work fairly and with respect for both the artist and the buyer. I think they did it. Theres loads of other cool stuff like books and badges on the site too. Go on give them some of your time.

http://www.concretehermit.com

ORIGIN68 New Design

The second shirt from newcomers Origin68.

Titled Consume Everything, its the 21st century mantra. Buy Buy Buy. Gotta have it, gotta have it all, gotta have it NOW!. Well you can, it's available, and its waiting for you to slip it over your ears and waltz down the high street. Live the dream.

We are really loving the originality of this design.

www.origin68.com/consume

BOOBOOKACHOO (Wales)

Who the hell are these guys? - you may be asking yourself! Well we'll try to explain:

They are a small t-shirt design company based in the Welsh hills who are inspired by their imagination, popular culture and the wilderness surrounding their homes. Their designs show an emphasis on both human design and nature.

They aim to produce clothes that will appeal to city dwellers and village bumpkins a like. They also dabble in music by supporting a variety of different up and coming musicians and bands by designing album covers, posters and of course t-shirts.

Theres a defininate style to their work. A nice simplistic, colourful and bold approach makes the whole thing very refreshing. It's nice that they have a huge colour range for each shirt which is a real bonus. And more importantly they are nicely priced which always helps. Have a butchers.

http://www.boobookachoo.com

misformanc (Manchester)

As most people know (even those that don't even live in this beautiful city) it rains alot in Manchester. It's got itself a reputation as one of the rainiest places in Britain. It's probably faired income. It rains alot. Fact.

So yeah, taking this weather issue in hand the guys at misformanc have come up with these little beauties. I guess you could say they're a re-working of the ten a penny 'I love NY shirts', but they're much much better. It's a nice idea and it's nicely executed and I've no doubt the people of Manchester will lap them up.

misformanc is, in one sentence, 'cool tee's inspired by all things manc'. It's that simple. I will be checking back to see what else they serve up.

www.misformanc.com

RaNdOm: Optical Illusion

On a complete tangent now.......someone sent me this, I'm not a huge fan of the forwarded attachment emails that circulate our offices around the globe but this was a goodun.

Follow the instructions:

1/ Relax and concentrate on the four small dots in the centre of the image for about 30-40 seconds

2/ Then take a look at a wall near you or any smooth surface

3/ Start blinking your eyes and you will see a figure emerging

4/ Do you recognise them?

Negrete (London)

We had these puppies shoved under our nose in the last couple of days. I rather like them. They're by an up and coming London based outfit that goes by the name of Negrete ('Ni-gre-tay').

There's a nice collection going on. Plenty of threads to spice up any day of the week and no obligatory competition in sight. Just good old fashioned t shirts designed by some nice chappies/chappesses for the all consuming t shirt enthusiast, for the sheer love of it all.

Negrete isn't about just one thing. It's not about one place or one people. It's about everything and anything. They may be based in London, but they take their inspiration from everywhere. It's about looking good, feeling good, and doing what you like.

My personal favourite is 'Drugs'. Te he. I'm talking about the name of the shirt. Seriously. It's a great image with some fine detailing, the powder is spot on.

Even if you don't buy anything it's a nice site to have a wander round. Each shirt has a nice bit of spiel to go with it which gave me a chuckle or two.

Anyways, have a look for yourselves....

www.negrete.co.uk

Teetonic (Scotland)

We recently found out about these tees over at Teetonic. These guys up in Scotland hadn't flown in under the radar yet so we were glad to have something fresh to sniff at.

Teetonic is an online t-shirt design competition with a worldwidecommunity of over 10,000 talented designers who contribute daily , this has enabled them to build a catalogue of exciting and unique t-shirtdesigns.

What we liked most about this was the introduction of some 'superdesigners' entries. Love 'em or hate 'em they are well established designers. Peter Saville, Wayne Hemmingway, Zandra Rhodes and Stefan Sagmeister have all contributed. Being from Manchester we were loving the fact that our very own Manclord Mr Saville was on board. Saville is somewhat of a legend in these parts due to his work with Factory Records and co. Hemmingways effort (orange) is particularly worthy of note. What initially appears to be just another tie on tshirt effort is in fact a clever little take on the competition title.

At present they are running a promo where you can win all of the Limited Edition designer tees they
have in stock. A pretty cool prize. For more details see the website

http://www.teetonic.com/

Extraverage (Budapest, Hungary)

Extraverage is Karoly Kiralyfalvi's brainchild. It's his brand, it's his life, it's home to everything he creates.

He is a Budapest based graphic designer.His works are trying to represent a big range of all his experiences and influences.

Extraverage is basically his online portfolio, and it's definately a great portfolio. There's a whole host of clever stuff on there to feast on. It was his work for Hungarian brand Logikwear (whom he is the co-founder and co-owner of) that brought Karoly to our attention. It's an impressive collection
of designs.

The shirt designs featured above are Karoly's latest under his own guise. We're loving these too, particularly the Extraverage Birds one. Check out the shop on his site, there are plenty of other cool things to get hold of, stickers, limited edition prints etc.

www.extraverage.net

FrenchLoser (France)

FrenchLoser is a fresh new site out of France.

The site is based on a design competition (a la Threadless)... The shop part is already open with 5 oh-so fresh design by : Llor, Ensu, Playmoo and Gnot Guedin.

These guys are calling for more designs so, if you have designs, that may have their place in their shop/galerie, please send them. But be warned they are are not looking for any slogans, or oh-so funny shirts.

To be honest, we can't blame them. Were sick and tired of seeing the amount of tshirt sites out there pedalling blank t shirts with unfunny messages accross the chests.

Not only do these guys have some nice tees to buy, there is also a nice selection of tattoos being sported.

http://www.frenchloser.com/

Eio Clothing (London)

Eio (Excess is ok) is the offspring of a creative collective from Goldsmiths College, an edgy label started by artists who began to design garments to finance their art projects. Tired of the vision of regurgitated retro prints on the High Streets around the land, Eio dreamt of creating one-off, bespoke garments, like shimmering works of art, hanging from rails and falling onto dance floors around the world.

Eio’s edgy range boasts bold, sleazy men's and women’s tees, underwear, jumpers and hoodies offering more unusual illustrations crossed with vintage garment recreations that sit as well on the dance floor as in the street. And so a vision was born.

Now in their 6th season, Eio continue to sail the seas creating garments for rakes, profligates and passion-givers the world over. People who have an eye for a unique piece of clothing don Eio. Already a hit amongst the cross-music genre style leaders - including Pete Doherty, Lady Sovereign, Sugababes, CSS, Hadouken!, New Yong Pony Club and Klaxons, Eio is renowned for it's cutting edge, off the wall designs. In between collections, the Eio boys found time to design exclusive one-offs and album covers for their favourite bands.

http://www.eioclothing.com/

Origin68 ( Manchester)

"Origin68 is a brand new site based in Manchester(UK). Designs are created by a variety of local designers and in the future will aim to act as a platform to promote other new talented artists. Most designs tend to play on some kind of idea or message. The t shirt is an ideal opportunity to express ideas without ramming what your point is down people's throats"

Their first design titled Power In Everyone (pictured above) has been launched since June 2007. It's early days but these guys show promise. They have a good selection of designs already posted on the site and we have it on good authority that there are several more in the pipeline. A new design is set to be released within the next 2-3 weeks. see their website for more designs. It's a pretty cool website too, easy to navigate and has a nice homemade feel too it.

http://www.origin68.com/