Zazzle.com Release Skateboards
Zazzle have added an exciting new product to their lineup. You can now customize your own skateboard. Hell, you can even open up a skateboard shop. There seems to be eight types of boards to choose from in three categories. They sell for around $60. Below is information from the FAQ about the skateboards which will probably be of interest to skateboarders. I don’t really know much about them.
Completes are outfitted with premium components, including Independent Stage 10 trucks and Ricta Natural wheels on most decks. The narrow Mini 7 1/4” and the Old Skool Cruiser are outfitted with Krux 3.0 trucks and softer Ricta Cloud wheels for a smooth ride on any surface. The Old Skool 8 1/2” is also outfitted with Ricta Clouds. All completes are finished with Bullet bearings, grip tape and hardware.
Independent trucks:
Independent introduced its first truck in 1978, called the Stage 1. Thirty years later, the Stage 10 combines Indy’s often imitated legendary fast-action geometry, hollow body hanger, 4140 chrome molly steel axle, and Grade 8 kingpin. The result is a light, perfectly balanced, ultra responsive and durable truck.Ricta Wheels (depending on deck selected):
Naturals: 8% lighter than other so called “lightweight” wheels. Narrow shapes with slightly wider riding surfaces for increased control and durability. Double-sided raised graphics with smooth conicals that won’t interfere with grinds.Clouds: Perfect for cruising. 78A durometer surface urethane and 78 durometer core! Super bouncy and fast, making even the roughest of surfaces feel like smooth warehouse floors. Modern shaped and not too heavy or bulky.
Super Cute Tees from AAITSKI!
The good folks over at Belgian (I think) outfit AAITSKI! sent over a tee to be reviewed. They have a selection of super cute t-shirts that I am sure would be a hit over here in Japan, at least with the girls. The t-shirts are really cute. Oh wait. I think I might have mentioned that. But what I want to say is that because of their cuteness I imagine their main demographic is girls and possibly children.
Anyway they sent over a ladies tee which you can see modeled below by my teelicious wife. Great fit and very cute (again, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I just can’t stop saying cute) design. Pussy Catsy is a four color screen print and we were very impressed with the quality. The print was flawless and the tee is a nice soft material.
The only criticism I have about this shirt and it is a problem I have with many t-shirts is the advertising. The back of the t-shirt shows the url of the store. I know it is a way to get the word out but I think most people don’t want to be walking billboards. For people with long hair though it may not be a problem.
Check out their site for more cu… pretty t-shirts. They are also having a back to school sale at the moment. If you order between August 25th and August 31st you can receive a 10% discount. At least I think that’s correct.
Threadless Sale - All Tees $12
Threadless are having a back to school sale so you can get your hands on some awesome tees for just $12. You might have to hurry though as they may be selling quickly. A lot of the shirts that I looked at were only available in particular sizes. Below are a couple examples of what you can get.
FiftyThousandT-Shirts.com Store Open
About three months ago I told you about the guys over at Fifty Thousand T-Shirts attempting to raise money to help out the victims of the earthquake that devastated China earlier this year. Their idea was to sell t-shirts (50,000 of them) and hand over all the profits (about $1,000,000) to a relevant charity. It took a while to get the shirts out as there were a few hiccups along the way but they are finally on sale. So if you are feeling charitable please head over there and grab yourself a shirt or two.
Obviously I don’t have my t-shirts yet but they look pretty nice and they are for a good cause. Recently though I have been thinking about this charity and it is a nice thing to do and one million dollars seems like a lot of money and should help a lot of people. Then I think about the $58 billion that I heard were spent on the Olympics in China and I think again. Reduce that figure to $57 billion and you could have helped a thousand time more people that this charity will. Something to think about.
Draco Wins at itself
I had noticed the two designs by Draco at itself and I was pretty impressed. In fact I was the first person to post a comment on the two pieces so I wasn’t all that surprised when I saw that his Pandora’s Box design was selected as the third winner at design contest itself. It is a very pretty design printed on a green t-shirt. I am sure it will be more popular with girls than boys though the manga styling will surely get the geek attention.
He wins $1,750 cash and $250 in store credit with the possibility of doubling that if it is reprinted. The prizes and itself are pretty sweet.
After this win I decided to check up on Draco and I discovered that he is an old hand at these t-shirt design contest and that he is a prolific artist racking up wins all over the place including industry leader Threadless, new powerhouse Design by Humans and his Camiseteria from his native Brazil. Below are a selection of my favorites.
This first one is called Good Seed and not only is it a cool t-shirt it is for a good cause. Good to know that Draco is not all about the dollar. Check out the Common Threadz homepage for more information.
Magic is a very funny image and typical of the humor that can be seen over at Threadless but this is available at Pampling.com which I guess is a Brazilian site. You can use Google translate to help you get your shirt though. It would indeed be a great magic trick for a rabbit to pull a magician out of a hat.
This kitten bondage design is hilarious and I don’t know what the caption is. I can guess though. It’s available at European design contest site La Fraise.
The Legendary Smell of Flowers… is available at Design by Humans and I like the fact that the design doesn’t take up most of the t-shirt. The design is awesome too although I am not too sure what the message is. Here in Japan though where hayfever is such a big problem I can almost see this happening in the future. As of writing though it appears to only be available in XL and XXL.
Warning Fisherbot! is available at 2 Many T-Shirts which may also be a Brazilian site. Back to Google Translate. I like this one because of the retro modern feel. What’s with the oxymoron you may ask? Well, it reminds me of the future vision as seen in Bladerunner. You dig?
Beat Up Angel is a great piece that I have seen before. You can find it at Uneetee. The t-shirt speaks for itself.
This next one is actually sold out so if you want to get your hands on one go over to Threadless and request a reprint and hope for the best. It does happen.
Chimp is a very cool and funny design and one of my favorites. No matter what he is attempting to do we are dealing with one smart chimp here. The question is how smart?
The final one I chose is quite different in style from the others and I chose it really to show Draco’s range. I also like the muted colors of this design. It is also available at Camiseteria.
You can find more information about Draco, his t-shirts and his art on his website.
Free Nissan Cube T-Shirt
I came across this offer this morning. Nissan Cube are giving away the first 500 t-shirts free from their new Spreadshirt store. I was almost certain that they would all have been gone but I tried it anyway and I was able to get my hands on a free tee. The problem came when I got to the shipping charges. UPS International Premium is $29.99 to Japan. Wow. And USPS International Economy is $12.99. I don’t mind paying $12.99 for a t-shirt but maybe not a Nissan Cube T-Shirt. I didn’t know that Spreadshirt international shipping was such a rip-off.
Anyway for those living in the US, it’s not a bad deal. All you have to pay for is shipping which is $4.99 I believe and you get to choose from a number of text t-shirts. I was going to choose “self interest, not that interesting”. Let us know if you get a free t-shirt.
Big Blue T-Shirt Design Contest
South African clothing company Big Blue are running a t-shirt design competition at the moment and the prize is pretty sweet. R20,000 (about US$2,500) plus R10 per shirt sold. The theme is Funny-Galore. They are looking for a design that makes them laugh. From what I can see the contest is open to everyone no matter which country you reside in which is pretty cool. It’s called the Makhulu Polane Awards 2008 and I have no idea what that means.
Zazzle’s Rebranding and the New Look
I got a bit of a surprise when I was checking out my stores a few minutes ago. One second I was looking at the familiar sight of the what has just become old Zazzle branded page and the next I am looking at a darker vision. Do I like the new look? Yes, I think so. Am I happy with the change? No. Reasons below.
Zazzle’s explanation for the change is… I’ll just post an excerpt below.
Zazzle is much less interested in promoting itself than it is in promoting our users and the content they generate. This overhaul of Zazzle’s identity is intended to create a brand that allows us to step back from the limelight so that your content takes the center stage.
If this is true how come the new Zazzle branding takes up more space than the old one? How come the new logo is bolder than the old one? Why is the Zazzle marketplace search bar featured more prominently than before? As mentioned in a previous post called 10 ways to improve Zazzle, I think that Zazzle has too much branding and too many leaks from our stores and now the leak that I hate most of all, the Zazzle marketplace search, is sure to draw more of our customers away from our stores than ever before. If Zazzle really wanted our content to take center stage they would really reduce the size of their branding and get rid of those leaks. I believe with Printfection and Spreadshirt you can remove branding totally from the page but don’t quote me on that. Even Cafepress’ branding is subtle compared to Zazzle’s.
That’s the branding and the search bar but there is also the web design here. A simple rule is to keep important content high on the screen but our content has just been pushed a little further down to make room for Zazzle’s new look and search bar. If Zazzle really wanted to promote us and our content why is our content being pushed down the screen?
This is the old branding below and what the header used to look like.
This is the new header with the new logo, look and more prominent search bar.
The Zazzle home page looks very good though and is much more attractive than the previous text heavy version. I prefer the image based home page but that is just a visual thing. I thought that the changeover was for SEO purposes. I wonder why the about face.
Back on the Campaign Trail
In a previous post we reviewed some shirts from Retro Campaigns. It was a glowing review simply because the products were flawless. (See previous review.) Retro Campaigns have a special niche and that is politicians and politics of yesteryear. They have recently added about seven new designs to their collection so if you want to be political without being… err… political that is the place to get your shirts. The designs are simple with few and muted colors that just give the impression that the tees were taken from a chest in your parents attic. Except, of course, they are in mint condition with no mothball smells. Quite the opposite in fact. You’ll understand that comment when you get the shirt (or you could check my previous post).
Below are two new shirts featuring the Kennedy brothers. I especially like the JFK shirt as I can really imagine people wearing a shirt like that 40 or 50 years ago. There were no JFK is my homeboy t-shirts back then. (*Light bulb goes on, opens up Photoshop*)
The next two though are my favorite of the new t-shirts. I especially like the first t-shirt. It is a one color design but the detail is great and the message is pretty cool too. I almost thought the draft was going to come back to the US too. The next is a very cool campaign shirt for Lyndon B. Johnson.
If you are looking for an American retro political t-shirt there is no reason to look at any other site. The shirts are designed and printed in the US by US designers and printed on American Apparel. When you are going to buy your cool retro political t-shirts at Retro Campaigns be sure to stick around a little to read about American political history. You might just learn something too.
This is totally going in my blog
I received three tees from Zazzle yesterday and I am pretty impressed with the quality. After constantly hearing about the poor quality of POD t-shirts I guess my expectations weren’t all that high. Even if they were high though I wouldn’t have been disappointed. That said I was always pretty impressed with the shirts from Cafepress too. Anyway back to the t-shirts. The t-shirts I received were all from my own store. Sorry fellow Zazzlers and they looked just like they do in my Zazzle gallery. The only criticism is that the print area looks smaller in real life than on the screen. I have included photos so you can compare them yourselves.
The first one here is one of my newest creations and bears the same name as the title of this post. This is totally going in my blog. This is a line from sitcom How I Met Your Mother but I made it because I found myself saying this line (to myself) many times. It is printed on a 6.1oz Hanes Beefy Tee. I have heard many complaints about white printing on dark tees but this is exceptional. It could easily be mistaken for a silkscreen print.
The next one is my Obama 8 T-Shirt from the Rude Politics Store. It is a parody of the Superdry Osaka 8 t-shirt made famous by Beckham. Again the print is very clear and it could also be mistaken for a silkscreen print. Of course it is a simple one color design. It is printed on a 6.1 oz Hanes Tagless tee. A little warm for Japan summer. Definitely night time only.
The final one is one of my favorite designs and one that took me a bit of time. It is a flashback to my childhood when this type of image was very common for toys for young boys. Something as simple as a yo-yo was sold in packages just like this design. It’s on a lightweight American Apparel Tee.
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