Zazzle win USPS Award
For those of you who don’t know that POD company Zazzle is more than a t-shirt vendor (much more by the way) you will be surprised to hear that they received an award from the United States Service for…well, it was put so succinctly on the Zazzle blog that I will just post the important excerpt here:
Zazzle was recognized by the U.S. Postal Service with the Strategic Business Development Award for our commitment to a successful business partnership with the Postal Service! This “best in class” award recognized us for taking steps to implement new technologies and best practices to maximize efficiencies in the mail value chain that provide customers with a mail product that delivers increased value and business results.
If you are looking for some unique postage for a special occasion/person you can check out the huge collection or even make your own at Zazzle.com.
These custom stamps are a great way for artists to make a bit of extra cash. Especially if you get into the right niche. If you design for weddings for example you are likely to sell your postage stamps in bulk.
Cafepress Interview on MSNBC
There is a very cool interview with Cafepress on MSNBC discussing political merchandise which you can check out just below. Political t-shirts and bumper stickers are clearly big business but you probably didn’t know that boxer shorts and thongs featuring presidential candidates are also taking off (trying out vague pun). According to Cafepress, while Hillary Clinton is winning the boxer short primaries Obama is leading in the thongs. It is a bit bizarre though. T-Shirts I can understand but we can’t see your underwear (if you are doing it right) so it is a strange way to support your candidate.
Perhaps if the print was on the backside of the underwear you could purchase the underwear of the candidate you hope loses and then sit and set the flatulence free. I’m sure there are people who would enjoy such perverse pleasures.
Another idea I have is that it could be for secret supporters. Your t-shirt proclaims “the Mac is Back” but your underwear says “Mama loves Obama”. Who knows? Below are a few examples. Head over to Cafepress for more.
$13 T-Shirts from Uneetee
Uneetee are having a great sale at the moment where all t-shirts are just $13 and they have some very cool t-shirts too. Check them out. Below are two of my favorites. Uneetee is a competition based site which I will talk about in a later post. For now, just get over there before June 1st and get yourself a bargain.
Art on Shirts by Design by Humans
There are two fantastic new shirts at Design by Humans at the moment. Recently Threadless and some other t-shirt companies have started selling posters/prints of their t-shirt art (See here and here). I don’t want to judge them but they are not something I would put on my wall. On the other hand if either of these two t-shirts were posters I bet a lot of people would put them on their walls. The standard here is very high. It is literally art on a t-shirt. Well done guys. Go check them out at Design by Humans.
Animal Kingdom Rules Threadless
My two favorites of the new Threadless t-shirts have a similar theme. They both involve relationships between animals that have no real business being together. The first (a reprint) is spotted cow and a chicken standing over their spotted egg. What is it about cartoon animals that makes them so appealing? The design of these animals is totally non-realistic with out of proportion body parts that just add to the cuteness of the image. I just love this shirt.
The second is the Amazing Circus where monkeys and elephants can be trapeze artists. In this t-shirt the egg shaped elephant is definitely the star of the show as he flies through the air in search of the Curious George lookalike monkey’s arms.
No Bitch Ass Ness T-Shirts
Since the last time I wrote about this these shirts have become available online at SeanJohn.com. There are apparently many knock offs going around which can be purchased on places like eBay. Sean John is not overly pleased about it either and if you scroll down the page you will see a video of him telling us “Don’t fuck with the bootleg. The bootleg is a bitch ass.” TBH, watching this video makes you wonder who the biggest bitch ass is. The t-shirts are now available in a range of colors, some limited edition, from $38 to $50. I think. You can check out them out at the Sean John Online Shop.
Personally though, I wouldn’t be caught dead in one of these shirts. They have just become too famous. IN about 20 years time though they will probably be retro cool.
Red is White T-Shirt Competition
Red is White is another t-shirt competition based t-shirt store. According to the site you will find unique faith-inspired, super-cool, t-shirts designed by artists from around the world. If your design is chosen the prize is pretty good at $400 + $100 store credit plus royalties of $2 per shirt. That can really add up if you create a popular design. Just 1000 shirts will give you $2400 cash and half a dozen or so t-shirts.
It seems to be a faith based (Christian?) t-shirt store but you don’t have to be a Christian to dig these shirts. I am guessing it is a pretty new store as I saw only eight designs not including a Red is White logo t-shirt. There are many designs submitted though and the standard is pretty high. Below are two designs that are already available.
Fifty Thousand Shirts
I came across FiftyThousandShirts.com on the Tcritic and I think it is a noble cause. The plan is to sell 50,000 t-shirts to raise $1,000,000 for the people affected by the earthquake in China. The number of people who died has already surpassed 50,000 and the number of people made homeless by the quake is estimated at 5 million. By buying one of these shirts you not only get to help some people you also get a pretty cool shirt. And if that wasn’t enough, you also get your name on the Wall (a list of purchasers). The shirts are individually numbered and cost just $25 plus shipping and handling. They hope to send $20 from each sale to China.
If you have a blog I urge you to post about this. It doesn’t need to be a t-shirt blog just spread the word. You can also email your friends and family. The store is not open yet but you can pre-order your t-shirts now and you will be contacted when the store opens. Your name will be put on the board too.
Cafepress to Answer Questions about Infinistitch
I received an email from somebody at CafePress today and they are willing to answer any questions readers have about Inifinistitch. Great news. So if you have any questions feel free to add a comment to this post or send me an email using the contact form and I will pass them on. (Please refrain from using profanities as they will not be published or passed on. I may even block your IP address.)
Even better news for me is that Cafepress are going to send me a sample so I can see for myself. I will post images and opinions here later.
Infinistitch verses Embroidery
My recent blog posts about the new Infinistitch products from CafePress have been getting a lot of attention. There is a heated debate going on about whether or not Infinistitch is embroidery or not. To be honest I really don’t care about definitions. Well, with regard to embroidery anyway. If some product comes along that looks just like embroidery with equal or better quality and is the same price or cheaper I could probably go either way. To be honest, if it were the same appearance, quality and price I would probably go with the tried and trusted embroidery option. The thing is though, that the debate going on in the comments of this blog are pretty much focussed on the definition of the word embroidery.
As I said I don’t care about the definition. For me the product is the important thing and someone in one of the comments posted an image comparing Infinistitch to traditional embroidery and there are striking differences as you can see below. Using this image as a guide I would rather have the back of the traditional embroidery on my shirt than have something created by Infinistitch.
I do think that this CafePress design is probably not a fair representation of results that can be achieved from Cafepress so if anyone at Cafepress would like to send me some photos of their Infinistitch products I will be more than happy to post them in my blog along with a link to your stores. Hurry though, as this offer won’t stay open forever.
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