Review: Deep T-Shirts

The guys at Deep sent out this pretty sweet t-shirt. Looking at it online I wasn’t all that impressed but holding it in my hand, I thought it was a pretty sweet t-shirt. The design is very simple but of course that is part of the…I don’t know. Just look at it.  It is a nice tee and on top of that the presentation is pretty cool. There is a pretty cool hang-tag. I admit I probably binned it fairly quickly but I do appreciate this level of detail. There are also two tags on the tee, a standard tag on the inside neck and a small sleeve tag. I like sleeve tags, they make your shirt look cooler in general.

On the Deep website there are nine t-shirts from nine artists. They sell other stuff too but you didn’t come to a t-shirt blog to read about that. Back to the t-shirts, there are 8 more t-shirts with fairly simple but cool designs. I really like this Be Free t-shirt by Rick Cole too.

Their t-shirts are manufactured by American Apparel and are screen-printed with water-based inks as they are friendlier to the
environment. Deep is built around the artist and provides a platform for up and coming designers.They are looking for artists with positive, thought-provoking, unique and inspiring ideas. Check out the Join Us page for more details about submitting your art.

There is also a sign on the home page saying that there is a design contest coming soon so stay tuned.

Review: TV Store Online

I have only seen a couple of episodes of the Big Bang Theory but I have to say that I enjoyed them. It reminded me of the British sitcom, the IT Crowd. Of course it has a similar theme. As much as I love British sitcoms though I just couldn’t get into the IT Crowd. The Big Bang theory on the other hand, I liked instantly.

Anyway, because I am a (not very dedicated) fan of the Big Bang Theory I was pretty happy when the TV Store Online said they were going to send me a Big Bang Theory themed t-shirt. The tee is a black heavy cotton Gildan. There are six t-shirts in the Big Bang Theory section of TV Store Online and while I think the simplicity of this t-shirt makes it very wearable even for people who have know idea what the Big Bang Theory is, I prefer the others which all either have a very retro vibe or are total geek wear.

There is also a huge selection TV and pop culture t-shirts (eg. 30 Rock, 90201, Eastbound and Down) to choose from so definitely check them out at TV Store Online. I have a feeling that I will be posting about a few of them in the future so stay tuned.

Review: Kraezy Clothing

Well, it wasn’t that long ago that someone sent me some t-shirts and provided very little information. I was able to dig some up about that company but I am not too sure what is going on with this one but I did find an interview for those of you who are interested in where Kraezy Clothing came from. I especially liked this line:

…he did things at school and throughout his childhood that he refuses to speak about. “There are certain stories which must remain untold for now. One day, I’m sure all will be revealed, maybe in a book or a film, but I’m not quite ready for that yet.”

What did he do I wonder? Do an upper-decker in the headmasters bathroom?

Anyways, I should be talking about the shirts but first a word about the Kraezy website. It’s a splash page (first mistake) with … hold on. Just take a look at the screenshot of the website below and tell me how many links are on the page.

The answer is one. The only thing that you can click is the word “Enter”. Interesting. And when you do click it it takes you to the Big Cartel store. A url redirect to the Big Cartel store would be better than this. And if for some reason you wanted to go back to the splash page from the Big Cartel store you have to use the browser back button because the “Back to site” link at the top of the store is a bad link.

Anyways, t-shirts. The guys at Kraezy sent over three t-shirts. They all have sewn in custom tags as well as hang tags on pretty cool retro style string. I don’t know what the blanks are but they are heavy cotton tees. Great for cooler climes. I found them to be looser than American Apparel standard tees so maybe they’re not so bad in the summer either. Not Yokohama summer but somewhere less humid.

The first tee here is a logo tee. I thought I totally rocked this red logo t-shirt but Mrs. Retro said no. She’s not into the red on me. When did I get too old for red? Anyway, you guys know that I’m not all that into branding on the tees unless it is clever or the logo is awesome or perhaps just discrete. This red tee is a straight up logo tee. It’s a step up from a Hewlett Packard polo shirt that the printer salesmen wear when setting up in-shop displays. The one at 90 degrees in the store is much better but really it is still a logo tee.

I don’t remember what they were but years ago there was a product that spoofed lots of other products. Maybe they were stickers or something like that. You know, they would take a famous brand and change it slightly to make it humorous. I came across them recently on the web but I just can’t remember any details. Anyway shirt no. 2 reminds me of those. In this case they are adding a bit of humor to the wash (see how I did that) with a washing detergent parody. It’s a solid design but a little bit too square for a tee. Square as in the shape. I’m not quite sure who they are marketing it to though.

Tee no. 3 is pink. I know that Rude Retro totally rocks pink t-shirts but they are really not my thing. The design on this tee is the best of the three and the one that makes you think of the graffiti which is where his design skills were cultivated having been a vandal graffiti artist since the age of 6. Big typography with clouds/bubbles and surveillance cameras. Check, check, check. Other colors are available that I’m sure would suit my fair complexion a bit better though.

Check out their selection: Kraezy Clothing.

Review: 2600 Strange Ave.

I have been slow getting around to this particular review so apologies to 2600 Strange Ave crew and thanks for not hassling me. The photo above, which I robbed from their website, shows the inspiration for the 2600 Strange Avenue t-shirt store. Well, let me tell you more. A bunch of friends got together on a summer cruise and after bantering about the ridiculousness of the super tight Ed Hardy and Ed Hardy like tees decided to have a bit of fun. Armed with a few white t-shirts and a magic marker they had a successful parody on their hands and may even have gotten laid because of it.

Realizing they were onto something, they decided to start their own t-shirt store and so 2600 Strange Ave was born. Their motto is that their is more to life than a $90 t-shirt so they give out a packet of condoms with each and every $90 t-shirt they sell.* Sometimes when they run out of condoms (due in no small part to pilfering by employees) they include ChupaChups.*

At the moment there are just 5 shirts in the 2600 Strange Ave store all of which contain their pretty cool logo. Sometimes just for emphasis the logo is on the back of the tee too. I like their logo, it works on a tee but enough is enough. Two of the tees are obvious digs at the Ed Hardy/Christian Audigier/Affliction type tees and are great for people who want to rap about that. I prefer their other tees though. They’re simple and cool.

The tee that they sent you can see above. It is a Gildan black t-shirt and contains a list of what you can expect to find on the aforementioned tees. This list illustrates the formulaic approach to designing such a t-shirt and is spot on. There’s not much designing to it but I think that that may be the point.

All the tees are $20 and they give $2 for every shirt sold to a charity.

Check them out: 2600 Strange Ave.

*Some of what I wrote may have been fictional.

Review: Altman Tees

If you have been following @RudeRetro on twitter you will know that about a week ago a t-shirt arrived from @altmantees. If you check out Altman Tees Twitter page you will notice that he has yet to tweet. Anyway let’s start with the t-shirt that was sent for a change.

The t-shirt is a standard American Apparel so definitely no complaints there. The design is what it is all about though and what is it all about? At first glance I thought it was a football (American kind) and then I thought it looked like a football boot upside down. That’s a bit strange so I thought perhaps it was  a blimp\airship. On the right side of the design it looks more round than the oval of the left and brings to mind a flying saucer. But what is connecting it to the ground? It looks like it is connected to the ground. It could be some kind of new-fangled traffic lights.  Is that a ladder going up?

As you can see this seemingly simple design is rather complex and I imagine it and all the other tees at Altman Tees are real conversation starters and isn’t that what t-shirts are all about. We wear particular t-shirts to tell others about our personality…or because they were a gift. So if you are sick of your college humor tees and you want something a bit more stylish you should definitely check out Altman tees. At the moment there are 6 tees on offer all with equally (as if you can quantify it) interesting one color designs.

So what is the image in the Aspire an abstract of? My guess is that it can be whatever you choose it to be.

Get close-ups and more information at Altman Tees.

Review: DVClothing

Writing a review is work. Let’s make that clear. It is just like any other job, sometimes you enjoy it and sometimes you don’t but whichever, it is still work. I do quite a lot of writing in my life actually. For example, one of my jobs is writing articles for Yokohama City and it is the same. Sometimes I enjoy it, sometimes it is tedious, sometimes it is hard work and sometimes it is stressful. Other times it is fun and I can’t believe I get paid for it. Writing these reviews is very similar except here I can give my honest opinion. But the pay is lousy. On the other hand, it’s my blog and I am the boss.

Why am I telling you all this? Well, I just want to emphasize that writing this particular review was work. Usually when people contact me to review a shirt they provide me with plenty of information but not this time. One guy just contacted me and said he wanted to send me a shirt and I gave him the address and a shirt arrived. There was quick note scribbled on to a scrap of paper that gave me some bare details. No information about the store or shirt or anything. I had to contact him to get some details…like the url of his store. Nice guy but definitely needs to learn some marketing skills.

Anyway, on to the t-shirt. The tee that was sent over is called Rosa Parks Station. It’s from a line of photography based t-shirts called Grey Matter that was started in 2006. I have nothing against putting photographic images on a tee but this particular t-shirt does nothing for me. I know who Rosa Parks is, even though I am neither black nor American but I don’t know the significance of Rosa Parks Station. Is it a tourist t-shirt? Why would I want a photo of this on my tee? I don’t know the answers to these questions. As you can see below the image looks like it might have been a good photo but I’m not sure it was meant for a t-shirt.

The tee is a black cotton Alstyle and looks like it will last a while. On the back of the t-shirt you will also find a quite uninspired logo. Another negative point. If you are going to put the logo on the outside of the t-shirt you should at least have a good logo or be very creative.

DVClothing (Dirty Vato Clothing) started in 2007 as a way to “creatively articulate the culture of L.A”. that Erwin Recinos (owner) sees. “From pop culture references, latino heritage, car culture and a true L.A. lifestyle that is ever changing.” After three years the line is still quite small and made up of a variety of logo t-shirts most of them going for just $10. Of all the tees on sale only the Dirty Dodge t-shirt seems to be “designed” although I do like the His Gun t-shirt. Just don’t try and get on an airplane while wearing it.

DVClothing is hosted on Big Cartel. You can check it out here: DVClothing.

Review: Izzi Pop

Izzi Pop sent over these two tees quite a while ago and it has taken me all this time to actually post about them. Sorry about that Izzi.  Before I talk about the tees though I think  I will talk about the store. I hadn’t really checked out Izzi Pop before the tees were sent over. After getting the t-shirts though of course it is my duty to check it out. I have to say I was a little surprised by it. I mean the tees were perfect, not something that I would buy for myself but definitely something that I would wear. The Izzi Pop website is far from perfect and I tell you this so when you visit you won’t be put off. There is quality in there, you just have to click…and click…and click…and click to see it.

The website looks like it was built by someone just trying out a new CMS, using the default template and perhaps changing a color here and there. From what I can see there are two logos, the one on the top corner is so small that the words “Izzi Pop” are illegible. I know they are there only because I got stickers with my t-shirt. Then there is another logo right in the middle of the home page and as far as I can see it is not even available on a t-shirt. If that were me and I had no choice about the layout of the store I would put my best selling t-shirt there.

On the Izzi Pop website the images are too small and I bet that most people don’t even bother to click through (4 clicks to largest image) which is a pity because for those into vector collage designs Izzi Pop has this style down pat. I think the popularity of this style has subsided but there is still a market and if people could actually see the designs in Izzi Pop they might take a small bite out of it.

Anyway, enough about the store design. Let’s talk about the shirts. The mans shirt I received is a silver gray tee of super soft cotton. The print on three areas is flawless.  The chest design is a bit generic but that’s OK and across the back shoulder is a logo with some embellishment. I’m not into logos on my tee as I may have mentioned. The third print area is the tagless tag for your comfort.

The second t-shirt that was sent I really like. It is a very clean vector graphic design that has a combination of elements that make it just a fun design. It’s called Hair Pop Graphic Tee and contains a lot of swirls, ink splashes and hearts. It even has a hair comb….I mean, what else would you need. It is a light blue super soft cotton tee too. And I don’t think I mentioned but they both smelled great.

There are only five mens tees and 5 womens tees at the moment but Izzi Pop are having a holiday sale at the moment with tees marked down to $23 from $27 with further discounts available (if I am reading it right) if you buy 3 or more shirts. On top of that you can receive 10% off with the code Izzi Pop kindly gave to The T-Shirt Review readers:  retro. Now that’s awesome! Thanks Izzi!

Review: Hypnic

A few weeks ago I received this sweet tee in the mail from Hypnic. Hypnic does seem like a strange name and truth be told I had never heard the word before. I was sure Hypnic’s founder, Mike Hammer (Really!), told us that the name of his web store comes from his design process but I have nothing to back that up. According to Wikipedia a hypnic jerk “is an involuntary myoclonic twitch which occurs during hypnagogia, just as the subject is beginning to fall asleep. Physically, hypnic jerks resemble the “jump” made when a person is startled.” I have had a few of those. So Mike Hammer wakes up suddenly with this idea in his head and sets to work creating these awesome abstract yet somehow comfortingly familiar designs and we get the Hypnic store. (Disclaimer: I may have imagined this.)

There is not much of a selection. With only five distinct designs (available in several colors), you don’t have much to choose from but what they do have is originality. You won’t find these tees anywhere else, in fact I imagine it would be hard to find similar tees. All the tees in Hypnic are wearable and are perfect for people who are sick of the the current trends such as the oversized prints  produced by stores like Design by Humans, lazy pop culture references by stores like Busted Tees and grotesque Zombie tees by just about every indie tee designer with a Big Cartel store.

Anyways, the tee I received in the package may be the Hypnic signature tee and is available in navy, brown and lemon yellow. The design is used as the background to the website. It’s called Ootline which makes me think that it must be a typo but it doesn’t really matter what it’s called. The design looks like smoke wafting over the shoulder and the placement of the design is what really makes this t-shirt. As you can see the design goes right over the sleeve and over the seams. There are a few minor print issues at the seams but that’s the norm for screen-printing and they are barely noticeable and don’t take away from the overall effect of the design.

Another tees that really caught my eye was the Winter tee. The design looks like a block of ice that has naturally formed tree patterns as it melts. It is a stunning design and really does make me think of Winter when I look at it.

Hypnic uses American Apparel so you don’t have to worry about sizing or wonder if they were made my little kids in China. If you want to wear something different you have found it. Hopefully he will crank out a few more designs before Christmas.

As an added bonus Hypnic is giving a 30% off coupon to anyone who becomes a fan on their Facebook page before the end of November. Also you should follow their blog for other offers, news and new t-shirts.

Review: Symbolika

I received this little package from Symbolika a while back but am just getting around to it now. It’s been a while since my last post and I had been doing so well too. I admit to setting up a few robo-posts though. I had time one day and stuck a lot of posts on a timer. Anyways, back to the tee shirt that I received all the way from Israel.

First impressions are important and Symbolika know this. Not only is their website stylish it is a perfect match for the demographic they are targetting. It’s  a pity they didn’t do the same with the packaging. That said, even in its lack of style, the packaging is impressive enough. Inside the white envelope there was a smooth silver envelope and a sticker. Who doesn’t love a freebie?

OK, so environmentalists won’t be too happy with the next layer of packaging but they would have to admit that it looks good.

The t-shirt itself is quite nice, not too heavy, not to light…just right but it just seemed a bit loose for my taste. I couldn’t find the size on it so I guess it is either a medium or a large. I have a feeling it is a medium though as it is short. In either case I think the neck hole is too big but that may be the preferred style in Israel. I also feel that the  fit is a little odd…maybe I am just used to slimmer fitting tees.

The design is beautiful: a computer generated 3D model of an elephant’s head on the front. The print is perfect and much better than I had expected from looking on the website. The back print is also quite and amazing piece. It employs some visual trickery which I find very clever. At first I didn’t notice how many creatures were there. The back print seems to be a bonus because the front design totally carried the shirt.

As I have mentioned countless times before, I don’t think that shirts need to print their logo on the outside of the t-shirt as we paid for the tee, why should we advertise their company for free. But this logo actually adds to the shirt. The location is subtle and the logo itself is a work of art.

I think the design of the symbolika.com web site perfectly matches the products that they are selling. It’s a bit confusing but it looks good and with a bit of patience you will find what you are looking for. It seems all the designs were created by this dude called Fabian and if he wrote all the text he comes off as as quite pretentious but of course it could be just google bait. “Symbolika is a peephole into Fabian’s psychedelic and spiritual creation.” I wonder what his spiritual creation is. I guess I need to be more enlightened to see it.

The designs are all pretty good, the kind that you’d expect to see hippies in the sixties wearing. Well, if computer generated images were all the rage back then instead of batik or tie-dye or whatever at-the-time innovative technique was actually used.

While I think many people with no interest in the eastern philosophies and cultures referenced at symbolika would love to wear some of these shirts just for the aesthetics, for me the fact that these designs have a deeper meaning and one that may not be in line with my own beliefs or lack thereof is a negative point. For the same reason I don’t wear a crucifix or a star of David around my neck I wouldn’t wear the symbols of a belief system that I know nothing about on my chest. At least not intentionally. That said, I do find some of the artwork very attractive. The beautiful line work reminds me of 3D models that you might have seen in eighties science fiction movies.

DIY Screenprinting

I’m sure many of you have thought about printing your own t-shirts at some point. These days we have POD companies like Zazzle and Spreadshirt so there is really no need to get your hands dirty or even deal with the customers to have your own t-shirt store but the fact is that those companies’ base prices are quite high and you have to work very hard at marketing to sell a lot of $30 t-shirts. Anyway, back to screenprinting. I have never screenprinted anything in my life so when I was given the chance to see how it’s done I jumped at it.

The guys at DIYTeeShirts.com sent me over an evaluation copy of their screenprinting tutorial series. This is a great collection of video tutorials totaling over 1 hour and 20 minutes with accompanying pdf files. They take you through the whole process from beginning to end seemingly without skipping over any areas. They teach you how to build a press from scratch. They show you how to create your design and they even tell you how to clean up after you are finished.

To be honest I was surprised at how much work there is to screenprinting so if you want to start your own screenprinting business this is a great place to start. You can see the actual process on video by screenprinting professionals. You can quickly learn about the do’s and don’ts. They even discuss the difference between water-based inks and plastisol based. At just $67 it might be the best investment in your screenprinting business you will find.

OK, I do have a disclaimer though. As I mentioned, I have never screenprinted so for all I know they have skipped out some important information but I doubt it. Not only do they give video demonstrations of how to do it but they also explain why and they even tell you how to avoid bad prints.

One criticism I would have about the videos is the sound. It is quite inconsistent so you may have to adjust the volume up or down several times. Still the information is there. Check it out.

Screenprinting Walkthrough at DIYTeeShirts.com

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