Tom Slick T-Shirt

I’m surprised that the tee blogs haven’t picked up on this one yet. I’m sure they will soon though as it has been sitting in my to do list for a few days already. One of the latest youtube sensations is Tom Slick aka Epic Beard Man taking on a young punk a public bus. Look around and I am sure there will be tees popping up all over the place related to this video. Check it out and then read on.

Crispy Tees (along with guys in every POD on the planet probably) have created a version of the t-shirt Tom Slick was wearing at the time of the altercation. A fairly accurate version too but as it is just a text design it was a case of matching the text.

Here are a few from the PODs that I have seen:

T-Shirts for Haiti

I haven’t had time to post recently but I have been keeping up on things. One of the big things in the t-shirt industry in the last month or so has been the support for the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. Here are a collection of t-shirts or sites that are doing their bit.

1. Flying Mouse is contributing all profits from this tee too Unicef.

2. Local Celebrity collaborate with Yele Haiti and 100% of tee profits go there.

3. Threadless are contributing all proceeds (not just profit) from the sale of this tee to The American Red Cross and Haiti Relief and Development Fund. At the time of writing this post they have already sold 7000 of these $10 tees and they plan to sell up to 15,000 more. Awesome!

4. Bungie (makers of video game Halo?) are contributing profits from this t-shirt as well as all online store profits through February directly to the relief efforts in Haiti.

5. Cafepress had a t-shirt designed by Shepard Fairey (which is no longer on sale) as well as designs donated from the community which are still available. Cafepress have already donated $30,000 to the US fund for UNICEF.

6. Storenvy have a selection of beautiful shirts and $8 from each sale will go to the American Red Cross. Lots of designers offered up their designs and they all deserve a shout out but only six were chosen.

7. Blink 182 apparently raised $30,000 for Haiti with this t-shirt but it doesn’t seem to be on sale anymore.

8. Lady Gaga also added her celebrity power to a charity t-shirt with all proceeds going to the Red Cross.

9. ZBQ will donate $6 from every t-shirt sold in their until the end of February which is pretty awesome as they have a great collection of original tees.

Cafepress and Upsold Collaboration

As some of you must know by now, Rude Retro is based in Japan. Because of that I have of course checked out some Japanese PODs. Even if I haven’t gotten off my lazy ass and actually opened an account with one and uploaded the designs. All the ones I have seen are pretty ugly or don’t have a good commission structure so I didn’t want to waste my time. Anyway I was checking out Upsold.com a few days ago when I noticed the Cafepress logo. A quick scan tells me that Upsold are going to be releasing all their designs into the Cafepress marketplace. I have mixed feelings about that of course as I have a Japanese themed Cafepress store which will no doubt suffer from the sudden influx of 1.4 million designs from Japanese designers. Unless Upsold reciprocated by selling Cafepress designs on their site I don’t think there is any real benefit for current shopkeepers. I’m not so sure that Upsold could handle 140 million Cafepress designs though.

According to their press release (Japanese pdf) they are starting off the collaboration by affiliating Cafepress on the Upsold site which is cool for us shopkeepers. It may bring in some more sales. I thought it was interesting that they are using cpshop as the script to sell Cafepress items on their site. This press release from Upsold was issued on March 17th 2009.

Update:  According to Leslie Nuccio at Cafepress, “Just a heads-up that the Upsold deal is purely an affiliate deal. That press release is incorrect, and we’re working to get it fixed.
If they choose to upload designs, they’d do it the same way any other Shopkeeper would. However, the deal we did was just an affiliate deal (they’re the affiliate).”

That may alleviate some worries but Cafepress shopkeepers have more pressing concerns, methinks.

Earth Day T-Shirt – Small feet are sexy

Carbonfund.org have teamed up with Cafepress to produce and sell this pretty sweet tee designed to promote environmental awareness. Here is the blurb from the tee page:

Celebrate Earth Day with a carbon-neutral AnvilRecycled shirt. Proceeds benefit Carbonfund.org, which certified the shirt CarbonFree. View Carbonfund.org’s other products at Cafepress.com/carbonfund

Certified CarbonFree^® by Carbonfund.org’s Product Certification Program, the high-quality, pre-shrunk AnvilRecycled^® T-shirt features 69 percent pre-consumer recycled cotton. This tee has been released just in time for Earth Day so you to can help spread awareness. Below are a couple of Rude Retro’s environmental awareness t-shirts which you can purchase in a variety of styles at Zazzle.

Review: Rolling Stone Obama T-Shirt

Back in January I mentioned that Cafepress in collaboration with Rolling Stone were selling a limited edition Barack Obama inauguration t-shirt. These t-shirts are not the regular Cafepress t-shirts but rather a special fulfilment item for Rolling Stone. They were heavily promoted for a while and of course they are pretty cool. I decided to order a couple,  one for the Mrs. and one for me.

They arrived a while ago but I haven’t had time to post about them until now. To be honest I should be spending this evening doing something else as tonight is a deadline for some web design I am doing and tomorrow is a deadline some writing I have to do so I’ll keep it brief.

The shirts are a very light material and actually look just as they do in the promotion pictures on the Cafepress web site. The color of the t-shirt is perfect and just the type of thing that I like to wear. My wife was also happy with the t-shirt and its fit. We were so impressed with them actually that we were going to buy another couple to keep for when these wear out but when I went back to check they were no longer for sale. Well, they did say limited edition. The only criticism I have about the t-shirts is the big double logo of Rock the Vote and Cafepress on the back. Still, that won’t stop me from wearing it.

Anti-Valentine’s Day Winners

Cafepress has announced the winners of their Anti-Valentine’s Day design contest and I think that they have come up with some good designs this year. That reminds me though, in a previous contest there was some talk about the winning design being a rip-off of a design from a popular retail store in the US. I hope that doesn’t happen this time. Anyway, if you like the designs, most, if not all of them are available on a wide selection of apparel and gift items. Just click on the images to see them at Cafepress.

Single Love Category

Boycott Valentine’s Day Category

Anti-Love Category

Cafepress Anti-Valentine’s Day Design Contest

Cafepress are holding an anti-Valentine’s Day design contest that is different from the contest held by Spreadshirt, which I mentioned a few days ago,  in several ways. Of course the obvious difference is that they are looking for Anti-Valentine’s Day designs at Cafepress while Spreadshirt are just looking for a Valentine’s Day design. Another point to note is that Cafepress are only offering a $250 American Express gift card as first prize, a $100 CafePress gift certificate as second prize and a $50 CafePress gift certificate. But Spreadshirt is offering two cash prizes of $500. I could be wrong but it seems that if you win at Spreadshirt, Spreadshirt will own your design and no further profits can be made from it whereas at Cafepress, you get to keep your design, profit from its sale and I’m sure it will get extra promotion from CP to help make even more sales.

One other important difference is that the Cafepress contest is open to only US residents and as far as I can see, the Spreadshirt contest is open to the world.

Link: Cafepress Anti Valentine’s Day contest
Link: Spreadshirt Valentine’s Day contest

The fact that I am not eligible for the Cafepress contest pushes me towards favoring Spreadshirt in this case but I don’t like that Spreadshirt just buys your design. I think that you should get royalties for each time it is sold. I honestly don’t think either of these contests are very good and I wouldn’t bother with them. Of course if you are residing in the US and you are going to make some Anti-Valentine’s Day designs for Cafepress you might as well enter the contest. You have nothing to lose. Or you could just retag your existing images.

With all these t-shirt design contest sites out there who are open to the world there is no reason that Cafepress can’t get their legal team to figure out how to open their contests to the world.

Rolling Stone Obama Inauguration T-Shirt

Just head over to Cafepress and you can quickly see that they are promoting a limited edition Rolling Stone Collection Obama Inauguration t-shirt which is being sold in the Rock the Vote Cafepress store.  It’s a pretty nice shirt with a slick design. Unlike most Cafepress designs this is not available on a host of items from mugs to clocks to hoodies. It is only available on a women’s gray tee and a men’s gray tee. Also unlike the other items for sale at Cafepress the print area is very high on the shirt. It almost touches the neck. There is also a printed tag inside the back of the tee which you can see below.

I do like those printed tags. Another thing to notice is the price tag. It is only $15.  The base price for a dark gray tee like this for regular shopkeepers at Cafepress is $18.99. I think you could add another $2 for the back print too. So, for a Cafepress t-shirt this is great value.

They are also offering a free Inauguration Cap for everybody who purchases one of these t-shirts while also spending $50 or more. Unfortunately it is not very clear whether you have to purchase $50 worth of Inauguration tees, or perhaps from the Rock the Vote store, or maybe even just from Cafepress. If you purchase one let us know how it went. Below are conditions for the free cap which looks more like a hat.

*Free Inauguration Cap with purchase of the Rolling Stone Commemorative T-shirt and an order of $50 or more, excluding shipping charges and applicable sales tax. Limit one per qualifying order while supplies last. No coupon code required. This offer may change, be modified or cancelled at anytime without notice. Free Inauguration Cap cannot be returned for credit, redeemed for cash or exchanged.

The Office T-Shirt Competition

This is a competition for people who are looking for fame rather than fortune. Fans of The Office may (or may not) be delighted to know that their is an official contest calling for people to submit designs that would be used on t-shirts sold on NBC’s shopping website.

I like The Office. It is good light-hearted fun. I don’t think the US version is as funny as the original, or as cringe-worthy, but it is still entertainment. It is much more successful though. I think the main reason, apart from the American audience, is that the main character of the US version, while an ass most of the time, has some redeeming qualities. He is an altogether more sympathetic character.

Anyway, back to the competition. The prizes are pretty lame when you consider the large cash prizes offered at other contests. It is even worse when you consider the amount of money NBC are likely to profit from you designs. On the other hand, The Office brand is the main reason that the winning tees will sell. Unless of course the design is so amazing that non-The Office fans want to wear it too. We’ll see. Prizes below.

GRAND PRIZE
Your design will be sold exclusively through The NBC Store!
10 free T-shirts (when produced)
Choice of any three t-shirts from NBCstore.com
Dunderize Your Cube
DM Shot Glass (four pack)
Lunch Bag
Exclusive Dwight Bobblehead Golf Balls (3)
Star Mug Set
RUNNER UP PRIZES (2)
Choice of any two t-shirts from NBCstore.com
Dunderize your cube
DM shot glasses (four pack)
Andy Star Mug

Deadline for t-shirt submission is Thursday, January 29th at 6 PM PT/9 PM ET. Official ratings period ends January 31, 2009. Based on the ratings they will narrow the submissions down to the Top 20 t-shirts, which will then be submitted to the producers of “The Office.” The show will choose the winning three designs. (Read more…)

Of course if you are not much of a designer or don’t think you have a chance of winning but you do want to get your hands on some The Office gear you can buy straight from the NBC website or even from Cafepress.

The Spirit T-Shirts

The Spirit was released on Christmas Day and the reception was mixed: cold and lukewarm. I read headlines like:

‘The Spirit’ moves from comics to farce
and
Movie review: Don’t waste money on ‘The Spirit’

and decided that this movie may just be worth missing.  To be honest, unless it got amazing reviews I was likely to miss it anyway because I was a bit disappointed with Frank Miller’s Sin City movie.

On the other hand The Spirit has both Eva Mendez and Scarlett Johansson and that almost would have guaranteed it a DVD rental but alas it is not likely to be.

On the other hand you don’t have to be a fan of the movie to enjoy these official tees that are available on Cafepress.

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