Afro Samurai Tshirts from Jinks

I haven’t actually seen this movie which is probably rare for someone in my situation. I mean I live in Japan and am a fan of Samuel L. Jackson. On the other hand I am not really into anime and haven’t had a whole lot of free time recently so when I watch a movie it will be live action.

I think this movie got mixed reviews but I am sure it will get cult status at some point if it hasn’t already.

Anyway, this is a tshirt blog, not a blog about movies I haven’t watched yet (now that’s an interesting idea) so I am here to tell you that Jinks are selling four new Afro Samurai t-shirts and they are not bad at all. In about 20 years they may even be the epitome of retro cool but who knows. Check them out and let me know what you think of them below. You might as well tell us what you think about the AFRO Samurai movies too. Convince me to watch them!

Shirtfight – Who’s king of the ringer?

ShirtFight is a brand new t-shirt competition site that just launched and when I heard I groaned “oh man, not ANOTHER t-shirt design competition site!” Just kidding, the more the merrier. I’d love to say that ShirtFight is a t-shirt contest site with a difference so I think I’ll just go ahead and say it. ShirtFight is a t-shirt contest site with a difference. They all are though. I’m pretty sure no two are identical.

The thing with ShirtFight is that they will have a weekly themed contest and they will pick some wacky off the wall theme like “Eating junk food before going to bed” to inspire designers to create something unique. Now that part I like. This site is actually encouraging designers to create new designs for their contests rather than just using designs that haven’t had success at other sites.I’m sure some of those will turn up too but there is only so much you can do.

This is how it works. On Thursday at midnight, they announce a theme and you have exactly 7 days to create your design, upload it and garner some votes. The voting closes on Thursday at midnight. Yes. You read that right. I think it was very badly thought out too. But who knows, maybe it’ll work?  I would have given them one week to submit the designs  and then one week of voting once they are all submitted. During the voting week there would of course be a another themed contest. The winning tees and the new contest could be announced on the same day. Very exciting! But of course I didn’t get any say in how the site was set up.

They will have weekly cash prizes of $500, but to celebrate their site launch on March 5th, their first contest will be two weeks long…and the winner receives a whopping $2009! You know, coz 2009 is a nice round number. Anyway readers, sorry I’m late in getting this info to you but you still have some time. There are already 74 designs up for voting at the time of writing this post and designs that have been up longer naturally have  a better chance of getting votes but I imagine the votes will count for very little in this contest. Design skills will win out I hope. Of course a design might be chosen based on who designed it…I hope not.

There is a video about the contest which you can check out below but probably best to check out their blog post and web site for more detailed information.

Nerdy Shirts Contest and Sale

About a week ago or so Nerdy Shirts announced that they are holding a contest in which all you have to do is upload a video with “http://nerdyshirts.com” as the first text in the video description to receive a free t-shirt. One t-shirt per person per challenge. You can read more here. Best video as chosen by Nerdy Shirts will receive $100 gift voucher. It is a pretty cool attempt at viral marketing by Nerdy Shirts but it may not be so successful as I couldn’t find any of the videos on youtube. Maybe I should take out my new Nikon D90 to make a little high def video for them.

The current challenge is “I love NerdyShirts!” You can simply say that or you can elaborate. It’s up to you! Remember, the more crazy/fun/weird the video the better.

I also received an email from them today telling me that they are having a pretty cool sale this week where you will be able to get your hands on a 4 different $4.99 t-shirts every day. Today’s offerings you can see below. They are apparently clearing out some stock.

Iffyton High Street

I came across this very cool project a few days ago. It is a virtual street called Iffyton High Street. I guess it is for people who like to browse in many stores but don’t really like to leave the house. This is a British site and perhaps it is the British weather had inspired such an idea. Most of this street is made up of t-shirt stores but there are a few other features too. Well, I decided to take a little stroll and I’ll tell you about what I saw.

1. A Kick up the Grass – First up is a soccer (or football) inspired t-shirt store with a pretty small selection. They are done in the style of cartoons and include caricatures of famous scenes from football like Eric Cantona’s flying kick and Vinnie Jones’ ball crushing technique. Great themes but the shirts don’t really work for me. The shirts are all £9.99.

2. Rebel or be Damned – This is a punk themed store which features a Sid Vicious t-shirt, Winston Churchill with a mohican and a misplaced Marilyn Monroe tee. There are 7 tees in all and the first few don’t know whether they want to be a punk or a graphic t-shirt and end up as a not very interesting hodge podge.

3. Gettin Shirty – This store seems to be stocked with old rock band t-shirts like Guns ‘n Roses Appetite for Destruction and even Bon Jovi.  Not really my bag but you can’t say that an Iron Maiden Number of the Beast black t-shirt isn’t a great piece of retro rock art. All rock, all black and all £13.99.

4. Made in England – British themed t-shirts for $9.99. Sure beats I heart London. Some world famous faces like Churchill (again) and Johnny Rotten make an appearance as well as some more obscure characters from old British TV shows.

5. It’s grim up north – Strange name for a t-shirt store but possibly appropriate for most of the t-shirts in the store are pretty grim including Liam Gallagher (of Oasis) giving the two fingered salute. It has pretty much the same meaning as flipping the bird in the US.

6. Cream Tease – A few overpriced ($24.99) but reasonably well designed t-shirts that you might expect to see on a biker or perhaps a biker chick. Not my bag.

7. Royal T – If you like your t-shirt designs to be cartoons of Lego versions of pop culture icons such as Knight Rider,  the Beatles and Monkey you have found the right store. There are also some photo composites with celebrities like Audrey Hepburn on the decks and Bruce Lee with a skateboard. T-Shirts are $9.99. Check out the old school iPod.

8. End of the Line – A few tees at $5.99 and a lucky dip bundle of 5 t-shirts for only $10. Good price but of course you don’t know what you are going to get.

That’s about it for t-shirt stores but you can’t talk about Iffyton Street without mentioning TOT Shirts. TOT stands for Totally Original T-Shirts. They practically run this town. Nothing happens in Iffyton without them knowing about it. They are a screen printers but they provide a host of other services such as embroidery, bagging, tagging and packing.

If you want to set up store on Iffyton High Street you might have to talk to them. On top of producing the t-shirts for you they also provide a whole range of fulfillment services. Find out more at the Iffyton Web Store.

There is more to Iffyton High Street than shopping though. They have a concert venue called Iffy Voices.

You can also watch an old dude ranting away on Iffy TV which is shot at Nan’s house. You can see an example below this image or just click on the image to go to Nan’s House.

They have other cool stuff including a newsletter and advertising space. Be sure to check out Iffyton High Street.

We Will Not Be Silent T-Shirt

This t-shirt cost JetBlue a lot of money and they didn’t even get a lousy t-shirt. JetBlue have had to cough up $240,000 to pay for their since which in this case was a racial profiling issue. Raed Jarrar was prevented from boarding the plane unless he covered his t-shirt which had the words “We Will Not Be Silent” in English and Arabic printed on it.

I don’t want to make light of this issue because it is a serious issue but it makes me think that perhaps a the passenger from last year who wasn’t allowed to board because of his Transformers t-shirt should sue for discrimination because they didn’t let a guy board just because he was a geek. Below is a video interview with

You can order the shirt at The Critical Voice and they are pretty cheap but they do encourage paying more.

T-Shirts – Batteries Not Included

I have posted about various t-shirts that require batteries (here, here and here) and I have just come across a shop selling tees with a graphic equalizer like function. The designs on these tees react to the sounds around them making the wearer appear to be a total douche bag. They are a bit of fun though. Most of them are spoofs and/or probable copyright infringements but what do I know. Maybe they are legally licensed. Below is a selection from the store. They are all $45 and available from Jetsobox which appears to be based in Asia. you can also check out videos of the various tees reacting to the music.

So when you are going clubbing in one of these babies don’t forget your batteries. Your dignity on the other hand you will leave at home.

Musical Shirt

Not so long ago I posted about a drum t-shirt that was sold by ThinkGeek.com but this one really takes the biscuit. You won’t find this shirt at Think Geek though. You have to go over to instructables to read a tutorial on how they are made and if you still want one you will need the following (and you mind seen to):

-Toy piano (batteries included)
-T-shirt
-conductive fabric
-conductive thread
-normal thread
-neoprene (or normal thick fabric)
-fusible interface (iron on)
-3mm foam sheet
-ink jet iron on paper
-poppers
-electronic wire

Tool:
-needle
-scissors
-iron
-hammer
-soldering iron
-ink jet printer
-screw driver

I’m afraid the sound quality of the video is really poor but you don’t need to have sound to appreciate how dumb this shirt looks. I don’t really know who would want to either make this or wear it but it takes all sorts.

Microsoft Softwear T-Shirts

Microsoft have just launched a t-shirt line called Softwear. Pretty good name and perfect for a line of t-shirts from Microsoft. In the previous post I mentioned that Mozilla had launched a t-shirt store using crowdsourcing to populate their Zazzle store with designs. Microsoft seem to be taking a more traditional route and as typical with all things Microsoft have put a lot of money behind this venture. I really can’t see why though. It can’t be for the money as the income from t-shirt sales surely wouldn’t even cause a ripple in the pond of income from actual software sales. It could be another attempt by Microsoft to tell us that they are cool, like the recent failed Jerry Seinfeld/Bill Gates commercials. This time though, I think it is kind of successful. I’m not saying that suddenly people will think that Microsoft is cool but rather that they have produced some quality products and they have gotten help from someone who decidedly more hip than Seinfeld, Illinois rapper and actor, Common. You can even see a video on the Softwear website of Common talking about the tees. At the bottom of this post you can see a video of Common performing at the Microsoft Softwear launch party.

All the tees have a very cool retro vibe. There are eight designs at the moment, four of which it seems were designed by Common. All of them are much better than Microsoft’s I’m a PC store at Zazzle. Unfortunately, I don’t know where they can be purchased or how much they are going to cost yet. If you know more about these t-shirts please leave a comment. Below are two of my favorites.

Cafepress Promo Videos

Cafepress have again been spotted doing TV err… spots. I don’t live in the US so I haven’t seen them but I imagine they are shortened down versions of these three videos below. They are connected to the Ungiftables web site that Cafepress created and that I mentioned a few days ago. I prefer the website to the videos but I thought I would share these with you just in case.

Spreadshirt’s Printing Technique

I came across this pretty cool video of Spreadshirt’s printing techniques for those who are interested. Spreadshirt have a pretty good reputation regarding print quality and this video gives some reasons for this. (More info…)

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