Follow is a great little gem that I discovered while perusing The Orphan’s Arms online shop. This London based purveyor of T-Shirts hand prints each item. I’ve always been interested in the work of people that hand print items, one at a time and often in their own studio or even garage. With hand printed items, no two T-Shirts are ever the same. But even better, hand printed shirts simply oooze love, passion and dedication that you don’t get from T-Shirts printed on a five-color machine press with robotic arms in some warehouse in Austin, Texas.
Sometimes, elbow grease make a T-Shirt that much better.
I’m an 80′s kid. And since I was born in 1981, I was able to experience 90% of that glorious decade. Ah, the 80′s, the birthplace of most of my childhood favorites, many of which you’ve probably heard me ramble on about here on this blog. From He-Man to The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to Back to the Future to The Karate Kid. The 80′s was a great time to be a kid.
It kind of makes me sad to think that the kids growing up today look up at their older brothers and sisters, interacting like zombies in front of their computers. The 80′s were all about adventure for me. It was about me and my bike and my friends. It was about hunting for imaginary treasures like the Goonies did. It was about hunting for dinosaur bones in my back yard. It was about me turning into a ninja and then into a pirate and then back to a kid. It was about leaving the NES cartridge in the NES on all night to save my place in a game. The 80′s were awesome, at least for me it was.
PS: I’ve included a downloadable PDF reference guide at the bottom to help you figure out what/who these T-Shirts refer to. But can you figure them all out without looking at the reference guide? Have fun!
I’d love to hear which one of these are your favorites and whether or not you own any of these tees! And if you know of a 1980′s shirt not on this list then please tell me about it. Leave a comment below in the comments section and let me know!
If you enjoyed this post then please, please, please, tell you’re friends about it! A simple Tweet or post on your Facebook page will help to get the word out, and a link back on your blog would be greatly appreciated!
If you stumbled on this blog via Twitter, Facebook or elsewhere then welcome! Please feel free to peruse the site and if you like what you see then I’d recommend adding Co-Tee TV as a friend on Facebook so that you can stay up-to-date on future posts!
So it turns out, I’m pretty damn good at spotting a good T-Shirt when I see one! I say this only because 4 out of the top 5 five T-Shirts that I selected as my favorites from the Design By Humans 10K Top 25 finalist were selected in the recently revealed top 8. Of the 5 I selected as my favorite contenders, only Into The Light by Muttley failed to make it into the Top 8.
The next step is, well, I’ve got to choose my top 3 and eventual winner. I’m going to stick with my core favorites for the top 3 and that would be: Never As It Seems by Zerobriant, The Siren Song by Christian San Jose and Archan Nair, and Unleashed Imagination by Buko.
The Siren Song seems to be the obvious choice as being selected as the winner of the 10K contest. The design team duo that created Siren Song include last years 10K winner, Christian San Jose. They’ve even got an entire site dedicated to spreading the word about The Siren Song. The thing is, it’s not something that I would wear, so it’s not the design that I am going to choose as the winner. Having said that, Siren Song is in the early lead with 89 votes.
Buko’s Unleashed Imagintion is an amazing piece, in my opinion. However, it seems to be trailing in terms of votes (you can see the vote count for the first two days). I think Unleashed Imagination is a long shot at winning, unless of course, Buko find’s a crazy way to collect mad votes.
My choice to win and my personal favorite from the bunch has got to be Zerobriant’s Never As It Seems. I think it’s an amazing concept and it IS something that I would wear. The haunting blue hues and mysterious imagery make Never As It Seems my choice as the winner of the 10K contest. The thing is, Never As It Seems is trailing Siren Song in the early going.
So those are my top 3 and my predicted winner, which is your favorite to win?
And this is my top 3:
Never As It Seems by Zerobriant (my pick to win)
The Siren Song by sirensong (the early leader and defending 10K winner)
File this under the “I Wish I Was There” category. So the amazing people over at Threadless recently held their 4th annual Family Reunion, and from what I can gather from the various Twitter updates, it was an all around blast. Everyone that attended the reunion received one of these super exclusive All Together Now tees.
And just in case you were wondering, no, you can’t buy this T-Shirt. You had to be there to get it!
I’ve never been a fan of Fox News. And The Crystal Method seems to agree with me. Check out this photo of the group wearing a Fuck News Let’s Make Shit Up T-Shirt, an obvious homage to the idiots over at Fox News, courtesy of our friends at Ban T-Shirts. The photo was taken at Belly Up Aspen this past June by Michael Goldberg and you can check out more photos from the concert here.
I like oranges. I’m not the biggest orange fan in the world, but I do like them. I prefer my oranges to be warm whenever I have to peel them myself. If they’ve already been peeled and are in wedge form, then I prefer them cold. All told, I’m an apple guy.
Fresh Orange is a great T-Shirt that I discovered over at Defunkt, a UK based T-Shirt company. The shirt is the second in a series that were made in collaboration with Ryan Chapman, a graphic designer from the UK. According to the product page, “Ryan has a thing for old fruit stickers and Defunkt has a thing for anything old, so this adaptation made perfect sense.”
The included stickers rock. And I especially love that Dole and Del Monte are included in the sticker pack. Did you know that the Dole Pineapple Plantation as well as the Del Monte Plantation is located right here in sunny Hawaii. We might not be able to grow oranges, but our pineapple are pretty rad.
A good friend of mine is a Star Trek fan*. I put an asterisk there because  he is completely in love SPECIFICALLY with Star Trek: The Next Generation. In fact, I posted the following video on Tumblr Trends (see video below) and he responded with the following:
“At least he likes Capt. Picard…. I’m tired of all the Kirk-fanatics out there! Picard is the better captain, get over it!”
HAH! That made my day.
Here’s the video that sparked the outrage:
And that brings us to the newest shirt from our friends from Seattle, Might Tees! They’ve deviated a little from their Apple/Tech related tees, and instead venture into the outer galaxies of geekdom. The T-Shirt is called Make It So and it features my friends ALL TIME FAVORITE Star Trek captain, Jean-Luc Picard.
I asked my friend if he’d allow Captain Picard to penetrate him, you know, in a jail bait rape kind of way. He’s response: “lol.” He never gave me an affirmative no. Star Trek fans are hard core.
Every time around this year the T-Shirt community builds up a frenzy in anticipation for the Design By Humans Contest. For the Design By Humans community, this is the time of the year that matters, and for the bright artists that make up the top 24, this is their moment to shine and make some big bucks doing it. Every year, the team at Design by Humans choose the cream of the crop for their community to vote on – the big winner wins a whopping $10,000. Past winners include AJ Dimarucot, whom used his winning to start his own clothing line for infants. Last year’s winner, struck gold with Mecha-Labaw.
As we’ve seen with the past DBH 10K contests, it doesn’t just take a great design to win, but also plain old hustle. Every vote counts, so each designer tries crazy tactics to garner the most votes. 2009 winner Christian San Jose pulled out the big guns with a full fledged social media campaign, and it paid off. 2008 Winner AJ Dimarucot used the power of family to spread the word, and that did the trick for him.
I’m interested to se what this years DBH cream of the crop do to set themeselves apart from the competition to win the hears and votes of the design voting public. That’s what I’m interested in.
Oh yeah, and I also like to pick my favorites. Here’s are my top 5 favorite designs from this years top 25! Which do you love?
Into The Light by Muttley:
The Perfect Murder by alvarejo:
Never As It Seems by zerobriant:
The Siren Song by sirensong:
Unleashed Imagination buko:
And here are a few thumbnails of the rest of the top 25:
When I first spotted these kitten heavy T-Shirts made to look like other clothing garments, I surely thought that they were a joke. Needless to say, I delved deeper, jumped into the rabbit hole and found out that these LOL worthy kitten tees are indeed real and made by Deli Grocery, purveyors of Deli Grocery Specialty Products.
This unique brand based out of Brooklyn, New York, offers an alternative to the played out faux tuxedo tee (we’ve seen those a thousand times over and then some). Instead, they offer two options, a classic button up and a western themed version, both decorated with kitties that any fan of the I Can Has Cheezburger network of sites could be proud of. That wrap around bandana on the blue tee is a nice touch, don’t you think!
Though bordering on bizarre, both Deli Grocery tees have a unique character. It’s up to you to judge whether or not that character is worth $30 a piece.
In this episode of Co-Tee TV I wear Eleprint by Fur Face Boy and review Unplugged by Frank and Jan, a brand that was founded in 2007 in Los Angeles, California and and born from common themes of capitalism, fame, minimalism and consumption of pop culture. Frank & Jan is an art and design driven company showcasing bold graphics mixed with simple, functional apparel.
Fur Face Boy sent me an insane amount of T-Shirts from their Series 3 Line. I will be featuring the shirts throughout Co-Tee TV Episodes 70-79 so definitely keep an eye out for even more Fur Face Boy in the coming weeks! See Episode 70 of Co-Tee TV for the Fur Face Boy full review.
You can also watch this episode on Vimeo, Viddler, YouTube, blip.tv and download and sync all episodes to your iPod, iPhone or iPad by subscribing for free to Co-Tee TV in the iTunes Store.
Coty’s Thoughts:
Unplugged by Frank and Jan.Pros: T-Shirts are shipped in individual plastic bags inside of a black Frank and Jan custom mailer. Frank and Jan tees are tagless and feature the Frank and Jan logo. Frank and Jan custom logo stickers are included with each T-Shirt. Unplugged features a ver large vertical print featuring half tones to give the illusion of different shades of blacks and grays as well as extra depth to the design. Unplugged is a little tame compared to some of the other Frank and an offerings. If you want something a little more risque then be sure to check out the Frank and Jan online shop! Cons: Size wise, the T-Shirt seems slighter larger than the American Apparel blanks that we typically review here. If you like color in your designs then Frank and Jan may not be your cup of tea – they tend to focus on designs that feature just black and white. Some of the tees over at Frank and Jan’s shop are a little vulgar, but if you like that kind of thing then you probably will love Frank and Jan! Price: $24 (Sold Out). You can purchase some Frank and Jan tees from Colette.fr, but you will pay a premium for them.
“In addition to art and design, Frank & Jan is also a full-service screen printing shop providing quality, custom design and screen printing services for individuals and businesses. Influences Include: Pop culture icons, fame, street culture, gangster rap, punk rock, religious iconography, reggae, death metal, and infamous front page headlines.”
FFBÂ Eleprint by Fur Face Boy. I’m a big fan of Michael Jordan, Jordan Brand and Nike, and so when I saw that FFB Eleprint featuring the famous elephant print from the Air Jordan 3′s (circa 1988) I was stoked. Fur Face Boy founder, Ha Mai, continues to draw inspiration from his childhood passions and incorporate them into his brand – you’ve got to respect that. unfortunately, FFB Eleprint is no longer available for sale because it’s sold out! Hint: If you want something from Fur Face Boy then buy it when you see because it will sell out at one point or another and probably sooner than you’d expect! Price: $32 (Sold Out).
