First of all, let’s be clear: I’ve been a big fan of Lowdtown Friends & Freaks since they first opened up shop. So I was quite sad when I found out that founder Ray Masaki was recently contacted and asked to have all items featuring his Mouthcan logo removed from his online shop.
The problem was that artist Greg Mike owns the copyright to a “similar” logo. Needless to say, Ray was forced to takedown merchandise in which he had invested thousands of dollars in. I’m not sure why Greg Mike didn’t let Ray sell off the rest of his stock featuring the Mouthcan logo (I mean seriously, is Lowdtown that big of a threat to your designer soda cans and logo tees?). In any case, it is what it is. Just remember, when karma hits you back, it hits back pretty hard.
Fortunately for you as a consumer, Ray has marked down ALL items at the Lowdtown shop. The tees are priced at $6 and the crewnecks are priced at an amazing $12. He promised that Lowdtown Friends & Freaks will be back and better than ever with a rebranding sometime in Summer 2010. Look out for it.
Which do YOU like better?! Do you think Greg Mike was right in asking Ray Masaki to remove ALL of his merchandise featuring the Lowdtown Mouth Can Logo?
I’ve been a huge fan of Hide Your Arms since I first starting writing about T-Shirts on this blog and so I was excited for HYA founder, Andy Bowness, when he announced that he would be releasing the official Hide Your Arms logo tee. The shirt was designed by Ray Masaki of Lowdtown Friends & Freaks and features the new HYA site logo. I personally love the new logo – it’s fun!
I applaud Andy for taking the jump from just blogging about T-Shirts to actually making them. I’ve been itching to have some designs screen printed myself but am a bit wary about pulling the trigger. Hopefully this HYA investment is worth its while for Andy!
The shirt features a three color print on an aqua American Apparel blank. You can pick up your HYA tee for $21 now and every order comes with an HYA pin.
To say that Domenico Panacea is a MacAddict is probably an understatement. Panacea is an early adopter of a different sort. He spent $1300 just so he can borrow a Philips Lumalive T-Shirt for a month. I know, my eyes bulged just as big when I found out that after forking over $1300 he still did not own the T-Shirt. If you’re not familiar with the Lumalive, it’s from electronics manufacturer, Philips, and it integrates dynamic LED lighting into the fabric of the shirt.
The first thing Panacea did with the shirt? Well, he programed his favorite brand into the tee. What else do you think he’d do with a $1300 borrowed shirt? Of course you’re gonna program an Apple logo into it!
And in case you’re wondering, the shirt comes stocked with 128MB of memory that can blink out 10 minutes of text and it can glow for four hours at a time before needing to be recharged. I wonder when version 2.0 will be released?
So I’ve had a Tumblr account for over a year now but never really did anything with it. I decided that since I’m the Internet so much and that I always stumble upon amazing stuff that don’t necessarily fall under the category of “T-Shirts” that I would use my Tumblr for such said amazing things. And so I invite all of you dedicated (and even the not so dedicated) readers of cotygonzales.com to follow me on Tumblr. I even picked up a domain for the nonsensical Tumblr that I am calling Tumblr Trends. I’m still getting used to the interface but am enjoying the community so far. Hope you guys enjoy!
And while we’re talking about Tumblr, I’d love to suggest this lovely (and official) Tumblr tee that is available from BustedTees. I thought that this Tumblr: Faux Logo tee was pretty clever. Pick one up for $15!
It looks like fellow T-Shirt blogger Andy Bowness from Hide Your Arms has decided to jump into the business that he so passionately blogs about about – T-Shirts! Andy posted a preview of the upcoming Hide Your Arms logo tee on his Facebook and on the HYA blog. The logo was designed by Ray Masaki, artist and founder of Lowdtown Friends & Freaks, and as you can see, the logo design features partially hidden arms!
“It was inevitable that after spending almost 4 years writing about t-shirts, hoodies and anything else that I thought was cool and you guys would be interested, that I would put my money where my mouth is and actually try and release a shirt.”
Expect to see the HYA logo tee available for sale around January 21, which is the 4 year anniversary of the blog. No word yet on pricing.
Electric Zombie is turning two years old and to celebrate, founder Kyle Crawford, will be holding a massive 12 Hour sale. ”For ONLYYYYY 12 hours and 2 Mins all shirts and remaining static hoodies and silk screen posters will be $12.02 and jeans and polos will be $24.04 (12.02 doubled), duhhhh.” I already picked up the Electric Zombie Polo and now it looks like I’ll need to grab the EZ Jeans while it’s marked down! Also, if you’re on Twitter, be sure to follow @kyleisez for a chance to win prizes every hour during the 12 hour sale.
“On top of the limited garment/print combo I will be putting ALL ITEMS on sale for 12 hours and 2 mins, starting from 12:02 pm EST and ending at 12:02 am EST on thursday. during that time I will be doing 12 give aways every hour via twitter. Shirts and goodies and hoodies and posters are to be given out, so be sure you add me on twitter.”
To mark the 2 year anniversary, EZ also released a crew neck sweatshirt with a limited run of 122. Each sweatshirt will come with a signed and numbered 12×12 gold ink screen printed poster feature the same seal logo seen on the sweatshirt as well as a bonus 4 x 4 printed poster.
In this episode I review Desired Hearts Icon by Benny Gold and available at Desired Hearts, a brand that is all about passion. “Passion to do what you love and get love for doing it. Dedication is the name of this game and we refuse to lose. All of our products are developed with a close eye and our vision in mind.”
You can also watch this episode on Vimeo, Viddler, YouTube, blip.tv and download and sync all episodes to your iPod or iPhone by subscribing for free to Co-Tee TV in the iTunes Store.
Coty’s Thoughts:
Desired Hearts Icon by Benny Gold and available at Desired Hearts.Pros: Beautiful packaging and excellent attention to detail. T-Shirts come wrapped in custom Desired Hearts screen printed gift wrap and comes loaded with Desired Hearts stickers. The T-Shirt features a nice soft print on the front and a custom embroidered hangtag on the neck area. T-Shirt were designed by world renown artist Benny Gold. Cons: Might be a bit pricey for some people. Price: $30.
The Crest of Fresh is the October tee from Linty Fresh and I have to say that I am not as excited over it like I usually am for new Linty Fresh releases. You’ve got the famous Linty Fresh face and type logo but as a whole I’m not a big fan. I know that many brands have used similar crest designs on logo tees but I am not sure if Linty Fresh really needed one of these. It doesn’t particular fit in with the rest of the line, in my opinion.
Of course, that’s my opinion, and I know that a lot of other tee fans have raved about this tee so I’ll let you all decide! You can pick it up now from Linty Fresh for $22. And remember, as always it comes with a Linty Fresh collector’s card featuring an accompanying poem.
Labyrinth Clothing is one of the early supporters of this blog, having been one of the first to actually send me a tee to review on the blog. At the time, I never did video reviews (started doing videos in January 2009), instead, I featured Labyrinth in my Indie Tee Spotlight feature. It’s hard to believe that it has been a year since that interview was posted on the blog.
It seemed that for a while Labyrinth was destined to go the route of many indie T-Shirt brands, that is, the way of the dodo bird. With no product releases in almost year I had thought that the then 19 year old Labyrinth founder, Nader Boraie, had moved on to other things. Fortunately, this is not the case. Labyrinth recently released a set of new tees, including Bear and Furry Little Monster. Both shirts are available now from Labyrinth for $15 or you can score both for $25 when you pick up the Fuzzy Bundle Pack. Labyrinth even has a brand new Logo tee available for just $5. Sweet!
Things have been going pretty well with the blog so far. I’ve been keeping up with content, something that I have never consistently done with previous blogs of yesteryear. The one thing that has been lacking, however, has been a proper logo! And finally, I have one! Thanks to a good buddy, who also happens to be a great designer! Tim (BunnyDojo.com) was able to come up with this splendid logo for the site. I told him a few of my interests and he pumped this bugger out like there was no tomorrow.
The logo features a brain because of my love for neuroscience and an elephant because, well, elephants are special to me (not because I am a conservative since in fact I am quite the liberal!). Anyhow, hope you guys like the logo and thanks again, Tim!
PS: Be sure to check out Tim’s site. If you need a design job done, he’s the man. He also has a slew of design samples that you can peruse. As an added bonus, he’s a ninja rabbit. How cool is that?
