What makes a good T-shirt?

[Last Conformist]

Just make a good picture mocking UR.

[Sava]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
It would be nice if we can put our own designs on t-shirts

https://www.cafepress.com

[Urban Ranger]

Thanks

[Mrs. Tuberski]

Lets a see what is a good tshirt, if its for me one that is 2 sizes to big and not white. I suck when it comes to wearing white. guess cause i end up wearing on my shirt what my kids have eaten. For a man to wear it, like ming said but a nice MENs chest to put in it

[Az]

I am ashamed to admit, but I really like this otherwise annoying and assholish trend of wearing old T-shirts. I have a slight problem is with the fake-old t-shirts, but generally it's fine. come to think about it, my jeans are a bit pre-faded, as well. :lame:

[Zkribbler]

My favorite one lately was worn by a young lady who had emblazened across her chest:

I'm more than just a great pair of legs.

[Nanimo]

Well, I guess it's time for me to own up to my ulterior motive....

Back whilst I was a student in my final year (Sheffield Uni, Artificial Intelligence) I got together with a couple of friends and we wanted to set up a t-shirt design company.... We called it ViralClothing.com

By the end of the year, I was the last person left standing... and I really wanted to make a go of things. However, lack of funding and other things meant that I had to drop my plans.

Another year later and I'm now working for a company trying to set up a son et lumiere show. However, it doesn't look like it's really going anywhere.

In any case, I got to know a person who's trying to set up an artist's co-op, and wants to "lift" the art in this tiny provincial town I'm living in... and she wants me to put up an exhibition to launch her gallery.

It would be unlike a typical art exhibition, there will be no frames and no oil paintings. I'm not going to go into detail, but there will be two types of shirts. Light fluffy, pretty stuff... and darker, more risque designs.

This would be a brilliant chance to showcase my work, with good publicity and could break me into the arts. Not to mention shock the "local" artists with their watercolour landscapes, and maybe bringing the idea of art as an exciting new medium for local disaffected youth. (And maybe sell some limited edition shirts.)

However, the pressure's on... and my mind is blank... I have no idea what to do that could fill the gallery. I have my reputation at stake, and I have the reputation of the gallery and the co-op at stake.

You can see my old stuff from the Prototypes Page

[Az]

t-shirt design company is something I pondered for a while, as well.

[Nanimo]

Today I had a session with the curator... we were working on ideas and things... but it was clear at the end of that session that we had slightly conflicting plans for this exhibition...

You can see from my site, that my style is clean and fun.... I have a lot of influence from Japanese animation.

However, the curator has latched onto the darker work... and what she wants is "art" on shirts... that will shock and disturb. And it looks like she will essentially dismiss my lighter stuff as too "topshop" (i.e. highstreet fashion) and they might not even make it into the exhibition.

Whereas, my take on the t-shirts is a lot more.... commercial... and ..... well.... we produced two pieces today, I think you'll see what I mean then....

http://tinypic.com/i5vgw4.jpg

http://tinypic.com/i5vh2x.jpg

And they don't sit comfortably with me at all.... I don't mind putting tits and ass on my shirts.... but.... to take it so far, and being so graphic is simply not my style....

They're based on original pieces of artwork from other people, and I can really admire them, and am fascinated by them... however... I'm not entirely sure about producing stuff like this myself...

I wouldn't mind re-doing them with my own clean, more sanitised take on the whole thing... but I get the feeling that the curator wouldn't want that....

I guess I'm just mostly worried about my normal shirts being swamped and removed altogether....

..... and.... well.... I am worrying about the potential backlash from the locals, who are conservative and ....... well... I dunno.....

[Nanimo]

Originally posted by Az
t-shirt design company is something I pondered for a while, as well.

If you have any ideas that I can steal....

[Az]

Sorry - my ideas are region specific. local Israeli jokes/stuff , basically.

[Nanimo]

Also... what is my mum going to say?

[Az]

first pic - is that you?

anyway, I don't really like those T-shirts - but I am an old T-shirt kind of guy, yes.

[Mercator]

I can't really say what kind of publicity you'd get, what kind of problems you might have with your reputation, or how much trouble your mum can really give you.

Maybe I'm too used to be living in a fairly progressive country or something, but I just really can't imagine any sort of backlash against that, except some old women screaming murder and maybe getting in a line or two in the news article in the local newspaper. Then again, I can buy plenty of T-shirts with obscene words, illegal substances or nudity in the first tourist shop I come across when I'm in Amsterdam again... Not to mention actual drugs and prostitutes.

How much publicity do really think you can get? How much do you think it will really help you? Aren't there different ways of getting that attention? It's mostly about selling your t-shirts and having a nice mention on your CV for design stuff, right? Maybe a good website and some nice word-of-mouth Internet coverage will do more than what that art gallery can do? After all, the art gallery is probably just a local thing, while with the Internet you can go global.

And what reputation? It's not like you're an established artist or anything. If it's bad, the most likely thing that will happen is that there won't be any visitors, or some people will say what a disgrace it is and then move on... the next time they wake up. Unless it's a more personal family thing.

And the reputation of the gallery or co-op just isn't something you should be worried about at all. If they get a bad reputation then that's their fault for having chosen to put you up there in the first place!

And do you really want to do those kinds of things in the first place? Or are they more of a compromise that came up because of the curator rather than what you want to do? They're quite a bit different from your earlier stuff.

I'm also not sure how much you can really see that as art, rather than just nice t-shirts.

I think you should just make sure that whatever ends up in that gallery is something you completely support. Not something you're doing to please the curator, or your parents.

[duke o' york]

Originally posted by Nanimo
Today I had a session with the curator... we were working on ideas and things... but it was clear at the end of that session that we had slightly conflicting plans for this exhibition...

You can see from my site, that my style is clean and fun.... I have a lot of influence from Japanese animation.

However, the curator has latched onto the darker work... and what she wants is "art" on shirts... that will shock and disturb. And it looks like she will essentially dismiss my lighter stuff as too "topshop" (i.e. highstreet fashion) and they might not even make it into the exhibition.

Can you not have both? Surely the exhibition can be designed as some kind of pro/reg-ression from the fluffy to the hardcore/vice versa? I'm not sure what kind of bridging designs you might have that can bring the two types together, but the curator's job is more than just ensuring they are lit in the right way.