Immediately what grabbed my attention about the brand is the quality of artists that they have worked with from Greg Abbott, Sol Amstutz, Saint Graphic, Adam Vaudin, Jeff Finley, Justin Juno and Victoria Price. Overall a star studded cast of incredible artists to get your line off the ground.

The second thing that grabbed my attention is that while I love a lot of the pieces individually overall the brand does not sit entirely well together as a unit. To me it looks like they brand didn’t have a clear vision of what they wanted to be and instead just opted for designs for well known artists.

This to me provides a perfect example of having a great tees but not a great “brand”. When people check out a brand they really should get a sense of what the brand is all about and what they can expect from the brand down the road as it expands. Looking at the current lineup of tees Perfect Chaos could go in a infinite amount of directions none of which I could guess.

Also product shots could use some help. It is extremely important to portray your products in the best light possible, no matter how good a design is if you do not show that tee in the best way possible it makes it hard to sell.

That all being said, the brand has some great looking tees and I’m hoping as they continue to grow they will further develop that of a brand identity and image to help establish themselves amongst the competition.

You can check out everything Perfect Chaos at: www.perfectchaosclothing.bigcartel.com

The non-profit clothing company Make Beats Not Beat Downs has been on a mission to raise awareness of bullying in schools through their tees. The have just released a new tee designed by Greg Abbott that is available now for only $10!

The tee comes in two different color ways and looks fantastic printed on Anvil 980 Fashion Fit tee.

You can pick your’s up at: mbnbd.bigcartel.com

One of my least favorite things to do is shop for cards, whether it be Birthday, Christmas, Get Well, Anniversary, Etc. Lets face it most cards just plain suck! From cheesy vector art images, to lame overused lines, the standard greeting card just doesn’t cut it.

Enter new company, CHIRPLY.

Think of Chirply as Threadless for greeting cards and eventually wrapping paper and notebooks. Artists can submit designs to the site in which the community votes on their favorites, and favorites get printed!

So far the site contains designs by heavy hitters such as Mr. Gauky, Derek Deal, Greg Abbott, Ian Leino, and many more!

Cards run a very fair price of $4.00 and come standard with FREE SHIPPING!

I will definitely have my eye on these guys next time I need to pick up a greeting card! You can check out all their designs at: www.chirply.com

It’s truly unreal how many promising clothing lines have been coming out of the woodwork lately. The latest addition to that category is Time To Panic, a UK based clothing company.

While the line remains pretty small to start only consisting of three designs, you can tell that Time To Panic means business. Both the Time To Panic logo and It’s Time To Panic! tee designs were done by the great Greg Abbott, which both look fantastic. Not to mention the Look Alive! tee which I believe was designed by Nils Vogeding but don’t quote me on that one!

Tees are all printed on American Apparel and sell for £15.95 or $26 USD and can be picked up at: www.timetopanicclothing.co.uk

I have always wondered why more artists don’t start their own clothing lines. Granted a few artists have definitely started to take the reigns into their own hands and start their own lines such as Dan Mumford, but it just seems that more artists could do this.

I believe the main reason for successful artists not running their own lines is because they either don’t like the business side of running a clothing company or feel it will take away from their art. This is where www.thirtee.com steps in.

Each month Thirtee.com features one artist and their designs printed on tees for a 30 day period! To kick off their site they chose none other than artist extrodianare Greg Abbott. Greg has ten tees up for sale all of which sell for the incredible price of $12!

Overall I am loving the idea of the site and the amazing $12 price point, but I do feel the site needs to be flushed out a bit. The tees themselves could be displayed a little better. It’s honestly a bit hard to navigate around the site the first time on it. Also would like to see more of a bio page about the artist which would provide more background information on the artist.

I will definitely be checking back with these guys. Also if anyone has ordered a tee from Thirtee.com please let me know how the quality was!

The designs themselves are very light-hearted and fun well a bit girly. Not that I can’t see guys rocking these tees, I just think that the designs and colorways especially Oh Oh! and Glumbird would go over much better with women and even children.

In all honesty I think the brand name and image really lend itself well to a younger audience, more specifically kids. I really think that if Tiny Celestial tried to market themselves to mom’s looking for cool, cute clothing for their kids, these guys would be a huge hit. Maybe I’m jumping the boat a bit to quickly, with Tiny Celestial only having three designs released, but with how crowded the tee market is this might not be a bad move! Then again, maybe I’m crazy ; )

In closing I do believe the more niche and unique a brand is the more successful and easy the brand is to market itself. By going after a niche market such as hip moms that want their kids dressed in cute and unique clothing Tiny Celestial could really separate themselves from the pack.

Check out the entire line at: www.tinycelestial.com

Let me tell you what even know this brand is only three tees deep I am impressed! Everything about Thread Thirst’s first release is excellent starting with the website. The website itself is extremely clean, refreshing and most importantly easily navigated. With online carts such as Storenvy and BigCartel it would have been extremely easy for Thread Thirst to just throw up their new tees in a free site and call it a day and the fact that they have gone the extra mile starting at their website goes a long way.

Moving on from their website the tees look equally as impressive! The first three tees are designed by Adam Vaudin, Greg Abbott and Luke Drozd which have done execellent job portraying Elliot’s desire for a nature inspired clothing line into a reality. All tees are printed on Gildan Soft Style shirts which I have not had a hands on experience with so I cant really comment as to the fit and feel of the shirts, but with prices ranging from £8.50 ($12.65 USD) to £13.00($19.35) these are great pickup!

Make sure to check out and pick up some tees at: www.threadthirst.com

We are truly excited to see what this very new and young company has in store for the future!

Aside from their first Vinyl toy this mid-season line includes a two new hoodies, a crew neck, jacket, jumper, tote bag and new necklaces! Noticeably absent from this line are Tees! This makes sense because of right now I am still looking out my window at 8 inches of snow! I think it’s great when companies like Pyknic are able to do some smaller releases to get some new product out there and hold over the masses in between season releases.

Everything in this mid-season release is really strong. I am especially loving the Kiss the Cook Hoodie and Varsity Cuisine Jacket/Sweater. The Jacket/Sweater is truly an amazing cut and sew piece. At first glance it looks like your typical lameball varsity jacket, but with simple additions such as a hood, ipod pocket and the fact that it’s not made out of leather but rather more of a sweatshirt, I LOVE IT! You can pick up the Varsity Cuisine Jacket/Sweater for $45 which is a pretty killer price for such a cool and unique item.

Check out the full line at: www.pyknicwear.com

Episode Guide
BAND OF THE WEEK: 2AM Club

INDUSTRY BS:
Conditions and I Fight Dragons Get Signed!

Typo Shirts, Calling all artists! Get your artwork printed in a book! Read more here!

The “S” Thing Mania is sweeping the nation! Get your T-Shirt HERE!

Artist Greg Abbott Shows Us His Step By Step Process In Creating Great T-Shirt Art: HERE

SALES:
Rockett – $20 hoodies, some $10 tees
Lady Umbrella: 3,333 fans equals 33.33% off! Facebook.com/ladyumbrella

TEE TALK
T Shirt Vault: Sales begin March 1st! 19.99 with free shipping!

Dead Will Rise: 20% off with code TREND £16.00 or 25 USD New line in april/may with new website

DesignKins: $20 Tees plus presale is up for Lose Something Alice in Wonderland Tee

Eraser Tees: Grand Opening Sale $14.95! Printed on Vinyl, erased easily! Use coupon code IATT for 15% off!

8 Bit Zombie: Release their brand new line! Complete with collabs from The Printed Mind, Godmachine and Michael Shantz

VERY NICE:
Adam’s Tee Pick of the Week: Choke On Color – Night Rider $18.99
Beau’s Tee Pick of the Week: Machete Premium Cuts – Bill and Ted are Dead $20 coming soon!

Bo 2.0 Tee Pick of the Week: Threadless – Endless Forms Most Battleful $18

SHO’NUFF:

I produce my work in three stages. I use Corel Painter 11 for sketching and Adobe Illustrator CS4 for designing.

1) The Sketch

Firstly I sketch my ideas. This allows me to rough out the design and also see how I can expand on my initial ideas. The sketch acts as the foundation for the design I hope to produce. I try to make sure the sketch covers as many elements of the design as possible before moving on to the next stage of the design, smaller details can be added later.

2) The Line-work

I place the sketch in a new Illustrator canvas, reducing the opacity of the image if necessary, and then lock the layer so that I can go over the sketch digitally in a new layer with the pencil tool. I draw everything by hand with the use of a Wacom Cintiq 12WX graphics tablet and name all of my layers for future reference. Once I have gone over the whole sketch, I then hide the locked layer and am left with clear paths to work with. I then group these paths based on what element each set of paths belong to. For example, if there are two characters, I would group the paths belonging to each character separately. This makes it easier to modify, arrange and colour individual elements in the design.

3) Colouring

Once I have finished grouping the paths and arranging all of the elements in the design, I then lock, duplicate (I keep a copy of the line-work layer incase I should need to make alterations at a later date) and hide this layer. I then go through each group and fill the paths with their respective colours, usually working within a five colour limit. When producing the line-work I am only concentrating on drawing and not the relevant position of the line in the design; this can lead to some objects which should be in the front, being at the back and vice versa due to the order in which I drew the paths and / or created the groups. Once everything from each group has been coloured accordingly, I arrange everything so that what should be in the front, is in the front and so on.

Make sure to check out all of Greg’s work at: http://cargocollective.com/gregabbott

Also if you enjoyed this also check out Nils Vogeding’s design article.

Well let’s start with what sets them apart. 5quidink prints on top quality American Apparel tees using water based inks; unlike their competitors whom use Tultex or other unnamed cotton tees. While American Apparel tees are incredibly comfortable they do come with a higher price tag. A shirt on 5quidink will set you back $12, which is a few bucks higher than $9 price tag at Shirt.Woot and Teefury and the $10 price at RiptApparel, but let’s face it $12 for an American Apparel tee using a water based ink which leaves the design feeling very soft, this is pretty sweet deal.

Enough about the t-shirt, lets talk design because it doesnt matter which type of blank you are printing on if you do not have a quality design printed on it. 5quidink has come out of the gate swinging by teaming up with artists such as Greg Abbott, Quakerninja, Wotto, Evanimal and SteveORama. While 5quidink has only been up long enough to put out 4 designs, so far I am impressed.

The only thing that has left me unimpressed is the very sterile and underwhelming website. The site really has no wow factor and just has way to much white space for my eyes. The site could also benefit from some more creative mock-ups of the tees, because now-a-days one shot just doesn’t cover it. Last but not least the countdown timer is massively underwhelming! That counter should be loud and in your face urging you to buy a tee!

Overall 5quidink seems like it has some good ideas, has teamed up with some great artists and is really paying attention to making a high quality product at the lowest possible price, but can they do this on a consistent basis delivering top notch shirts everyday? I guess time will tell.

www.5quidink.com