Firefly is a new clothing company that has a small selection of high quality designs. The primary theme of the their clothing is to “provoke though of creativity, self-improvement, environment, technology, art and so forth.”

Their theme is particularly apparent in designs like Lightbulb, Quote and Words. There are also four main symbols representing their message, the human brain, a light bulb, computer and pine-tree. Jeff, the creator of Firefly, described these symbols to me: “The head represents humanity, the computer represents technology or anything man-made, the tree represents the environment, and the light bulb represents thoughts, ideas, creativity or anything intangible.”

I really like the vibrancy and simplicity of the designs. Take a look at their selection and grab a shirt if you like their designs and support their message. If you need a little extra push you can use the code TEASE to get 10% off your entire order!

Here’s a selection of t-shirts that is quite outside the norm. PRAUD, which stands for Progress Research in Architecture Urbanism and Design, has a store of shirts featuring designs relating to research they are performing in several cities around the globe.

The shirt featured in this post shows an abstract aerial view of Berlin generated from FIGUREROUND research they are performing. An interesting aspect of this research is that they are using the sales of their products to further determine the marketability of the cities on a global scale.

The different shirts combine a large range of topics, from population density to landfill data. Did I mention they look great too? If you’re looking for a great shirt, want to support and supplement research, and want to have something interesting to talk about, then go to PRAUD’s store and pick up one of there shirts!

Now here’s a fresh take on t-shirt design! T-Post is a company that has taken a monthly magazine subscription and mashed it up with t-shirts. What does this mean exactly? It means when you sign up for a subscription (27 euro) you get a new shirt every month. Not only does it have a new illustration on the front, but if you turn the shirt inside out you get an article on the inside!

This is an interesting business model. Each month features a different designer. The design is always an interpretation of the article within, and the content inside the shirt includes a biography of the artist. The theme of the upcoming month’s article is decided by user voting, so there is a nice social aspect as well. You can even get rewarded monetarily by submitting news articles, or even providing a good comment. If your article or comment is chosen for inclusion on the shirt you receive 800, and 100 dollars respectively!

All in all this is a great idea and it looks like they are around for the long haul. They’ve put out a shirt a month since February 2004. It’s safe to say they aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Head on over and take a look at their past issues. If you like what you see don’t hesitate to sign up.

Larry Armstrong has informed me of a shirt he’s designed entitled “The Realm of Every Game” which is now available for purchase on shirt.woot. It’s got great illustration and the theme is right up my alley,  poking fun at cliched level design of games current and past.

This shirt in particular got third place in the recent Maps Redux derby, and in my opinion should’ve been higher than that. You can view a large version of the design to really see the detail and quality of it. If you haven’t figured it out already it jokes around about the standard tropes in many video games. For instance, the ice level, the lava level, the out of place futuristic level, among others.

I wish I could’ve gotten a post up about this earlier, as it’s in danger of falling off the list of shirts for sale. If you like it be sure to head on over to woot and grab one for your wardrobe, and keep it around for others to do the same!

Continuing with their theme of focused novelty shirt brands, Amorphia Apparel has come up with a great concept called Teach the Controversy. It pokes fun at the campaign of the same name from the Discovery Institute that seeks to promote teaching Intelligent Design alongside Evolution in public schools.

Your personal beliefs aside, there is something here for everyone. They expand on the concept by having designs for famous controversies, archaic beliefs, and tall tales. One of my favorites is the UFO Pyramid shirt, which demonstrates the common conspiracy theory that extraterrestrials helped the ancient Egyptians build the pyramids.

They’ve currently got over 30 different shirts. This includes designs depicting Reptilians, Scientology, Young Earth Creationism, Moon Landing Hoax, and many others. I love their simplicity and colors that get straight to the point. They’ll for sure be a discussion topic if you decide to buy some, I’ve already got my eye on a few! I’d encourage you to check out some of their other brands too, this isn’t the first one we’ve covered.

Since my last update on Arteefact they’ve launched a new design for their site. It looks great, and the best part is that it’s filled with some brand new designs!

The designs have their usual abstract look and a lot of the new designs I really enjoy. In particular they’ve started to add some html and css related designs. Since my day job is a Software Engineer this is particularly relevant to me. The shirt I’ve featured is the perfect shirt for me. It provides an inside joke for people in the know, while still containing a message relevant to those that aren’t.

A few things I would mention is that it would be nice if their designs were grouped together better. Many of the shirts have multiple colors and each of these is listed separately. The other thing is that the shirts are pretty expensive. This isn’t a huge issue since it’s a small price to pay for such well designed clothing. It is also worth noting that if you order multiple shirts you get free shipping. This might be worth it depending on how much shipping would be for you.

Take a look at Arteefact and make sure you check in frequently because it appears as if they’re adding more and more designs as time goes on.

I was recently contacted by someone from Crazy Dog T-Shirts saying they are celebrating the appearance of spring with a coupon code lasting until the end of summer. Enter ICEPOP to receive $5 off any purchase. They have some really great shirts and I would definitely take a look.

I’m really surprised I hadn’t heard of these guys. They have a ton of high quality vintage shirts that make a wide range of pop-culture topics. This includes references to the past and present, along with just some generally funny designs. One of my favorites is the Paddy’s Irish Pub shirt. For those of you that don’t know this is a reference to the hit television show It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. It’s one of my favorite comedies right now so it’s always nice to see them represented.

In addition to the coupon code above, they run daily deals on shirts for $6.99. This is a deal for such great shirts. Not surprisingly the aforementioned code is not applicable when purchasing the daily deal. Either way you look at it you can get a shirt for under ten bucks!

Crunchy Badger is one of the latest shirt shops I’ve been informed of. They’re just starting up but they already have a good selection of designs. Included in these designs are a handful of movie quote shirts that are very unique.

The quote shirts are simple and clean, which I like. They contain the name of the movie, a small icon representing it, and a timestamp denoting when a famous line was spoken for the first time. “Here’s Johnny!” is the quote associated to the shirt pictured, for the movie The Shining. Wearing these shirts show your appreciation for a film and will become a nice talking point when inevitably someone asks you what your shirt means.

In addition to the movie quote shirts, there are several other designs. These include FML, a New York Subway style rendition of the popular internet acronym. Since this is a Spreadshirt shop it’s printed using their apparel and printing techniques. While they are not the best quality shirts you can find I’ve had really good luck with them. There shouldn’t be any major problems unless you plan on washing it daily!

“It’s satisfying to see the effectiveness of my work… I believe in T-shirts as works of art. [They] are the single most important piece of popular culture. People want to identify with something” ¹

So says Arturo Vega, the creative director and muse for the Ramones. Today we see celebrities like Lindsey Lohan and Paris Hilton sporting vintage band tees, but do we really believe they are pledging their allegiance to Def Leppard? Vega wants to believe people are identifying with the Ramones in his artistic works, but because of rising trends in vintage tees the only things they are evoking are style magazines.

The vintage scene has crept back, but instead of scouring shelves of thrift stores or emptying out pockets for the original tour shirts, we can go pick up a mass-produced $15 shirt at Target. So not only is the band t-shirt trend big, but it’s a commercial gold mine. Don’t get me wrong, I still believe there are the die-hard music devotees out there, who support the creative processes of those like Vega. But when push comes to shove, parents are still picking Motley Crew over the Sesame Street gang for their little tykes.

One musician whose legend definitely lives on is, none other than, Bob Marley. It has been said that he continues to make around 40 million dollars a year from products like t-shirts. What keeps fans Rastafarian clad? Is it that green, yellow and red are “oh, so in!” this season? Unlikely. Marley lives on because he was an advocate of social change, which transpires in his music and the ever popular Bob Marley t-shirts. But are all band t-shirts inspired artistic works? Probably not.

Band t-shirts are two-fold. They can show loyalty to a particular group, or devotion to one of the hottest style movements in the 21st century. Will band tees outsell albums? Are they really contributing to creativity of bands? The cultural vs. commercial debacle could go on forever. Either way, rock on!

¹ Easby, Amber, and Henry Oliver. The Art of the Band T-shirt. New York: Simon Spotlight Entertainment, 2007.

Arteefact is a new t-shirt shop that specializes in using vinyl transfers for their designs instead of other more traditional methods. Each time an order is placed a shirt is made before shipping. This means they’re doing their own plotting, weeding, and transferring by hand! The result is a work of art custom made just for you.

Despite being a new brand they have a wide range of designs. Because of the vinyl transfers the designs are mostly one or two colors. This leads to a more abstract look with colors that really pop off the cloth! They have a wide range of options for men, women and children. Some of my favorites are Always Choose Retry (pictured to the right) and Spring of Consciousness. If you’re looking for a unique shirt it’s worth a few extra bucks to get a custom made shirt from Arteefact!

Use the code graphictease for 5% off!