I saw this tee and laughed, I think that’s enough to make it worthy of a post. I’m a sucker for mashups and parodies, and whoever thought of putting a political slant onto ‘Back to the Future’ had a pretty bright idea.It really does seem as if Obama has wrapped up the vote of graphic designers in America, I see a lot more Obama tees than Clinton tees (no McCain ones at all…), and the Barack fans are usually better designed as well.

Costiness=$20 Link

• 4 Comments
Tags » barack obama • black • Karmaloop • movies • political • T-shirts

I was watching a debate with the three front runners for the London Mayoral Election (Boris Johnson - Conservative, Ken Livingston - Labour, Brian Paddick - Liberal Democrat) on Sunday, and I realised that I wouldn’t really want any of them to be in charge of a city that I lived in, they were squabbling like kids. How much is it to ask that we have political figures that I can actually respect?
Since I don’t live in London it doesn’t effect me that much, but I’d imagine its a pretty confusing position for Londoners to be in, having to pick the best of a bad bunch, and I think that this latest couple of tees from Mingled highlights the situation pretty well. For those of you that don’t recognise the faces, Boris’ face is on the Vote Ken tee, and Ken’s face is on the Vote Boris tee. They’ve also made the Vote Boris tee red, which is traditionally Labour’s colour, but the Vote Ken tee is in green, which is a little odd since you’d expect them to carry on the party-switching by making it a blue tee, which would be the Conservatives traditional colour, unless they really being politically astute and recognising how David Cameron has been saying that a vote for the Conservatives is a green vote because of all his promised green initiatives….and that paragraph above provides you with an excellent example of why I don’t write about politics anymore… because it’s all incredibly confusing. Props to Mingled for taking their products shots outside of City Hall!

Costiness=$19.99 Vote Ken/Vote Boris

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Tags » Celebrities • london • mingled • political • T-shirts

Over last week I spent quite a lot of my time on ticket websites (including ticketmaster, which appears to do everything it can to discourage a customer from being able to use their website) trying to get a day ticket (at a cost of around $140) to see Rage Against the Machine at the Leeds Festival. But they sold out very quickly, computer systems were down, and ticket touts were out in full force. I was actually raging against my laptop machine trying to get tickets for Rage Against the Machine. Oh the freakin’ irony.

All of that left me with the need for a tee with angry people on it with a message of hope, and I thought that this tee by Alphanumeric fit the bill. They’ve made quite a few tees in this style (strong type with a repeated message above a large newspaper print style image) and this example is another good example of it.

Costiness=$30 Link (if you want to revolt against that $30 price then use the rep code AS7594 and get up to 20% off)

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Tags » alphanumeric • black • Karmaloop • political • t-shirt

I don’t expect you to know Latin, so I’ve googled the phrase for you; ’sic semper tyrannis’ means “thus ever (or always) to tyrants.” Whilst I did only bookmark this tee because I thought the image was cool, there is clearly a political message to it, although unusually for these kinds of tees there’s actually a fairly wide scope for discussion of what the message means in this particular context. Who are meant to be the tyrants?

But if you look at it on a more superficial level, and I sure did, this is a great take on the crest style tee that we see so often. To be honest I think that the flames are a bit weak, but that’s almost always the case when you try and print photo style flames.

Costiness=$39 Link

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Tags » bullets • Karmaloop • political • schmack • t-shirt • war • white

I wrote about this t-shirt ten days ago, and then it turned up in the mail a couple of days ago, so I’m going to ask again, Ferrari, if you want me to review an Enzo, I’ll gladly have one for the weekend. You have eight days to respond!
For those of you that are unaware, the slogan on this tee comes from a speech made by Democratic Presidential hopeful Barack Obama, and even though it isn’t mentioned explicitly, I think that the quote clearly relates to his sounds-nice-but-doesn’t-mean-a-thing messages of ‘hope’ and ‘change’. When I first wrote about this tee a commenter, Carl, said that the design was lacking since there was so much wasted space. At the time I thought that Carl might be right, especially as we all know that huge type looks sweet, but now that I’ve had it in my hands I feel a bit different, the size feels about right, perhaps not having it dominate the shirt is meant to make the message seem a bit calmer and less shouty than it would with a large type tee? Also, I really like the use of a full stop to try and reinforce the message.
This is an organic tee from American Apparel’s ‘Sustainable Edition‘, which presumably means that the cotton plants get massages just like the AA employees famously do. This is actually the first AA organics tee I’ve received, and I must say I’m impressed, it feels pretty much the same as a regular AA tee, which I guess is what you want, no reduction in quality whilst producing an environmentally conscientious product. I don’t know how they last through various washings, so if anyone has experience with them I’d appreciate an opinion. Print is fairly thick, I think its plastisol ink.Costiness=$18.50 Link

• 6 Comments
Tags » ban t-shirts • barack obama • black • political • t-shirt • text

This is another bunch of tees that I personally wouldn’t wear, probably because the word ‘twat’ is far more NSFW in the UK than the US (I think?), but since a portion of each sale goes to Operation Enduring Care (a charity which supports American troops who have been injured) I thought I’d give them a quick link.

TWATSupplies

• 0 Comments
Tags » black • Charity • terrorism • war

Does anyone else remember the days when to promote a movie people would make a poster, a trailer, send the stars out on a press junket, and that would be pretty much it. Well, those innocent times are long behind us, nowadays, if you haven’t got a team of people in a van campaigning for a fictional character for a fictional election without mentioning the movie that they’re promoting and staying in character for the duration, then your movie clearly doesn’t deserve to be judged on its own merits.

A blogger who presumably watches a lot of stuff, unchained himself from his computer and pounded the mean streets of Manhattan in search of the ‘Dentmobile’, a van that has been going around NYC ‘campaigning’ for Harvey Dent, a character from the upcoming Batman film, The Dark Knight. I think this kind of marketing is cool, but I think that the t-shirt (pictured, above), is cooler. The print quality doesn’t look up to much, but I like the way that it conforms to all the stereotypes that you expect to see in a political tee. If you’re a fan of movie memorabilia and would like to pick up a tee and some other swag, check out this page to see if the Dentmobile is coming through your notable American city (I recognise all the places, so they must be fairly large).

[Photo credit: I Watch Stuff]

• 2 Comments
Tags » batman • black • gotham • harvey dent • marketing • t-shirt • the dark knight

I won’t start political soap-boxing, but I really like the message behind this tee. Why is it that we have to hope that people vote for a President that provides ‘change’ (has anyone asked what kind of changes these are yet? I would appreciate a checklist), why can’t people just change things themselves, why we need to wait 8 months for someone else to be in charge before good things can start happening. Can you imagine how much good stuff could be done in 8 months by people, and that’s before ‘change’ even starts happening?

Anyway, this is a cool t-shirt, I would totally be friends with anyone who I met wearing it at some kind of protest or rally (unless they were a damned hippy)

Costiness=$18.50 Link

(Man, I can’t believe how much the guy that thinks HYA is too Ameri-centric is gonna hate this post)

• 3 Comments
Tags » ban t-shirt • black • organic • political • white

Well, I guess now we definitely know who the Democratic nominee is going to be, people who were on the fence before will have surely been swung to the Obama camp now that they know Kim Kardashian, a woman who is famous for very little reason (no ‘two big reasons’ jokes in the comments please), has officially come out in support of Barack Obama.

I’ve googled around and can’t find the specific tee, which is a pity because I like the style and as you are well aware I practically live for gold print on tees, but if you’re after something a bit more artistically minded No Star Clothing offer a tee with the same message but with an image of Obama on it.

• 6 Comments
Tags » barack obama • black • celebrity • gold • Kim Kardashian • obama • political • t-shirt

And now for the concluding part of HYA’s interview with ‘The Dude’ from Ban T-shirts, if you missed the first part you can find it here:

5. If the Democrats were to make major gains in the November election, and then go on to win the Presidency in 2008, would you begin making t-shirts which criticised the decisions of a Democrat administration (although admittedly you do only have 1 tee that is specifically anti-Republican)?

Many people often assume that because we are anti-Republican we are pro-Democrat. That is not the case for the reasons I gave to the previous question. However it is highly unlikely that we would make anti-Democrat T-shirts, mainly because our core audience is not going to wear them as it would make them look like right-wingers. What we WILL continue to do is make shirts that attack specific issues. If we think the Democrat administration is wrong about something we will say so, but it will always be done our way, it won’t be a case of taking sides with the Republicans, it will be dealt with from a left-wing point of view.

6. Do you view ban t-shirts as a business, or as more of a grass-roots political movement?

Ban T-shirts is a business with a political opinion as well as a reason for existing that goes beyond making money. I wouldn’t call it a grass-roots political movement but I would say that it is part of a widespread political movement that is yearning for change in society.

7. Do you ever feel limited creatively that your designs have to have a political slant?

Well, it’s interesting that you ask that because a few of our designs are non-political (we throw them in the “attitude t-shirts” section of the site!). When I first started doing designs I did a few non-political ones. I think that although the site is chiefly political in nature that people won’t mind seeing the odd non-political shirt up there.

8. Considering your business involves controversial material and opinions, do you ever receive hate mail from people that oppose your views, and have you had any reports of people feeling discriminated against due to their wearing of one of your products?

Yes, I occasionally get hate mail, although it seems to have died down a bit recently – I expect it will pick up again as we get closer to 2008. It’s all pretty much the same “you idiot, you hate America, our troops are fighting for your freedoms, blah, blah, blah”. Most customers seem to receive compliments on their shirts but inevitably they will receive the odd sneer or tut-tut from passing right-wingers. [on a side note, when I wore my Ban T-shirts ‘Fortress America‘ tee to a club on Satruday, the only American I met insisted on (physically) pointing out where he used to live, and when I told him that the tee was about the immigration debate he just told me that it take 13 hours to fly to Japan… politics is dead amongst young drunk backpackers in loud nightclubs]

9. Clearly a business needs to sell its products to be successful, do your designs ever have to be altered to make them commercially viable, or are you willing to take a hit financially in order to better represent your own beliefs?

I’ve never altered a design to make it more acceptable to anyone. There is some pretty hard-hitting stuff on the site and it’s going to stay that way. We do have some t-shirts that you could wear to your aunty’s but each issue has to be dealt with in its own way. We don’t go out of our way to be offensive but if an issue calls for harsh language then we’ll use harsh language (and imagery)!

10.Lastly, George W. Bush, great President, or the greatest President?

Wow, that’s like asking me if I prefer Coca-Cola or Pepsi… and that’s not really what you would call “freedom”, is it?

I hope that you guys enjoyed this interview as much as I did, and hopefully this Brit hasn’t made too much of a fool of himself trying to discuss American politics.

• 2 Comments
Tags » ban t-shirts • interview • political