Well, here’s a novel concept, a t-shirt company that think everyone is an artist. I think they realise that not everyone is the next Rothko or Mozart, but they might be on to something with this idea that ‘everyone doodles’. I guess that’s true to one extent or another, and it actually works surprisingly well as the basis for a clothing line.

Despite the whole “everyone is an artist” thing, their first range of tees shows a lot more doodling talent that you’d find on the writing-pad next to my telephone, and the 3 tees are all pretty cool. Each range (released every few months) is based upon a theme, and the first theme was ‘monsters’ which always provides excellent fodder for designers. I don’t think that there’s actually any kind of prize for people that submit their doodles (although even designs that don’t become a tee get shown off in their gallery), but I really like the old-school way that to submit your artwork your have to send it via snail mail, after all, its hardly a doodle if you’ve done it in Adobe Illustrator!

Draw Limited

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Tags » American Apparel • characters • doodles • draw limited • illustration • monsters • T-shirts

Coltesse are one of those brands that I think typify a European style of design and illustration even though I’m not really able to pin-point what it is about them that makes them seem so European (oh Andy, so good with ideas, so poor with execution). They’re running a 33% off sale at the moment, which drops their tees from €29.90 to an altogether more friendly €20 each. The sale runs until October 10th, which is the day after International Andy Day (… my birthday).

Coltesse

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Tags » 33% • characters • coltesse • France • illustration • sale • T-shirts

Diogo Machado (aka add fuel to the fire) is yet another artist I’d never heard of but will be trying to keep an eye on in the future because he’s “got mad skillz” when it comes to creating cute characters and crazy typography, as this design that he’s done for Yes No Maybe attests.

Costiness=£29 (t-shirt) £46 (sweatshirt) Buy It here

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Tags » add furl to the fire • characters • cute • diogo machado • Sweater • sweatshirts • T-shirts • typography • UK • yes no maybe

AAITSKI

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Tags » aaitski • characters • Mens • sale • T-shirts • Womens • world peace day

Last month I wrote a post a post about Squishi that was ’somewhat’ enthusiastic, when a person claims that they want to hug a brand in the title of the post, they’re clearly setting their hopes pretty high. I realised when I was offered a sample from Squishi that I may have put them up on a bit of a pedestal, and that the reality might end be disappointing, they are run almost entirely by a guy called Will & his six colour screen printing machine, which would leave me having to write a review that I didn’t want to…

… but we all know I’m a showman, right? I’m not going to spoil the big reveal yet. I love the design, I’d never heard of Drew Millward (the artist) before, but it turns out that he knows how to draw. Big time. There’s a lot going on, but I think that Drew gets away with it by making the design so fun and cute. Yep, all that blood and I think its fun and cute, the Andy-man has turned dark. The colourway works really well too, I can’t wear this since its a size large (Squishi don’t do XL yet), but I think this is one of the few designs with a lot of pink (and neon pink at that) on them that I’d actually wear.

I know I teased before, but come on, you never really doubted it, did you? The quality is great. The stock tee is an American Apparel blank, so there’s no surprises there, and the print quality is good too. It’s a pretty detailed print, with lots of small pieces and lines that could have easily tripped up team Squishi, but they’re passed the printing test with flying colours, and when it comes to this tee, some of those colours actually are flying. There’s a custom tag sewn in as well, which always gives a nice professional touch.

Costiness=£15 Buy it here

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Tags » characters • cute • drew millward • pink • review • Reviews • squishi • T-shirts • UK • white

Tolky Monkys has hooked up HYA (and a few other blogs) with an exclusive coupon code that will give you 50% off your order… but there’s a catch. This coupon will only work five (5/cinq/cinco/funf/quinque/wu/panch/go/khamsa) times. Once it has been used five times it will no longer be functional, which basically means that you’re going to have to be quick to use this, so as soon as you’ve finished reading this I suggest that you run, don’t walk, over to Tolky Monkys and buy something.

The coupon code is: HIDESEPT08

If the 5 uses don’t get snapped up quickly (I have no way of knowing who and when it has been used) then the code will expire on September 19th. There is no limit on the amount of items that you can order with this code, so this is be a great opportunity for Americans to pick up something from Europe without having to take out a mortgage.

Tolky Monkys

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Tags » 50% • character • characters • coupon code • Coupon Codes • discount • Exclusive • sale • Spain • tolky monkys

Ding! Ding! Ding! I think we have a winner!

I’m really, really, impressed with the design selection that’s available from Squishi. Its great to see a company like this in the UK (they’re based in Wilthshire), even if the designs aren’t all done by British designers, because its good to see that there’s a growing number of options for us Brits that doesn’t involve having tees shipped across the Atlantic.

All the tees are printed on American Apparel, printed by Squishi themselves, and priced well considering they’re a British brand. As they say on their about page, on the UK high street people will happily pay £20+ for a t-shirt, and they have no idea what conditions that tee was made in, whereas Squishi tee is produced sweatshop free in LA then printed by a guy in Wiltshire, and its let than you’d probably pay on the high street.

Squishi

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Tags » American Apparel • characters • squishi • T-shirts • UK

I’ve never really been all that into polo shirts with prints on them, but I think that this new polo line from Madrid-based label Tolky Monkys might turn me around on this piece of collared casual wear.

As usual, the designs are character based, and I’m really impressed with all of them, the tees are just for the girls and includes some really cute designs, the polos are for guys and girls.

Check out the girls tees, check out the polos.

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Tags » character • characters • Mens • polo • Polo Shirts • Spain • T-shirts • tolky monkys • Womens

Tolky Monkys, the Spanish company who make character-based tee designs, have released their summer line (everyone’s at it at the moment, aren’t they?), and if I may say, its pretty damned cool. Click here for a Flickr set of the new designs.

Tolky Monkys

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Tags » characters • illustrations • Mens • Spain • T-shirts • tolky monkys • Womens