Tokyo Art Beat, who release five limited edition tees every year (I think I mentioned them about a year ago), which are all pretty beautiful as long, as you like cyan and magenta!Until the end of the month all five of the designs are on sale, down from 3800 yen to 2500 yen, which is about $24, although tees seem to be rather rapidly selling out, so be quick if you want one. All the profits go to feed the staff of their non-profit organisation, so, are you going to go and buy a t-shirt and help someone eat delicious, delicious tempura, or let them go hungry?

Tokyo Art Beat

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Tags » japan • sale • T-shirts • tokyo art beat

I think a sign that t-shirts are taking over my life came in Hong Kong wen I was excited to spot an Beams T, the much-collaborating Japanese tee label, and one of their famous t-shirt conveyor belts, in a mall on a street in Kowloon (they also have a larger store in Kowloon Tong, but even I won’t travel on 3 trains for 40 minutes for t-shirt conveyor belt).The tees weren’t exactly cheap, but they were nicely designed by names that I actually recognised (although owning the Beams T book probably has something to do with that), and they’re a really cool brand that can happily sit in any tee junkies closet, so I recommend you check them out if you get a chance.

Beams T

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Tags » beams t • HK • hong kong • japan

Just a month (and a week) after the event actually occurred, I’m finally treating you to some reports on brands that I found at Margin. As most of the vendors at Margin didn’t want photos being taken of their goods (and a few at The Park were pretty rude over the whole photo situation), and I can understand why, the clothes world can be pretty cut throat, I won’t be using any personally taken photos of the brands I met, but I think that I was able to get a much better insight into what all the brands were about, so there should be a bit more authority to these posts than my regular ‘hey, that looks cool’ offerings.


Terratag were the first brand I chatted too, so I thought it would be appropriate that I profiled them first. It’s hardly surprising that Terratag made a big impression on me, they love robots, perhaps even more than I do (they’re putting together a book with more than 200 robot t-shirts in it), and the way that their designs seamlessly mix British and Japanese pop culture really pushes my buttons (in a good way). They employ lots of strong images, often inspired by the extremely popular Gundam series, which helps to explain why Japan is one of their biggest sources of international orders. They also have no fear in using metallic inks, something that I’m happy to see. But to make it seem as if Terratag are robot obsesses is pretty unfair, their designs run a fairly wide gamut of subject matter, they like to dabble in graffiti style and vivid, neon colourways (some of which actually glow under UV light!) that are bound to get a lot of attention.

Overall, a very impressive line, who had a friendly guy working their booth that didn’t appear to mind answering my annoying newbie-journo questions.

Terratag links: Main Site/MySpace/Photos on Flickr

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Tags » Day Glo • graffiti • japan • Japanese • margin2008 • marginreports • robot • robots • street art • t-shirt • terratag • UV

Graniph, the t-shirt company who have the rather prodigious honour of being the only shop I actually bought a t-shirt from last year (and it wasn’t even for me!), are following up on last years design competition with… well, another design competition. I know that t-shirt design competitions are ten a penny nowadays, but there’s something a bit special about Graniph, their t-shirts are amazing, and they’re Japanese, which we all know makes things cooler by a factor of about seven (seriously, have you seen the Beams T store in Harajuku?). Here’s the details:

graniph design award. 2 Application Guidelines

Application Requirements
The application process is open to anybody regardless of age, nationality, or sex.

Application Designs
Design Tshirts Store graniph wants tshirt designs from around the world.
Pictures, illustrations, graphics, and photographs are limited to flat surfaces, but there is no limit on the type of design.

Entry Period
February 1 - March 31, 2008

Prizes
Gold Prize for one design, 1 million yen (9,000 US$) + Commercialization of the design by Graniph
Silver Prizes for 10 designs, 100,000 yen (900 US$) + Commercialization of the designs by Graniph
Bronze Prizes for 20 designs, 50,000 yen (450 US$) + Commercialization of the designs by Graniph

Yeah, I know, 1 million yen sounds a lot more exciting that $9000, doesn’t it?

If you’re interested in giving it a shot, here’s the link.

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Tags » award • competition • design • graniph • japan