Origin68 has made-over their site and it certainly is looking quite nice. In addition, they have added eight new tees making their 2012 Spring/Summer line. My favorite t-shirt from the bunch would definitely be Enjoy Life (pictured on the pretty girl above). It displays an incredible use of type to create a design – first of all, it grabs my eyes with it’s bold use of red on heathered gray, and then I am intrigued by the way LIFE flows into a circular shape to form something almost organic or whimsical, while ENJOY is tucked away elegantly within the top of the design, that I love! Oh, let’s not forget the subtle details; the placement of their name at the bottom of the design, as well as the hem tag – ah, so refreshing and just right.
Cost: £20.00 Buy it: Origin68
MORE from their new line (and honestly, I enjoy them all!)
Keep in touch with Origin68: Facebook, Twitter, and Blog
They’re back? I didn’t even know they’d gone away!
Now that is a good looking website. I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch to say that it is one of the nicest looking websites I’ve ever seen for a clothing company, it’s very clean and cohesive, and it really fits with their brand too. They’ve got some great looking shirts in store that I don’t remember seeing before so I guess they’ve had a few releases since I last checked, I wholeheartedly recommend that you check them out too
LUVD
Looks like Guy Vernes have been busy recently, dropping a new website with lots of cool looking effects (everything has a snazzy rollover), and a couple of new designs too. Of the two I think that the tear-drop style of Atlantis (heather/cranberry) is the more interesting, but I can certainly see how Mark of Eros (black/white) would appeal to people too, it’s a wearable night out kind of a shirt. Both shirts are on the edge of acceptability in terms of pricing at €29.99 each, but I think that they might be custom fit shirts which certainly would push the price up, and if you really like the shirt then I’m sure that you’ll be able to get over the price.
I haven’t mentioned Wrongwroks for a while, not because they’ve been quiet or releasing rubbish, in fact, I don’t really have a reason, I just have so much stuff to post all the time that it’s easy for me to miss stuff. Last month they overhauled their website and the result is a vast improvement. The old version was a bit of a step back in time, there wasn’t anything particularly wrong with it, but it was suffering in the usability stakes, so the new version is a big step forward in those terms.
From now until the 13th they’ve got a bit of an offer on too, spend over $100 (they’re Canadian, so that might include the U.S. too) or $200 (international), then you will receive a refund on your shipping costs via PayPal. Yes, I know that’s quite a high bar to set for free shipping, but if you’re the kind of person that’s into Wrongwroks stuff then $100/$200 isn’t going to make you spit out your milk.
This is a project that I have been thinking about for quite some time. If you follow my tweets and read Emptees you’ll know that I floated this idea months ago, but now things are becoming a lot clearer, and we (yes, we) shouldn’t be too far off deciding upon a launch date. What the hell am I talking about you may ask if you aren’t an Andy stalker? Well, ShirtHive is going to be the best place on the web connecting t-shirt brands with amazing t-shirt designers.
At the heart of it, if you just wanted a bullet-point version, it’s going to be a t-shirt industry job board, and a t-shirt design marketplace, but I’d like to think that in reality it will feel like a lot more. New brands don’t have all the contacts they need, they could come to ShirtHive, post a listing saying what kind of designs they’d like creating for them, designers check it out (and have posted jobs e-mailed straight to them) and if they think the job suits their style they can submit their resume/portfolio and send a message to the poster. We’ll also be providing guidelines to brands and designers telling them the best practices in the industry, so that everyone gets treated fairly and with respect, ShirtHive will not be home to lowballers, design has value and we’ll be treating it that way.
But what if a brand doesn’t need something specific created for their line, what if they want some pre-made designs? Well, we’re going to offer that too, in the form of a curated marketplace. High-quality designers will have their t-shirt designs on sale in the marketplace, which can be purchased by brand owners, with print-ready files being available to download immediately. Currently we haven’t approached any designers for the marketplace but are drawing up a list of designers we would like to have on there, like I said, it will be a curated marketplace to ensure that there is quality across the board, but if you would like to be considered for the marketplace please leave a comment on this post (using your portfolio as the URL linked to your name), or send me a tweet/e-mail.
At the moment ShirtHive.com is just a holding page where you can leave your e-mail address which we will hold to give you updates when the site gets going, but it shouldn’t be too long before we’re open for business, and I will be giving you status reports over the coming weeks and months with how the site is going. I could go on and on about this project, I’m really excited about it, but I don’t want this article to run long, so if you have any questions, concerns, or feedback of any kind please leave a comment on this post and I will answer them all as fully as I can. Your feedback is very important at this stage and will be very much appreciated.
