Another week yields another batch of Threadless prints. Graphicairlines brings Lonely Snowmen to the Select line, a somber illustration with just the right balance of weirdness and intrigue. This week’s new Type Tee, Fractions Speak Louder than Nerds, will surely find its way into many a math geek’s closet. Here’s a quick look at the rest of the new tees:

A Spaceboy Retrospective: Great design for space enthusiasts. I’m surprised, however, that it wasn’t printed in children’s sizes.
Magical Powers!: This shirt proves that you don’t need a wand for the magical ‘power of fondle’. Take that, Harry Potter!
Poetic Irony: Threadless was due for a good Poe design. Not everyone is liking the Lime girly shirts, but it’s really not that bad.
Lonesome George Looks for a Wife: The story behind this image is worth reading. Check out the submission page to learn why George, the Pinta tortoise, is so lonely.
I’d Hit It: Penguins make a comeback. (And for once, Threadless users are wishing the text from the original design had been included.)
My Green Forest: A fun forest-loving design in a funky fresh style.

So that wraps up the new prints. For the sake of redundancy, they’re listed below along with this week’s two reprinted designs. Make use of the handy links, or head on over to the full catalog or stock chart to begin shopping. Oh, and remember to use the code STAY CLASSY during checkout to save three bucks on your order.

Linear Recap of the Eight New Prints:
Lonely Snowmen (Threadless Select)
Fractions Speak Louder than Nerds (Type Tee)
A Spaceboy Retrospective
Magical Powers!
Poetic Irony
Lonesome George Looks for a Wife
I’d Hit It
My Green Forest

Two Unforgettable Reprints:
Time Fades
Russell! How’s yer Ma!

I really like Mindrenew’s stuff. Lots of fun, asymmetrical critter designs. Cute without being sickly sweet, good colors, a fun handdrawn feel.

My favorite part of this design is the turtle swimming upwards—the one whose entire belly we get to see. It’s just…kind of..adorable. And I’m not a person who typically jumps at the chance to wear “adorable” shirts, but gosh darn it… I can’t resist these little turtles.

Great intro comment, too: “No matter which way your turtles travel, they will remain submerged within your Pacific Blue shirt.” It’s like they’re my happy swimming turtle buddies, and could magically move all over my shirt, like something from an old claymation TV show. I don’t know where I’m going with this.

If you liked this but didn’t have the chance to vote on it, there are still a few hours left on Orbital Tree House Disaster, so head over that way.

View the submission and marvel at their underwater antics.

I have to admit that I’m a fan of Ice Age, and the real reason I like this design might well be the rallying cry from the movie: TAE KWON DODOS–ATTACK!!!. But even so, this is a nice illustration, and the joke is there even if you haven’t seen the movie by which it was inspired. Nice details on the wood, and the high-jumping flightless bird just cracks me up.

View the submission and help support our flightless birds.

I love the idea of designs printed in the color of the shirt below them. Black-on-black seems to be the most popular on Threadless (there are at least two in the running right now: see le noir est le vieux noir, which I also like), but I could also go for a nice orange on orange or yellow on yellow. (Don’t worry, I’m not holding by breath.)

This is a great illustration. Dark, creepy, detailed, and perfect for any fall day (or night). If you can’t see it, adjust your monitor—it’s hard for the artist to give the impression of black-on-black and still have a visible design, but it’s made even harder by the different monitor settings out there. What’s perfectly visible on one computer (mine) might be an empty black box on another (my dad’s).

Or if you’re too lazy to adjust your settings, you can just trust me and vote $5. =]

View the submission and support scarecrow rights.

I’ve spent the last couple years (it seems) staying clear of the Pirate vs. Ninja argument. Despite my longstanding stance of diplomacy, however, I was recently drawn into the fight at a forum I frequent, and my true colors began to shine. I must admit: I am definitely a pirate fan, and have been since my earliest glimpses of J.M. Barrie’s Neverland. All other arguments aside, however, this shirt is pretty cool.

I was initally iffy about the shirt color (Yellow with light blue? Are we sure about this?), but despite its rather lackluster appearance on the submission screen, I am convinced that this would look utterly stunning in person. (Picture an actual light yellow shirt with actual light blue waves—I can hardly take the excitement!)

The woodcut/linocut look of the water thrills me; I love how detailed it looks. There’s simply no comparison between this and having the same ships on a solid blue background. I love how the ships are all riding on their own little waves—it’s something I didn’t even realise at first, but it makes the whole thing so much better. I even appreciate the similarity of the ships: the colors breaks up what might otherwise be monotonous (har!), and it gives the design a cool sense of “Well, what makes this one different?” It’s like a motivational poster, but without the cheese.

I would love to wear this shirt.

View the submission and vote it up.

I have to admit, I’m really digging the Little Miss Sunshine Loves Threadless competition. Of all the Loves contests that I’ve been around for, this one has probably had the highest concentration of designs I like.

What can I say? I dig yellow. =]

Anyway, I really like this design. Tea and toasted breadbus. It’s such a perfect combination of the bizarre and the mundane, and it’s pulled off without being obnoxiously “Look at me! I’m ironic!” I really appreciate the handdrawn look.

I also really like that this sub does something with the VW bus besides toss it into a mix of random stuff. This is one of the submissions that I could see myself wearing entirely apart from any knowledge of Little Miss Sunshine. At the same time, though, it still has obvious ties that anyone “in the know” recognises immediately. So it gets major props for that.

In conclusion, my favorite part of this is the smiling sunshine on the teacup.

View the submission, and if you catch it before it ends, be sure to vote.

What I think of as bananaphone’s characteristic look first showed up in his Let’s make art!, which he submitted back in September of last year. The signature elements are all there: a childish/outsider drawing style; good balance across the design through use of shape, color, scribbling/texture, and positioning; and then, incredibly sophomoric thematic materials (here, “making art” with a little birdie and a piece of dynamite). If you check out a random set of submissions since then (say, My Friend Todd, Your Angry Face, and on to Captain Justicepants), you’ll find that he steadily improves his ability to achieve his style. His use of color gets more subtle and appropriate, his control of the detail material improves, and he’s able to manage more objects within his structures. Recently he’s encountered a sort of self-imposed trap. When Read the rest of this entry »

This is already going on at threadless, but just figured I could post it here as well. The total blog entry at threadless can be found here.

So what’s the deal? I’m handing out a $30 gift certificate to the best entry in the competition. The aim is to create some kind of image, be it a photo, collage, drawing, or something else, using either of my earlier designs, you’re wormfood or happy when it rains. You can do what you like, you don’t have to buy the shirt for this contest to work or anything.

If you want to join in, provide a link to the image in the competition blog (so not here), and make sure the image is not wider or higher than 500 pixels. That’s it!

NOTE: I have extended the deadline to August 6

This design is really, in a word, breathtaking. It has a brilliant, ethereal quality that’s pretty unique to a shirt design, and it… well, it just makes unicorns seem cool. (Not quite like Afternoon Delight in that quality.)

And even though brown is the new black on Threadless lately, this design just completely works.

It’s perfect, really.

Verdict: 5 + OMG Would Buy (View Submission)

This isn’t a terribly exciting submission, but the style is cute.

I’m bothered by the fact that the image is lacking a sun, since that’s really what photosynthesis is all about. (Although science doesn’t account for the four color limit.)

For some inexplicable reason, I still like it. The design has potential… the intended concept just needs some fleshing out.

Verdict: 3 (View Submission)

Hello. My name is Steve Swartz. I’m from a little old town called Snohomish in the United States, about thirty miles north of Seattle, Washington. I live with my wife and three cats in a hundred-year-old three-story house with a big fancy professional kitchen. I work as a product architect for a large software company located east of Seattle. I’m old: 49 as of July 19^th. Being old turns out to be both more and less different than you might think; I’m pretty sure I can’t explain how.

I’ve been writing critiques of Threadless t-shirts over in their community area for about a year. My t-shirt critiques have fallen into two groups: I’ve written about submissions (I ended up calling those “preCycled”), and I’ve written about printed designs (I called those “inPrint”). Read the rest of this entry »

I’m fresh off a crazy birthday weekend and into a week filled with a whole lot of other work, which is just fine. We’re happy to be bringing the indelible talents of Mr. Steve Swartz to the site, beginning today, in our effort to add a bit more diversity to the site’s content.

There are also some goings-on in the background to develop something some of you might think is rather cool. We’ll keep you posted about that, but you’ll know when it happens, I assure you.

Oh, and another contest, somewhere in the near future.

It’s true.

First thing being first and all, a big thanks to Bree & company for the birthday wishes. Rest assured, this birthday weekend was managed properly.

Now then, while I may still be holding on to a sliver of hope that my dog the lion will someday get printed, I understand that at some point I have to move on. Jublin just got printed with Bear Hug, but keeps it real with a crazy, (and I can only assume) Men In Black-inspired design that will just throw you for a loop. The attention to detail, as always, is brilliant, and I love the shading on the faces. The banana is “a bit much,” but the concept works through myriad color schemes. All around, it’s good times.

Verdict: 4 (View Submission)

Last week Chris blogged on the new prints in a flurry of haiku. I’m keeping things simple this time, however, by just making a few brief comments on each design. (I’m simultaneously sparing you from my horrible poetry, so consider yourselves lucky.)

Speaking of poetic verse, Shakespeare Hates Your Emo Poems is this week’s Type Tee offering. As frequently as ‘emo’ is bashed upon, I’m surprised there are enough openly emo kids left to ridicule.

John Mitchell (whom you may know as JOHN2 and the artistic genius behind such favorites as Chinese Peaches and Kabuki Fish) brings Strange Birds to the Select line. It’s weird, as you would expect, yet surprisingly beautiful in its own freakish way.

The Early Bird and the Worm starts off the lineup of designs selected from the ongoing competition. It’s a snazzy illustration, and you can read my comments on it here where we favorably reviewed the original submission.

The designs-containing-birds count reaches three with Nature Call! printed on pacific blue and aqua. It’s a cute design, perfect for summer… cheerfully bright and nature oriented.

I’ll be honest and say I’m not really sure how to comment on Happy Hospital. It scares me, and I’m not sure if it’s just the clown or the concept altogether. While it may not suit my personal taste, I’m sure some people could really pull it off. (Perhaps doctors with a warped sense of humor.)

If you’re looking for something a little more cuddly, perhaps Bear Hug will prove more appealing. The humorous illustration is printed on royal blue for adults and red for kids, so you can buy one for yourself and one for your little tyke.

When I first saw This is not a Pipe, I wondered why the text was in French instead of Italian. As all self-respecting Nintendo fans know, Mario is an Italian plumber. Reading the comments on the submission page revealed that the design is really a parody of a famous painting by a surrealist artist named René Magritte. Now that the design makes sense (and the fact that it combines my two loves of art and gaming), I think I’ll be adding one of these delightful green tees to my own collection.

The Day They Came rounds up the batch of new prints with some alien-goodness. Printed on brown with a distressed look, the image certainly has a pleasant retro feel to it.

Lastly, don’t forget to check out this week’s two sweet reprints: Hypotamoose and Follow It. Links are below, or you view all designs at once and begin your shopping via the full catalog or stock chart.

Threadless Select:
Strange Birds

Type Tee:
Shakespeare Hates Your Emo Poems

Six New Prints Unveiled:
The Early Bird and the Worm
Nature Call!
Happy Hospital
Bear Hug
This is not a Pipe
The Day They Came

Two Favorites Return:
Hypotamoose
Follow It

That’s right, today Chris Cardinal himself (the mastermind behind Loves Threadless) has turned 21! He can now legally drink himself silly.

Send some Birthday STP’s his way, or just show some love by leaving a comment.