Hey nature, why don’t you class things up a bit?

James from T-Shirt Connoisseur here. I’ve always been a fan of Amorphia Apparel, and although the FAQ is informative (not to mention hilarious) I have always wanted to know more about the man behind the shirts, Jeremy Kalgreen. Now I wonder no more:

_Q: Amorphia Apparel is 3 years old now, how has the project differed from what you set out to create?_

Honestly the whole thing was really just an accident, so I’d say compared to what I set out to do it is completely unrecognizable. Once upon a time I decided it would be a fun project to teach myself to silkscreen, that way I could just make my own shirts as one-offs and have a totally unique wardrobe.

I did a new batch of shirts once every nine months or so, but as it turned out I was pretty terrible at it. So when the time came around to do another batch I decided to look into the online printers I had heard about. All I wanted was a single shirt depicting a design of my own creation (printed competently) and suddenly there were services out there specializing in just that, hoo ray!

So I signed up with Spreadshirt, vectored up a few designs and prepared to place my order. As it happens, my car broke down the day before I was planning on placing my order, and since I was a broke art student at the time, it meant I wouldn’t be spending any money on shirts for a while. Originally I had my shop set to private, since I wasn’t intending to be a shirtsmith, but I figured it might be a month or two before I scrounged up enough cash to place my order so I figured I might as well set my shop to public and who knows I might sell a shirt or two in the meantime.

It turns out I had greatly underestimated the demand, and now designing shirts is how I make my living.

_Q: Who would win in a no-holds-barred drum solo contest: Godzilla or a T-Rex?_

No Holds Barred Drum Solo Battle Royale

Godzilla for sure, not that he’s necessarily a better drummer, but he is flanked by a dark cult of lawyers that will find some diabolical scheme to undermine our poor buddy T-Rex.
_Q: Have you ever been forced to take down any designs? Any regrets?_

Oh sure, it used to happen from time to time. When I first started out I would include more pop culture parody type stuff, and having seen so many other t-shirt purveyors do the same; I guess I just assumed it was covered by fair use. A number of corporations saw things a little differently, but luckily I wasn’t selling enough at the time for them to really bother coming after me so all I’ve ever gotten was an occasional C&D.

The above hinted at Godzilla playing the drums was the first one that got smacked down. The only one that stung was the fine folks at Merge records requested I remove the shirt I made to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Neutral Milk Hotel’s amazing “Aeroplane Over the Sea”. I made that particular shirt (featuring a stylized rendition of the recordplayer/plane seen here) because it gave me a way to evangelize for a band I love and because I had always simply really wanted that exact shirt, but unfortunately it doesn’t exist in any official capacity. When I make a shirt like that it’s not cash in on someone else’s work (in fact that kind of thing sells significantly worse than just a design I’d make normally) but as a love letter, you know? So it is sad to see a love letter met with the threat of legal action.

Alas.

_Q: What is your experience using a t-shirt fulfillment service? If you had to start again would you do screen printing instead?_

I love working with Spreadshirt. There is no way in hell I’d do it silkscreen if I had to do it over again. I want to do the fun part: designing shirts, building websites the creative stuff! I don’t want to have to deal with the boring stuff: billing, shipping, managing inventory and all that noise. But most importantly it leaves me with basically zero overhead and that zero overhead gives me absolute freedom to experiment.

I can make a new design and bring it to market and it doesn’t cost me a penny. If I was silkscreening I’d have to thrown money down up front to make the screens and to print my first batch. That means I’d have to be sure the design would sell, or else I risk losing my shirt. With Spreadshirt I’m free to just try things out, anything that pops into my head is fair game. The only rule is that it has to amuse me, if it does that then we are good to go. Even if it is a joke that only myself and probably two other people in the world might find funny then so be it, I’ll roll with it. If something doesn’t stick no worries. I guarantee you I wouldn’t be in this business today without that flexibility to experiment freely and find what really seems to work for me.

_Q: Can you tell us about your “Wear the Controversy” line? What inspired it? Has it caused any controversy?_

I think it was the Dover School District intelligent design court case that really got me rolling on the idea. When discussing the issue I kept finding myself saying arguing that “teaching the controversy” of evolution in schools is like teaching the ‘round earth’ controversy in science class. Sure there are people out there even today who devoutly and sincerely believe that that earth is flat and we should respect their nutty beliefs yadda, yadda, but that doesn’t change the fact that is an insurmountable scientific consensus on the issue. Sometimes I’d end up using different analogies then the Flat/Round earth ‘debate’ and after a while I realized collecting a bunch of these together could make an amusing line of shirts.

I think the only controversy it has actually caused is by people who didn’t get the joke. I’ve never gotten any angry letters from the pro-ID types, but I get a surprising amount from people who don’t realize the whole premise is sarcastic. I don’t really think we should teach about The Stork in sex ed class.

_Q: Have you ever walked down the street and seen a stranger wearing one of your designs?_

Indeed I have. The first guy was walking past my house while I was sitting on the porch and he was wearing a design I had been selling through Urban Outfitters at the time. His shirt had caught my eye and it took me a second to realize why, and by that time he was a half block away. Since it was the first time I spotted one of my shirts in the wild I jumped up and yelled ‘Hey! Dude! Hey!” He responded by scurrying off double time.

As a rule if I spot anyone about beautiful Columbus, Ohio wearing something of mine I’ll buy them a drink, so any of you kids out there frequent Hound Dogs be sure to wear your fine Amorphia designs.

_Q: What was your reaction to having your “We Can Live” t-shirt design show up on The IT Crowd?_

Relief. I had signed off on it a few months before hand so it wasn’t exactly a surprise, but I did the same thing for ‘The Big Bang Theory’ and after signing the contract I told everyone that one of my shirts were going to be on TV. Half my family watched every episode of the first season like an aerie of hawks, but alas they never ended up using it.

_Q: Can we get a sneak peak of some upcoming designs?_

As a matter of fact I do have a Super Secret Project X in the works, and I suppose an exclusive sneak preview would be in order. A little background: I was quite inebriated one evening after a night of gallivanting with some pals. Upon returning to my fireside I decided to play around with illustrator for a bit and I made the image you see here.

Sir Groundhog

For some reason this classy groundhog picture left my inebriated self endlessly amused; I don’t know if it was something about the expression on his face that still just cracks me up. So on the spot I decided to do a bunch of them: Critters in top hats and gloves wearing monocles.

This is a great example of what I was talking about earlier: being free to just fool around with designs. I’m used to having more ‘high concept’ lineups but even I don’t really know what the hell the points of these are. Hey nature, why don’t you class things up a bit? It might be my worst idea ever, but all I know is that it makes me laugh so I’m just going to run with it.

So in a few weeks SirCritter.com will be a full fledged member of the Amorphia family with a starting line-up of 15 new designs. Heck I’ll even throw in a jpeg of what’s probably my favorite one, Sir Jellyfish.

Sir Jelly Fish

_Q: What do you think is your most underrated tee?_

I’d have to go with Roach Celebration; it is one of my all time favorite designs, and it is a respectable seller but never quite top tier. I think it has it all, it’s a bit dark but lighthearted at the same time and the joke requires at least a little outside knowledge.

Roach Celebration