Tilteed used to print a lot of daring, artistic pieces like wotto’s “Guilty Pleasures“, a.mar.illo’s “Machine Art“, and zerobriant’s “Super Featherweight Champion“, which is why I was a tad disappointed when the curators’ selections mostly consisted of the more cute, cartoony stuff that gets printed at Threadless a lot, and mostly one/two-color designs at that. They aren’t bad designs by any stretch of the imagination, nor are all of the selections of this style – I’m just sad that I have yet to see anything that is the artistic or conceptual equal of any of the three aforementioned designs. In my opinion, of course — I’m sure that the Tilteed curators have their own good reasons for picking what they picked!
That said, I have to say I was quite pleased with today’s new Limited tee, “Outside the Cathedral” by Blake Braden. I’ve always loved the look of detailed linework on tees, and the delicate rendering of the building is just incredible. The contrast between the flat, curving silhouette of the figure and the rigid, intricate cathedral is extremely interesting. Even better, this shirt seems to tell a story. Why is this man (spirit?) sitting here? Why does he seem so gloomy? It makes you ask questions and think — the hallmarks of good art.
Another thing I like about this tee is that it works beautifully as a one-color print — it doesn’t look empty or lacking despite the absence of color. In fact, it helps reinforce the mournful mood. Bravo, Blake! If I didn’t own too many white tees already, this would be a must-buy.
Here’s to hoping that we’ll see more stuff like this from Tilteed in the future!
Buy It: $12 at Tilteed.com, available for 72 hours only. (Pssst! Don’t forget to save with a coupon code.)
Thanks for the shout-out!
Believe me, we're trying to be as diverse as possible, so while we're not always gonna hit on something everyone will love every time, we're glad people keep checking and do eventually find awesome things they love. What drove me to Tilteed before they offered me a curating gig was their own diversity, so I'm definitely trying to perpetuate that as much as possible, and I know the others are as well.
But we all loved this piece, so while I obviously can't vouch for what you will or won't love in the future (and while we certainly all do love us some Threadless among other things), we're certainly apt to bring you more like this in the future. Keep checking in, and hopefully we'll keep pulling out things you dig.