Tee Junction - The T-shirt Blog. Coupon Codes, Sales, Offers» General

Art vs. Mass Appeal

Ivy — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 18:48:00 +0000

I buy into “beggars can’t be choosers” when I browse cheap daily shirt sites like Teefury, but really? I can’t think of a single person, male or female, old or young, who would wear something like this. What makes it even worse are the absolutely stunning selections from the designer’s portfolio, displayed right next to this tripe. There’s something about making a joke out of debilitating, serious diseases like AIDs and SARS that just doesn’t sit well with me. At all. Yes, I get it, but it doesn’t make it funny.

I also love how Teefury chose to jump right into this after hosting a week of “artistic” designs clearly done to placate those who are sick of tired pop-culture references and cheap jokes.

I recall reading somewhere how the most-complained-about shirts were also the ones that sold the most. From what I’ve seen at the Shirt.Woot forums, it’s very much the same situation over at that site as well: cutesy, mediocre designs trump creative, clever ones. It’s understandable why these companies would do this — when you’re selling shirts for $9-10, you want to try to move as much stock as possible. And this kind of mass-appeal stuff tends to do that. Yet a lot of people go online to buy clothing — tees in particular — because they’re looking for something unique, something you can’t find at any big retailer or mall. From the looks of it, Teefury gets a lot of submissions from talented artists — artists like the guy who created the above design — but they consciously turn down their incredible art for something much more bland and unappealing. This is something I can’t wrap my head around; even Woot is more understandable in that they run a purely vote-based system for selecting Derby winners.

I’m not saying that companies should walk away entirely from mass-appeal designs, especially if it makes them money, but I’d hope at least that they choose the good ones. There are some truly clever pop-culture tees out there that pique fans’ interest, yet manage to look like they weren’t pumped out in Photoshop in under ten minutes. And unless a company is specifically focused on these kind of shirts, it just looks bad to have a constant stream of them for weeks.

Luckily, these aren’t the only places to get cheap shirts — if your taste in designs demands something classier, allow me to recommend a few places. RIPT Apparel consistently curates artistic, well-designed pieces. Teextile is more expensive, but the designs are generally good and everything’s on American Apparel (they are still warming up, though, so I’m not sure if their shipping times have been rectified yet). I also like quite a lot of the stuff at Tee Invaders, though they do use direct-to-garment printing instead of screenprinting.

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Big DBH $12 & $15 sale

fletchy — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 23:13:44 +0000

Great news, there’s a big DBH sale just announced. Masses of shirts reduced to just $12, some are $15 which is a big drop from the $20-$25 normal price (hence the 50% off graphic I used on the frontpage). For most its the old designs though, so there are limited sizes left, so if you something you like then I wouldn’t hang around.

Here are our top 5 sale shirts for Men and Women:

I own Mexican Standoff in mens, always gets positive comments. As you would expect from a Mexican standoff everyone is in the sight of someone else’s gun.

As someone trying very hard to just quit work and live off my little websites, I’m a fan of anything that reminds me of the futility of normal work. Here’s two characters you could bump into at any time in the working world, tricky, tricky

And now the mens:

I tried hard to pick some of the larger prints, as thats what DBH does best, but to be honest I’m not into really loud shirts. Ghostez is the exception. Colorstorm I own and love. A guy at work dissed it for looking like “a wizards scarf” which instantly made me love it more. I vote we lobby paulobbruno to change its name. Recycles here because I live in Auckland, home of extinct and hilly volcanoes a terrible place to cycle and I miss my bicycle.

I also own Victorian Facade, it’s a fantastic print that reminds me of some of the colonial era architecture here in New Zealand.

That’s all folks. If you don’t like these go view all the other sale shirts.

Update: You can also save 10% by using the code MHMAMF, valid until the 4th May.

Link: Design By Humans sale

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Threadless 2008 Bestees – 2 more days to vote

fletchy — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 05:09:51 +0000

You’ve just two more days to tell Threadless your pick for their best design of the year, for what is the biggest prize in t-shirts – $20,000. More coverage on Tee-Junc when they announce the shortlisted final 20 on the 19th Jan. Let us know your pick in the comments…

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In honour of those we’ve lost

fletchy — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 19:59:13 +0000

(3 friends made redundant in the last weeks) and the many more us that will follow, a t-shirt for the newly unemployed.

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Threadless Give-away Q3&4 winners

fletchy — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 21:19:14 +0000

Come and find out who the winners of “obscure shirt of the year” and “funniest remark to a shirt” were.

Day 3: We asked you for the best reponse you recieved to one of your t-shirts, some great entries. The winner was Bpou with:

“I was at some renaissance fair wearing one of those “1up” mushroom shirts, from super mario, and when I first walked in some guy (working there I guess) kept on following me around harassing me to give up the “mushroom” for some “magical concoction”. Holy crap, this got popped out of trees and stuff, me and my friends found it hilarious throughout the whole day. Funniest part was when I found him on his lunch break. He literally said “Hey man, I get paid enough to do this, so let me have a break and eat.” I honestly had no idea they paid people to stalk mushroom shirted people.

We had no idea either Bpou! You’ve won 10 entries into the prize draw.

2nd Place – Phillp and the PETA Monkey storey. Because PETA people are funny and I love Monkeys.

3rd Place – Squeegebeckenheim purely for the line “why I had naked sumo wrestler girls humping peaches on my shirt!”. Great mental image.

2nd and 3rd get two entries each.

See all the submissions here

Day 4: We asked you to send in your favourite shirt from this year that we at Tee-Junction might not have seen. There were a few gems, I was going to get you to vote but there was one entry that was just to good, it just had to be the winner and that was the Street Art collab co-ordinated by wotto

Unfortunately it was for sale on Teefury which means it is was only available for one day. I’m a sucker for collab shirts, I also own the Robot Attack by Legion Of Doom printed over at Design by Humans (who are the 12 days of t-shirts store for December 3rd).

Congrats to Nikolina100 who suggested this one, we’ll over-look the bias of her having a design on there as she did declare that That’s your second win now Nikolina, way out ahead in the prize draw rankings.

2nd place – All work no pay suggested by Ben

3rd place – Ferocious Gorilla suggested by Brendan Kellam

4th place – Dex Fernandez suggested by ivejustquitsmoking

5th place – Uncalled for suggested by bhoomika

All get one prize draw entry.

See all the submissions here

Thanks to everyone who took part! Want to see how many entries you have? Check here

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Day 5 of the 12 days of Christmas: 50% off at laFraise

fletchy — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 05:00:11 +0000

Deal 5 I’m most excited about so far, 50% off everything at Europe’s largest design contest *until Christmas*

As I said, I’ve been really excited about this one, because I’m somewhat of a lafraise fan boy. I used to work for Spreadshirt, and got to help out with the lafraise team from time to time, which was always great fun because, well, I’m into communities and there’s is one, if not most passionate and outspoken of all the design contest sites’ (their blog posts regularly receive hundreds, and hundreds and hundreds of comments).

You’re probably thinking – why the hell do I care? Do they make nice shirts?

Yes they do. So you’re in luck there. Lets take a look at a few of best recent one (I don’t want to get you excited about stuff that’s sold out, as lafraise does no reprints!):

Go shopping at lafraise

These are the work of nesk, who is lafraise’s biggest ever winner (something like 20 times) and one of my favourite designers. You’ll see his shirts popping up occasionally on DBH and Threadless as well. Check his profile, there’s not a dud in there, every design a gem.

Now I get to own a few of them for the low price of €11 ($14), as lafraise is offering us the tee-junction community 50% of.

*Updated 06/12*: Code extended right through until Christmas

50% off lafraise Coupon Code: “teejunctiononeday” to get 50% off your cart. The bad news is lafraise only ships within Europe, so this one for the euro boys and girls only.

Here are a few other choice shirts, also just €11 ($14):

Go shopping at lafraise

Let us know in the comments what shirts you go for. Cheers!

[fergcorp_cdt]

Thanks to Guillaume lafraise’s head honcho for setting up this offer as well. Much appreciated.

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Threadless Give-Away Question 5

fletchy — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 04:25:54 +0000

Day 5 of the Threadless Give-away contest sees special guest Kat from T-shirts Around the Internet set the question.

Its a bit boring to have just me picking the questions so I’m trying to lineup some special guests. Today is the turn of Kat who runs the influential and prolifically updated T-shirts Around the Internet. If you’re interested in find new t-shirts from lesser known brands, it’s a great place to start.

Here is a little Q&A:

1. What is your all time favourite t-shirt store and why?

Hmmm… that’s a tough one. I would have to go with DBH due to the quantity and the quality of the designs. There’s always something there that I have to have it (although I’m not 100% satisfied by the quality of the fabric). From the smaller independent brands I love Akumu Ink’s huge violent yet stylish prints.

2. Your all-time favourite designer and why?

I don’t know about “all-time” but since Sven Palmowski (aka a.mar.illo) started designing t-shirts and winning contests all over the internet, “my heart belongs to him.” I’m a complete sucker for his huge melancholic busts and and complex compositions. He puts a lot of work into his designs and has great inkwork.

3. Santa please get me these t-shirts for Christmas

Because I love them but I won’t pay $40+ for a shirt. Why do European shirts have to cost so much?

Threadless Give-Away Question 5:

As a t-shirt blogger I know just how many shirts you accumulate. You’ll get review ones for free, you’ll earn affiliate points to swap for t-shirts, all you’re friends will know you’re a t-shirt freak and will buy you t-shirts, you’ll end up with t-shirts in the sink, oven, bathtub, you’ll sit on a couch of t-shirts.

How many t-shirts does Kat own?

Nearest wins 10 prize draw entries, next 5 nearest win one entry each. You’ve just one guess

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Oddica is back! $10 tee sale…..

fletchy — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 09:43:07 +0000

Oddica has relaunched! Which is great news. To celebrate there’s a $10 sale, stocks limited so get moving…Best to browse via the stock chart.

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Anyone want to write for Tee-junction?

fletchy — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 06:08:28 +0000

I’d really like to expand the site as I think it has big potential. I don’t have time to write much anymore, especially now I’m working full time and blogging/running a few other sites. So I’d like to take on a writer or two who can commit to blogging about cottony sale goodness on a regular, but flexible basis. You’d be paid and everything, but not enough to get rich, so I’m looking more for someone into this area, and looking to get some writing experience.So if you’re interested get in touch at adam(cutallthiscrapout)@fletchycorp.com

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Design By Humans 20% off discount code, coupon code and sale!!!!

fletchy — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:05:35 +0000

If you’re a regular here you’ll know I’m a big lover of Design By Humans. Well the good news is that we can all get 10% off everything at DBH until March 13th with this coupon code!

Design By Humans is one of the newer design contests around. I guess they’re a heading for a year old now. Shirts range from $19 to $24 depending on which of the printing techniques are used on the shirt and they print one new shirt a day. I interviewed DBH on HipHipUK which you can read here.

Right now they’re having a friend-a-thon and as a DBH friend I’m happy to pass the news to you. All you have to do to get 10% off is enter the coupon code QTFZ7E at checkout.

Current Special Offers: Free US shipping when you spend order 4 shirts (can’t be combined with 35% off offer). Save 20%
Current Coupon Codes: Save 10% by using the code MHMAMF, valid until the 4th May.

Some of my favourite shirts (I own both of these):

We often have Design By Humans coupon codes, discount code, vouchers and promotions listed here on Tjunction. Stay tuned for more specials.