inPrint Companion: August 7
(an artist's guide)

Nothing much to say this week -- The blogs were a flurry! -- just read the reviews!

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We aren't all winners, but these people are:

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Adultery

Food with Faces week! While this art looks vey similar to 'Milk and Cookies' the food are a bit more adult in thought. I think that it's successful due the simplicty of the style which has served Threadless well and will continue to win -- a blend of cute with a little bit of naughty is a sure fire winner and by keeping the art on a more children friendly illustrative level you can play with the message a bit more freely. Nothing really great here but nothing too bad either. You get cute and you read the message loud and clear.

Reviewed by BasicShift

Infinity MPG

Well, the mathematical and scientific topic has been covered in the forums, but the message at its current time is nice to see. Simple elements broken up by scale, determine how the onlooker will read this shirt. Bike, MPG = simple cost effective solution. On green it’s enough to promote natural power and freedom of choice. More commercial than design.

Reviewed by Quoo

Childhood Fears

Well I do like that this shirt implies how we should face childhood fears. It’s a clever concept that works out well on a t-shirt. I like the emphasis on the hand and the subtlety of the hammer behind the girl’s back. Even though this is another silhouette, it holds its own as the balance between light and dark is struck perfectly and it plays to the macabre message. It's also great when Threadless can save some money on ink!

Reviewed by Quoo & BasicShift

Hooray Cholesterol!

Part of our mission here with inPrint is to remain dedicated to reviewing the art. While each shirt contains a particular message and history and intended audience we have for the most part tried to retain some neutrality. There is plenty to be said about this design in the context of Threadless and it's designer's community but I'll ignore all that for now.

It's the basic Threadless bread and butter shirt, Food with Faces! Here the artist has polished up the basic look and moved towards a retro early 20th century animated style. The composition is simple and not very dynamic reading from left to right. The chosen colors play up the old time animation feel a bit, but whether or not it was intentional isn't very clear (especially after looking at the other options provided). The lighting seems inconsistent across the piece with the highlight of the eye's changing direction when moving between characters. Overall for a food with faces design it's fairly average and not entirely remarkable.

Reviewed by BasicShift

Monster Wash

It’s a little more than a cute shirt. Great colors mixed with the shirt color make this successful. The blue and the dark reds do much to make the eyes jump around the design. What is so bold and subtle about the design is the form it generates. It’s organic quality is displayed in the sky, water, and monster hair. The rain is altered to carry through the sky color into the rest of the design is a great design detail. The finer lines in the tree and change in ground treatment also signify the artist paid close attention to detail while allowing the piece to feel very simple and elegant.

Reviewed by Quoo & BasicShift

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Why even bother Reviewing (or Type Tees):

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Honk if you are about to run me over

Great slogan – yes! But…action or subject in bold followed by the tagline is popular with type tees. And it should be in the eyes of the average joe. But maybe not like others that have come before it – not here among so many creative people. With type, we have so many possibilities. But then we replicate what has been done in “Death – our nations number one killer” and “Stop, drop and roll, doesn’t work in hell” What would happen if we greatly enlarged single letters or titled them slightly? I hate agreeing with my lettering teacher, but it’s true – be more innovative with type. Look toward the old school designers that did it by hand.

Reviewed by Quoo

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"The artists that are better than you" - Select Tees:

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Buster Brown

This may be the most Pop Art influenced piece to date. Boasting large halftone patterns and overlaying on a retro brand with some fresh colors creates a very unique shirt. The scale is very contemporary along with the overlay effect which is used for a very strong effect here. The design is a great example of a simple refresh to an older movement with a modern buyer in mind.

Reviewed by BasicShift

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Design Redeux - Reprints:

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I Wanna Dance

A commercial pop design with a bold statement. The forums and comments on the shirt seem to be mixed. This is a precursor to the type tees where the simple styles merely serve to reinforce the written statement. Hot pink and black get tons on attention and fans. Still, it’s simple with it’s typeface and form. Not too much involved in design other than a catchy statement but it has a very nice punk zine/naive art quality that is gaining traction with the end consumer.

Reviewed by Quoo & BasicShift

Ambition Killed the Cat

It’s like the cute little poster we have seen so many times, “Hang in there” A simple silhouette design that will keep people smiling. The overlap of the horizontals lines aid in reading the overall theme and punchline. It also adds in creating a little rythmn as we see all of the birds pointed in various direction like music notes.

We've seen plenty of others like this since so it's obviously an idea people really like. Due in part to a theme that is both "cute" and a bit "dangerous" at the same time. Much like 'Early Bird' the impending doom saves the "Cute" design from being relegated to a smaller segment of buyers.

Reviewed by Quoo & BasicShift