Who doesn’t like a little Tees action? Personally, original t-shirt designs catch my eye more than most graphic art that I see. Mainly because I can wear it. Functional art, oh baby! Another reason I take such staunch note of Tees, is due to the nature of print design. It’s an underrated source of artistic expression, probably due to it’s small scale presentation, whereas the grandiose display that most graphic art seems to get cast it in a more ‘respectable’ light. And for that, I call shenanigans!
It’s so much more than just a t-shirt, or a flyer, or whatever else the belittling label of choice that’s applied wants to call it. It’s art. And it’s a design field that restricts it’s artists in many ways. Size being one, that again, may get the piece a less than respectable branding, is another way that the print designers have been limited. They must capture their idea and encapsulate all their meaning in a much more compact piece. In a lot of graphic design, the large scale of the creation itself allows for all the intricacies that are weaved throughout the work to shine and convey their part. However, print designs must be able to work fully on a smaller scale that would cause most graphic designs to lose too much of their subtly for their piece to still be effective. So that’s a limitation that print designers deal with regularly and brilliantly.
Another problem they face, is the restricted use of colors. Large scale graphic designers love their gradients as they breathe such life and depth into an image, furthering the transmission of it’s message. But print designers have to step it up to tell everything in a much more succinct manner. The shading and depth must be crafted with a three color palette, on average, and that’s an accomplishment in my book. So why all the dismissal of designs made for tees and other print outlets? It doesn’t seem right that work that takes more skill and preparation than most, gets more ridicule than participation. Perhaps it’s a bit of jealousy rearing it’s ugly head from those who can’t, so they just critique!
Some examples of great t-shirt designs! Respect!
Irate Monkey
Artist: Dave who is really into whales and their bones a full time graphic designer and illustrator
Prom Night
Artist: Jeff Finley a graphic designer and part owner of Go Media
Smile
Artist: Filter017 was created by Enzo, Wen, and Nick since 2004. you can see there Flickr and blog
Ape Vs Monkey
Artist: Illustrator Nik Holmes has been in the picture making business since 2004 and in that time has racked up clients including Virgin, Microsoft, Orange and Mastercard. visit his blog and portfolio
Royal Blood
Chris Rushing graphic designer see his flickr for more cool designs.
Refraction Retraction
Artist: FullBleed, Since 2004 fullbleed has been a one man t-shirt army, printing over 70 tees.
Poetry Of Demise
Artist: Herman Lee, a 22 year old guy who just relocated back to Hong Kong from Toronto, Canada.
Oddica Octopus
Artist: Ray Frenden an illustrator from Greater Chicago “I Draw things” you can see his flickr
Author of this post: Arbenting
Angie and Robert Bowen are the graphic design/copywriting team at the Arbenting Design Blog. also you can follow us on Twitter See all posts by: Arbenting
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Great set of tees, they are all incredibly but I think Poetry Of Demise and Ape Vs Monkey are my favorites.
Great!! designs, i like Ape Vs Monkey
cool
Very cool designs! Let us know what you think of ours if you have a moment. http://www.pacificoracle.org
Very cool designs!
My favorite is definitely “Ape vs. Monkey” haha. Now I wish I had moneys to buy these T-shirts. I love graphic design T-shirts, but the only ones I own are from Target.
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I’ve been a huge fan of Jeff Finley for awhile now–their online blog has some great tutorials/resources listed on it.
Some great t-shirt designs here, I am the same as you, love the graphical designs on t-shirts, just because you can buy them an wear them for everyone to see. I want to eventually get into this, and create a few t-shirts, just for fun.
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Great! You can buy some of these tees from http://designbyhumans.com
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Nice designs. You can create your own design and buy them one at a time at http://customavenue.com
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I love the Nik Holmes Stuff. Anything with monkeys is cool in my book.
Also, I am an art director at a small agency and I started my own tshirt company/online art gallery with my brother recently called One of Twenty
Hi, i run my own fashion label at – http://www.letthekidsdance.co.uk focus on young talent and giving them a platform. Take a look :)
Believe it or not but I actually recently bought a few from FullBleed. An awesome little place to buy artistic tees. I also got the “Surf’s Up” vinyl: http://www.merchline.com/fullbleed/productdisplay.4940.p.htm
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I’ve been studying a lot of t-shirt designs lately and have found so many that I would love to have. My favorite is a tie between Irate Monkey and Prom Night.
Thanks for the comments guys!
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Nice designs, lovely list :) …yeah…I join..to Your opinion – “Poetry Of Demise” is really stunning.
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T-Shirts really are quite inspirational i need to buy some now hehe, id say “prom night” or “Poetry Of Demise” are my faves from these,
Thanks Angie and Robert, be sure to check them out if you havent at http://www.arbent.net
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“Poetry Of Demise” is my favorite!
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