Tee Roundup

"Supermotif is a new collaborative fashion and design collective as well as a collaborative brand, creating clothing and other decorative products; the designers for SuperMotif will be a who’s who of modern design. Initially, these have come from the world of music design and resulted in a series of T-shirts designed by the art directors and designers for Little Boots, Rolling Stones, Elbow, Santigold and Foals."

"Spin me right round", one of two new designs at Detour Designables.

If you've always wanted a t-shirt featuring a woman whose head is shaped like an umbrella, today's your lucky day. Check out Lady Umbrella for more info.

David Malki got in touch recently to let me know about his new Piranhamoose t-shirt, based on his Wondermark comic strip. The t-shirt's fine, but I'm diggin' the Hierarchy of Beards print.

Resist Today have their awesome wallets back in stock.

"Ninja heads will roll", my favourite of the recent tees from Threadless - despite my Pastafarian allegiances.

Rising, the new offering from Go Ape, a steal at $18. Totally reminds me of some dayglo skateboarding tee I had in the 80s (shame on me).

One of a number of new licensed t-shirts from our amigos at Found Item Clothing. Speaking of which, have you heard of “slub knit”, “burnout” or “jaspé” t-shirts? If not you should really read this New York magazine article on the latest t-shirt trends, brought to our attention by It Goes To 11's Travis G.

p.s. You've probably noticed the new button at the bottom of the posts, to enable you to share Thunderfrogs posts on social bookmarking sites like digg, stumbleupon and reddit. If I get more hits, I can run more competitions and give away more gift certificates... just sayin' ;)

Heroes

No, not the TV show about ordinary people with extraordinary powers. I'm talking about personal heroes, those people who inspire you, who serve as an example of what you strive to be.
These are mine - who are yours?

Goran Ivanišević

John McEnroe t-shirt, $22.90 from Spreadshirt.
The Croatian reached the Wimbledon men's final three times - and lost, three times. Finally, unseeded in 2001, he snatched a wildcard entry and fought his way through to the final once again. While not technically the best all-round tennis player, he was blessed with a 6'4" frame, and a serve like a rocket. The final game was a tense affair, as the Croat battled his personal demons more than opponent Pat Rafter, losing several match points through double faults before securing the win - and his place in history.

You can watch the last 25 mins of the match here, but here's the beautiful moment:



Ronnie O'Sullivan

Here's Ronnie t-shirt, £13.99 from ToffeeMonkey.
Three times snooker world champion Ronnie O'Sullivan is easily the most naturally gifted player ever to grace the baize. While Ronnie's fluid and virtually flawless style makes him the envy of the professional circuit, his personal issues and attitude towards the game have earned him some critics. Here's the Essex boy making a 147 look like child's play.



Nikola Tesla
This Croatian-born inventor is credited as the "father of the 20th century" for good reason. Among other notable creations, he invented the alternating current (A/C) power system used across America today.

Nikola t-shirt, from $15.99 from Hirsute History.
Though Marconi is generally regarded as the "inventor of the radio", many electrical engineers were working on wireless signal transmission at the time. In the 1890s while Marconi and others were developing wireless telegraphy, transmitting morse code over a couple of miles, Tesla created and demonstrated a radio-controlled boat. In a single move, he had created both the field of robotics (or "Art of Telautomatics" as he called it) and the technology of remote control. With amazing foresight, he envisioned the military consequences of this technology (indeed, these boats are the direct predecessor of today's guided missiles).

Nikola Tesla Company t-shirt, $15.95 from DolphinShirt.
He also built enormous towers which shot bolts of electricity for miles, tried to build a giant death ray, and claimed to have created a device to communicate with aliens, earning him the rather unflattering "mad scientist" reputation that has seen him all-but forgotten in modern schoolbooks.

Douglas Adams & Terry Pratchett
The Hitch-Hikers Guide To The Galaxy and the Discworld series respectively are both very hilarious, and very, very English.

You're Not Going To Like It t-shirt by RikkiB

Ford Prefect: "You'd better be prepared for the jump into hyperspace. It's unpleasantly like being drunk."
Arthur Dent: "What's so unpleasant about being drunk?"
Ford Prefect: "You ask a glass of water."

While neither man will have lived to enjoy retirement (Douggie died of a heart attack at 49, and TP is currently battling Alzheimer's disease) their respective fantasy universes will live on for generations to come in the minds of their devoted fans.

Turtle Cosmology t-shirt, from $15.99 from Teach The Controversy.

BuyOlympia $10 T-Shirt Sale

"Our Sorta-Annual, Giant, Get-Them-While-They-Last, Ten Dollar Shirt Sale"

Long Distance by Emily Ryan Lerner

Clever Fox by Sarah Utter

Bearded Cloud by Zicmuse Products

"Sale ends Monday, August 17th. Limited to stock and sizes on hand. Oh, we've also put an assortment of other things on sale too, so check it out."

Thunderfrogs Threadless Gift Certificate Giveaway Results!

A little over a week ago, I asked you to join my Facebook page, tweet, and email me, for a chance to win one of three $25 Threadless Gift Certificates.
The response has been great, with 22 Twitterers, 30 entries by email, and 29 new fans of Thunderfrogs on Facebook!

I tallied all the entries on a spreadsheet, assigned them each a number, and used Random.org to generate a random number within the given range. Without further ado, here are the results:

The winner of the Twitter element of the competition is @jackearl, a Washington DC based graphic designer working at an environmental marketing firm.

The email entrant who goes away with $25 of Threadless swag is Jessica Yu, who knew that Arnie is the governor of California.

And finally, the lucky Facebook fan is none other than Travis Greenwood, marketing manager for Found Item Clothing and long-time friend of the blog. He didn't enter the competition deliberately, he was actually one of Thunderfrogs' earliest Facebook fans!

Congratulations guys! Try and snag a bargain or two before the sale ends.

Anyone looking to order from Threadless by the 13th August can use the discount code awesome27945 and save an extra $3!

Thunderfrogs In London

I was away in London for the day yesterday, so I couldn't announce the winners of the recent competition as soon as I'd have liked. While I was there I had a quick wander around Camden Market, and I saw several blatant examples of copyright infringement.

There were rips of Threadless tees like this one:

The REAL Dark Side Of The Garden is from Threadless.

And we even found a copy of the t-shirt my brother was wearing at the time:

Get the REAL Elliot's New Friend by Kevin Ross from Go Ape Shirts.

There were also the requisite MJ t-shirts, as well as a plethora of unlicensed Banksy t-shirts.

What's so wrong with buying dodgy market stall t-shirts I hear you ask?

Well one reason is that it's not like downloading a Hollywood blockbuster, where the studios and stars are all extremely wealthy and won't miss a few bob. T-shirt designers work hard to create these tees for you, and most of them aren't very well paid. Where the designers are getting royalties on the design, you are actually taking cash out of their pockets.

The second reason is that the quality of the goods just isn't up to scratch. Sometimes the concept is "reimagined" by a less talented artist, and sometimes it's a bad photoshop of the original, inevitably resulting in a poorer rendition of the image. Most of the ones I saw were printed on Gildan brand blanks. These are used because they are cheap, but don't have a particularly flattering fit. Threadless use their own quality blanks these days, and Go Ape Shirts (like many good brands) use American Apparel blanks. Trust me, you'd recognise the difference when you put them on. The quality of the printing on these fakes isn't the same either - the colours are off, and it's less detailed.

I'm not against piracy per se (remember my family celebrated Piratemas last year instead of Christmas), but I can't condone it on this occasion.

15% Off At Loops & Pluto

Loops & Pluto are moving premises and, presumably to reduce the amount of stock they have to shift, they're giving you 15% off your next order with the discount code "MOVINGSALE".

Sale ends August 17, 2009. Coupon may only be used once per customer.

Thunderfrogs Top Eleven Street Fighter T-Shirts & More

Regular readers will know that here on Thunderfrogs, we always give 110%. So where most blogs would be satisfied with a "top ten" list, our lists go to 11.

Muscle Men, $24 from 80sTees.

Hadoken! $19.99 from Uneetee

Haduken t-shirt, $19.99 from This Shirt Rocks

Grocery Fight, $12.95 from Split Reason

Puppet Brawlin' (aka Sesame Street Fighter) from $17.99 at Jinx.

The Ultimate Combo, currently on sale at $10 (mens sizes sold out) from Threadless.

Okay! Hello! Haduken! $19.95 from NerdyShirts

I came. I saw. I hadoukened. Sold out at Kineda.

One Night Only, £14.99 from Supercombo.

Fight Night DX, $24 from Meat Bun

This last one's for the sneaker pimps:

Chun-Li t-shirt, currently unavailable from Karmaloop

Add flair to your SF t-shirt and minimise your arcade withdrawal with these arcade badges, €16.00 from Supermandolini.

Street Fighter's cool and everything, but it's not very realistic... or is it?

Back 2 Cool Sale At Threadless

Everything at Threadless is reduced at the moment - some by a little, some by a lot.

The energy efficient lightsaber and flowering deer are new this week.


The sale ends Monday, 17th August - plenty of time to snatch up some bargains. The winners of the Thunderfrogs Threadless Gift Certificate Giveaway should be able to get a few tees with their winnings!

GI Joe & 20% Off At 80s Tees

My guess is that most of you already know the craic with 80sTees: cool pop-culture t-shirts and accessories, predominantly related to the decade that fashion forgot - the 1980s. And right now you can save 20% on your next order by using the discount code "TOUCHDOWN"! But don't wait - this offer expires August 7, 2009.

Hollywood are about to rape our childhood once again release another summer blockbuster in the form of G.I. Joe, a film based on an action figure and cartoon of the 80's (the toys were called "Action Man" here in the UK). The film drops on Friday, for now here's the trailer:




The original Star Wars film may be 32 years old, but the franchise rumbles on:

How awesome is this Yoda backpack? I mean I wouldn't wear it personally, but I'd totally get it for my kids (if I had any).

Getting his groove on, he is:




One of the best TV shows I've seen this year is HBO's Eastbound And Down.

The series is well worth the time invested, and this t-shirt is the perfect way to show that you're "Getting drunk on the reg, f*cking good times on the reg, yachts on the reg, sex on the reg… basically all the shit most men fantasize about.". Here's an introduction to Kenny F*cking Powers himself, though be warned, it contains strong language some may find offensive.



Don't forget folks, fundamentals are a crutch for the talentless.

Post contains affiliate links (it's these that let me give away the gift certificates every now and then).