Monday, May 30, 2011

T-shirts on the internet

Here are the 10 categories of successful tshirts on the internet

1. Pop culture recognition humour / copyright violation
2. Self-affirming message
3. Acknowledgement of under-represented group
4. Acknowledgement of under-represented pastime
5. An extremely "clever" image
6. A sensational piece of easily "gettable" wordplay
7. Unexpired meme
8. Food and drink
9. Come-on / invitation to a come-on
10. Juxtaposition/combination of items 1-9

Every time I broke these rules, I ended up with a lot of leftover shirts.




The ultimate non-expiring meme is "cats". You're welcome.

15 comments:

smbhax said...

Heartbreakingly true in my experience. ;_;

Andrew Tinka said...

Which one is the Eggbert shirt?

Southgate said...

"Google Is Ruining Everything" would possibly have to be one of my favorite t-shirts of all time. Mines getting old and tatty now and I'm kind of devastated.

Roman said...

I'd like to think that the Saddest Wookiee gets a pass! Exception that proves the rule? Or is there a crate of them in your basement?

paminabox said...

I still have the SGR teacup shirt I got maybe 6 years ago? I love him and he's finally dying. Food and Drink is usually my favorite.

Virtualbri said...

I've made some T-Shirt designs, some I've spent quite a lot of time working on and giving careful consideration to.

My best seller, a cartoon cupcake I literally did and uploaded in 5 minutes. By an order of magnitude in sales.

Sally said...

The Pegasus shirt might very well be my favoritest t-shirt ever.

Daniel Kaszor said...

Roman, would that not be 5. An extremely "clever" image?

Maldemal said...

I wore my Mope-shirt today. Got stopped by a man with a russian accent. "You are wearing shirt with russian text!", he said, beaming at me. "It says... mope", I answered. "It is English." "Oh. I thought it read MOPE ([morie], Russian for sea, as far as I remember)." He was not brought down, but invited me to join a group of students of the Russian language, Wednesday afternoons, at a local café. He left me wondering what made him think the shirt should say "SEA".

Jude Montague said...

This is unrelated but I thought you should know that if you break up Esther and Eustace I will never forgive you. Never.

Gene Ha said...

I've bought, worn and loved many of your shirts. If you actually sold your mock design, "£7 Enigma Sale" I would pay far more than £7 to buy it.

Bad Andy said...

Similarly to Maldemal I had an Eastern European woman ask me at Hever Castle - "Where is Robotania?"

Ben said...

So... the Bunsenmonster... we're never seeing that again, huh? I may cry blood tears, or at the very least actual tears made to look red after sneezing into a glass of Kool-Aid.

Brit said...

"Books rule" and "Maths is easy" are my favorites. Apparently someone else really liked the books one as it was stolen out of a washing machine on me.

Illiterati said...

The t-shirt I have gotten the best responses from wearing is the Doom Balloon, with the Ghost Band and Bunsen Monster coming close. Those have been worn nearly to death, and I'd love more along those lines. I guess those count as clever images, but they're really beautiful works of art too.