Militant Geek Custom Shirts

It seemed only right that since the MilitantGeek crew watched the Democrats in Denver last week that they would return the favor with the Republicans this week. Obama has had a very active set of creative types churning out tees of impressive variety and wit. However, it wasn’t until Wednesday’s Rudy Giuliani talk that my t-shirt sloganeering sat up and took notice of the elephants that continue to remain in the room (apologizes on the video synch issues - but you’ll get the idea):

Trying to score a t-shirt hit on an overnight catch-phrase is a high-risk, high-reward proposition. It’s vital to spend a few minutes gaging whether a slogan impressed only you or made a more meaningful dent in the popular psyche. One great source for monitoring near-real time usage is Twitter’s search feature (a few day’s removed and “Drill Baby Drill” is still seeing regular, ongoing usage - something that is very important if anyone is going to “get”, let alone buy, a t-shirt). There’s also Google News (pay attention to the number, prominence, and newness of the top results; if these support commenting they also may be your first places you post and let people know of your new design). Of course, both methods assume that you already have a term in mind that you’d like to monitor for relevance. Yahoo’s Bursty Queries research maybe an interesting tool for detecting phrases, not just monitoring them.

Within an hour of the convention coverage concluding on Wednesday evening the first text-only, 3rd party fulfilled shops started having entries (faster than the swag could make it to the convention floor, apparently). That makes sense since its presents the lowest barriers to entry even though, predictably, the designs are uninspiring Arial text on white. As of this writing the top Google results still point to shops on Zazzle and CafePress. I expect a larger, more visual design of the crass double entendre nature from a more centralized store (perhaps T-shirt Hell?) in the next week.

But is it profitable? We’ll know within the month whether “Drill Baby Drill” is this political season’s “Read My Lips, No New Taxes” or “You’re No John Kennedy”.

Why? Oh, well maybe global warming. Or the fact that summer’s over. The bees disappearing and apparently proving that we’re all about to be overrun by Daleks - that kinda blows. Speaking of which - no new Dr. Who till 2010 (holiday specials don’t count)? Or maybe my emotional gravitas is because a great run of superhero blockbusters has run its course and now all I have to look forward to is… ugh… the Punisher. Again. Ugh.

By way of PleaseDressMe’s twitter feed comes this wonderful Batman-Dark-Knight-Joker tee. Its from the always good NerdyShirts store. Remember: the t-shirt will cost you $19 but smiles are always free.

I noticed this tee a little more than a week ago when it was one of Shirt.Woot.com’s special $10 shirts. The shirt-a-day deal is now over but you can now pick up this killer design - still very affordable price of $15. Of course, this being Woot, the descriptions are just as good as the product.

Hey kids! Today we’re going to make high-density kinetic-energy penetrator ammunition! That’s the ammo that’s so dense, hard, and flammable that it can rip apart and incinerate an armored tank with one well-placed shot!

First, get ahold of some depleted uranium (DU). You can probably dig it up in canisters near a nuclear plant or nuclear waste dump. Get Mom or Dad to help you open the hexaflouride tank it was buried in. If you can’t find any, try contacting rogue elements from the security apparatus of the former Soviet Union. They should have some, for a price. Don’t worry – it’s not that radioactive!

Next, mix it with another metal to create a stable alloy. Titanium always works well, but don’t use too much or your ammo will lose its punch! 1% or so oughtta do it.

Then, melt down your alloy and cast it into ordnance. 30mm is probably the most popular calibre, but check your arsenal to see what kind of weapons you have on hand. Don’t be afraid to try something new. That’s what fun with depleted uranium is all about!

MilitantGeek reader Jan Frouman was kind enough to write in remind me about TorsoPants. They’re a well-designed, attractive storefront. The humor is a bit different but the wide selection of tees means that there’s something for everyone… including those who pine for a good Charlton Heston homage. If you miss Moses like I do then Planet of the Crepes is for you.

Like most t-shirts at TorsoPants you wallet will suffer a $19 setback (which isn’t bad at all given some of the more complex designs).

I been accused of being cranky and/or cantankerous upon occasion. That’s probably why I can identify with this shirt. From Threadless (here’s the non-affiliate link if that’s your predilection), the shirt is also part of Threadless’s extended back to school sale. During the sale (on for the next week) you can get a slew of t-shirts for either $9 or $12.

The sale certainly seems to be going well - the male sizes for this shirt are all sold out at the present time. However, the geekette apparel is still in stock (but probably not for long). Get yours for your iLady ASAP.

Techcrunch today had word that there is, yet again, another attempt at a T-Shirt search engine. This time, however, the creators have a bit more name cache than you’re typical Bubble 2.0 startups.

The site is PleaseDress.Me (yes, take note of of the extension). Its a product of, in part, Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV. Tee buyers type in a keyword related to the shirt they’re looking for, the site checks a number of items on sites like Threadless and Busted Tees. (The results for ‘Geek’ can be seen here.)

PleaseDress.Me joins a series of other t-shirt search engines like Teenormous and Rumplo. The problem with these sites is that they rely on a set of user-defined keywords to describe a design. This is fairly straightforward for text based shirts. But covering all the vernacular bases is tough. What if somebody searches for nerd, or dork, or tech tees? Take, for example, a geek classic - the Nintendo Gun TShirt from SplitReason. Keywords like ‘Nintendo’ and ‘Light Gun’ are obvious. But words like ‘Gun’, ‘Video Games’, and ‘Mario’ also probably need to be included. And then there’s all the variations that need to be taken into account. Consider ‘gun’ - we probably also need to include “revolver”, “firearm”, “forty-five”, etc.

Then there’s the quality issue. Returning everything related to a term was never an issue. Finding quality tees is. I remain unconvinced that a search engine could ever deliver the kind of carefully selected, on-topic, results that a niche-focused blogger could. This goes doubly-so for non-textual results like t-shirt images. (Of course, I am a bit biased in this regard.)

There’s probably is a place for tee search engines. However, I remain unconvinced how well these sites match people’s desires with great designs. Your thoughts? When you need to find something to clothe yourself where do you go?

Surfing around the Intranets looking for something to do this Labor day? Well, good, I may have a sale or two worth mentioning.

The first sale is from ZeroBoutique.com. From now until midnight, September 2nd shoppers can enjoy prices that have been reduced to $14.80. Enter the code “MILGEEK” at checkout for an additional 10% off (or shirts around $13.32).

The second sale is from …. well, I’m not really going to say. I receive a number of pitches for tee stores around the net. Some are good and I try and cover them here. Some stores are top notch (like Colorado’s UseSmallWords) that I end up not using (albeit regretfully) because they don’t quite fit the Geek Tee theme. And then there’s pitches like the following:

Hi YA Jason!

Strike One - I’m not coy about it. I don’t blog under a pseudonym. My name is not Jason and I already highly suspect that this is a mail blast to anyone and everyone (which decreases its value).

Just wanted to let you know that it was our websites 2nd birthday the other day
- so we have a 10% discount code available until Saturday the 6th!
That means tees are now down from £18 to £20 YEAH!

Strike Two - That’s great. So what’s the code? Help me help you. If there’s a deal I can relay to my audience that’s awesome. But there’s too many great shops out there to warrant me tracking you down to find out what the code is. Furthermore, an overwhelming majority of MilitantGeek readers are out of the US. Even with the discount code the tees would be $32 (before shipping). There are not a whole lot of designs that can command that kind of price point.

You might also like our vintage brew… the fonz, spiderman, king kong etc t-shirts!!!

Strike Three - I do, in fact, like the novelty tees and think they might be pertinent for the geek audience - but there’s no link to check them out. In fact, there’s no link to your website store at all. I had to suss it out from the email addy and then track down the t-shirts in question. When I do finally track them down I see that they’re being sold for £30 - OR $53 BEFORE SHIPPING. Even applying the discount for which we have no code for that’s still $48. No. This is not a sale.

I am more than happy to help publicize a t-shirt store. For example, Jeremy from Amorphia-Apparel consistently does things right:

• Only drops a line when he’s got news the audience (you) are interested in
• Keeps things brief
• Provides links directly to what’s newsworthy

That’s really all there is to it.

I have watched, with some fascination, at the number of t-shirts that Barack Obama has inspired - and not just the geek variety that I incompletely round up on Monday. The disproportionate number of tees when compared to his opponent, McCain, has to have something to do with how the under 30 set (and thus those making and buying indie shirts online) has so thoroughly embraced the younger candidate. A Harvard University Institute of Politics poll showed Obama with a 55 percent to 32 percent lead over John McCain among voters aged 18 to 24. The numbers are more skewed among those that graduated from a four-year college: Obama leads 57 percent to 25 percent. Of course, this is also that age group that, in past elections, has gotten the press all hot and bothered with promises to “rock the vote” and then never showed up on election day. I certainly hope that’s not the case this year. Otherwise, come November, I can see the headlines: “Entire generation supports Obama - and all they got was this crummy t-shirt.”

Recently mentioned on the T-Shirts Around the Internet Blog comes the fearsome Helbotica. Sure to put a smile on any typeface fan’s face, you’ll notice that this font fighter is full of straight-lined goodness. Its available for $25 from Chop Shop.

From the store description:

Designed by Jonathan Yule. Helbotica is part of a series of typographic illustrations based on Yule’s favorite sans-serif fonts.

I want to set a few things straight. I prefer to link to smaller, indie tee shops with serious geek cred. Mark Ecko and his massive apparel operation is neither small nor risking a wedgie anytime soon. However, I simply could not deny the awesome that is, arguably, THE GREATEST YODA SHIRT OF ALL TIME. Sure, there’s plenty of Star Wars related tees out there (so many I’ve had to remedy the lack of a ‘Star Wars’ category on this site post-haste).

Of course, somebody has to pay for Mark Ecko’s bling. That’s probably why this tee is a chin-rubbing $34. But can you really put a price on the force being so strong with a single tee? I don’t think so.