MojiZu

Does it ever feel like characters have taken over the world? It's as if everyone from accountants to adhesive companies seems to have a cute little character to help promote their business and increase their likeability. Yay! I really like good character design, and so does everyone at Mojizu - a contempary character design community. Mojizu enables users to submit their own "moji," download heaps of stuff, participate in forums or even moji battles and enter the mojizu tshirt competition... to name but a few. Speaking of tshirts, I just remembered this is a tshirt blog... and these shirts are fine. Damn fine. Created from member's art from the site, these numbers (J Luv and Programmed to Destroy are pictured) are supercute and available from the moji shop. Moji-rific!

Beautiful/Decay

Beautiful/Decay is a magazine that covers fine art, grafiti and everything in between. It spawned out of a black and white zine and now has a distribution of over 45000 copies. Impressive huh? Oh yeah, they have really cool tshirts in their shop too, and lots of them.

In the Pitts

Designer and illustrator Travis Pitts is one of the masters of designing for thsirts. Some how he manages to create complex and aesthetically pleasing images full of life and excitement using only limited colour palettes - a necessary combination for successful screen printed garments. Threadless regulars will be familiar with his work including the brand new release Diodes are a girls best friend (top left). To see more of Pitts' work visit zom-bot.com - the sci-fi references run thick and fast, but Pitts also delves into more organic illustrations, paintings and sculptures. Worth a visit.

Pestol!

Danish site Pestol.dk started out as a competition site, but is now a bit of an online haven for limited designer tshirts (including two of my favourites Cut And Paste and Himmelhestene - bottom right - by Plastic Kid), books and more. Two new releases include Motion Madness (top) by The Keld, and Pizzakamikaze (bottom left) by Hektor. Be quick!

Going Ape

Go Ape Shirts have just released two of their best tshirts to date, the delightful Killovision by Aaron Hogg and The Zombie of Oz by Dean Fraser. Also released is Shredder got to Michaelangelo which, although reminiscent of Party Pieces from Threadless (among others), may appeal to the lovers of cutesy puns, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or violence against animals.

Seen at: tcritic.com

Teenage Wasteland

Hecklewood have just dropped their new range for summer. It's packed full of 90's cultural references - some tastefully subtle, others tastefully in your face. Maybe it's just because I was a troublesome teen in the 90's, but I like them. Oh, and the range is called Teenage Wasteland - in case you were wondering. Check it out.

Lab Partners

Don't worry - I'm not going to fill the blog up with every new Threadless shirt that comes out. But I do like this nerdy little number by Hagit Hashimshony.

I ♥ Rinzen

I've got to admit it - I have a massive design crush on Rinzen. Yep, whenever they are bought up in discussion I quickly jump in and start singing their praises until every else in the room gets bored and leaves. Like any good design group they have an impressive client list, but more impressively they manage to push boundaries, with a uniqueness and likeability about their designs which is virtually unmatched. Have a look at their website (you can buy one of these tshirts while you're there) and see what I mean. *sigh*

Hicalorie

The Hicalorie range is cute as hell. Cuter than a blind seal pup chewing on a love sandwich - in their own words. A multi-discipline collective, Hi-calorie are well known for their quirky art and illustration, as well as vinyl and plush toys. And, unlike many design groups, their clothing line is original and fresh with a nice variety to choose from.

If you like cute stuff that is.

Garcia

The latest issue of Fader magazine has Jerry Garcia on the cover, and I guess they have so much Jerry love that they decided to immortalise his name on cotton. Apparently they are a limited run, but if the limit has been disclosed, I can't find it. The shirt, as you can see, is decorated with striking typographical artwork by design superstar of the moment Si Scott. Grab'em here - while you can.

tokidoki onesies

Tokidoki, for the uninitiated, is the artwork and merchandise of one of my favourite illustrators Simone Legno. As if tokidoki's normal human sized stuff wasn't cool enough - there are now rediculously cute products available for tiny sized humans. Adorable.

Naive: Giving it all Away

Naive have some really nice shirts, and best of all they fall in to the "affordable" category (my favourite). Being nice kids they donate a bit of money from each sale to assorted charities. At the moment if you buy any of their shirts you will also get free access to download some tunes from bands that you may or may not like. These include Anberlin, Sherwood and bunch of others that are on Naive's sponsorship roster. Looks like Hydro 74 has been helping them out with some of their newer stuff too.

Cupcakes anyone?

Sweet stuff (of the tshirt variety) can be found at Johnny Cupcakes. I particularly like their attention to detail with stuff like back prints and cool tags making the whole experience a little bit nicer. They have just recently released some new designs and as if that isn't enough they also have belts, bags, bling and undies for sale too.

Justice D.A.N.C.E.

Ok, yes this video is a couple of months old, but this blog is new, and I just had to put up the clip (despite the fact that I'm not a fan of video posts) from French duo Justice - it's like porn for tshirt freaks... And if you were wondering the artist responsible for all the amazing designs is So Me, the art director at Ed Banger records, whom Justice is signed to.

designgive: cause for design

Designgive is a great new site that gives designers an oppurtunity to promote their work and contribute to charities as well. Some great designers are on the initial roster including Brooke Nunez, Scott Bartlett, Sauerkids and Si Scott (who seems to be doing everything at the moment).

If you buy one of the shirts, long sleeve ts, or a hoody are able to choose from a list of charities and a donation from each purchase will be made on your behalf. Additionally, if you are a designer you can get involved in the project too. Oh, the prices are good too.

Seen at: joshspear.com

Limited Shirts from Hydro 74

Hydro 74 (aka Joshua Smith) has long been one of my favourite illustrators/designers. Print, apparel, illustration, exhibitions, typography - he can do it all. His work has adorned tshirts from labels including Etnies, Emerica, Vans, Quicksilver, Rip Curl, Split and Burton Snowboards to name just a few, but these brand new Hydro 74 shirts are some of the sweetest yet. If you want to get your hands on one of these, you better email Joshua and pre-order now, he's only printing a limited run and they are sure to go fast.

Update 16.06.07: These shirts can now be puchased here

Welcome to Death By Tshirt

Hello and welcome. I'm sure that you are aware that there are many tshirt blogs already out there, but for me all of these have lacked... something. Or perhaps they haven't lacked anything, but instead have crammed their pages full of every tshirt under the sun. That's where death by tshirt aims to be different! As a lover of design and illustration and tshirts, I will be bringing you the best the art and design world has to offer - in tshirt format. No crappy slogans. No witty, yet ugly ideas. No "great idea but you'd have to kill me to get that shirt on my body" shirts. I think you get the idea. Only outstanding tshirts that look great and that I actually like. I hope you like them too.