
Mucha Lucha by matheus lopes castro (mathiole) was destined to be my favorite design this week. It’s the kind of tee that’s so perfect, you can’t help but fume a bit that it’s releasing right after the end of the sale. Style expertly contrasts with the viewer’s assumptions, and wrestling is made to feel soft and beautiful… even delicate. The scene reads to me as very bright, like when a day is so sunny colors grow pale. The women are giants, looming above the scene and commanding birds. It’s fresh, attractive, and fills the tee well- an excellent design.


In the Eye of the Aperture by Shawn P. Michael (Konfero) is a less successful shirt that I would have expected. On paper, it sounds like a slam dunk- a simple, geometric one color all over print that has special significance to photographers. But when I look at the actual shirt, I can’t help but think it looks pretty goofy. When worn, the hexagon at the center of the tee is awkward, almost giving the wearer a geometric Carebear effect because it’s so huge and so much on the stomach. This would have been infinitely cooler with a smaller hexagon and a more subtle feel.
Ocean Breath by Chalermphol Harnchakkham (huebucket) has a nice flow to it, with intricately lined waves that show the motion of the water. The coloring is really smart, minimal and used in a way that immediately recalls light reflecting on water. Conceptually, it’s an odd scene- there’s a woman wading through this ocean, and the wave towering overhead seems to be breaking apart into a flock of birds. The surreality of it makes the design even better because it gives you a reason to keep looking even after you enjoy the lines for the first time (something a lot of more purely aesthetic shirts fail at).

Northern Air by David Schwen is this week’s Select, and a really nice surprise. What appears to be a UFO abduction scene is rendered with crisply vectored shapes that snake around the focal point, a white triangle of light. With bright fluorescents set against photo-real clouds, the effect is spooky and very alien. It made me re-evaluate just how otherworldly some of things we take for granted are, like the Northern Lights. For finding so much beauty in such an unexpected way, this tee is a big success.


Canadian Goose by David Schwen (dschwen) is the sort of joke shirt that frustrates me to no end. Because it’s not really a pun, it’s just the exact name of the animal drawn in the way you’d probably expect. The thing I love about humor shirts is seeing the hand and mind of the artist in it, and that’s exactly what is missing here for me. It’s not badly drawn or anything, it’s just boring because it doesn’t show any personality. Maybe that’s why it feels more like something I’d expect see at Busted Tees than in the Threadless catalog.
Precious by Yeoh Guan Hong (yeohgh) looks from afar like an average nature shirt, just a branch of leaves centered on the tee. But when close, you discover its secret- all kinds of birds are hiding in the negative space. It’s especially clever because of how it mirrors the environment- realistically, these animals are very dependent on the trees around them, and this visualization of that message is a great reminder of that delicate balance. Each tree really does hide animals like this, if only more people bothered to look. Slick.


Map to Ghost Town by Esther Aarts (gumbolimbo) is definitely charming. It’s reminiscent of the kind of treasure maps you see in movies, where the island is mysteriously shaped like a skull and the X marking hidden treasure is a cave at the skull’s eye socket. Improbable of course, but that’s part of what makes the adventure to exciting. This is a great riff on that theme, with a nice, simple skull and bones graphic that is chock full of cool details in how things are named. If you’re the imaginative type, you’re probably already itching to go exploring and let your mind roam.
Pistols at Dawn by Leon Ryan (d3d) is a shirt I was really surprised to be disappointed by- I saw this one when it was in voting and thought it was a great hoodie concept, telling the story of a duel in a unique way. But man, that print just looks so small. I wasn’t expecting that, and can’t help but feel that this smaller scale saps some of the excitement from the scene. Since this is a story already broken into pieces (the girl with the lantern is all the way on the back), it hinders the connection between those frames. Of course, on the plus side, the artwork itself is absolute perfection. The stylization is funny and perfectly shaded, with some very attractive color choices. I’m guessing the print size won’t be deterring too many buys!
Threadless prints new shirts every week, chosen from the designs submitted by and voted on by site members. Winners get $2000 cash and $500 in Threadless credit, with the possibility to earn more through Bestee awards, poster prints, and reprints.
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