mountain unicycling

I almost get chills thinking about this "vintage" t-shirt design :)

And by vintage, I mean this t-shirt has been sold online since 1999 by one of the original do-it-yourselfers of the web: Gilby.

It's almost mind boggling to think of the sequence of events that led to me "knowing" Gilby. I think he may have been one of my first paying t-shirt customers when I was first selling t-shirts on the web around 1997. About a year later I think I saw his name on an application to join a t-shirt webring that I created to help promote t-shirt designs. Gilby is a name that sort of sticks out, so I checked my high tech filing system (looked through old emails) and saw that it was indeed the same person. Turns out Gilby was also selling t-shirts online related to one of his favorite past times: unicycling.

Back then, our idea of "web promotion" was a little company called LinkExchange (or the Internet Link Exchange for those true veterans) who had the brilliant idea of allowing people to exchange banner ad space on their website. Remember back when people actually looked at banner ads? :)

Intially LinkExchange started out with 400x40 sized thin little banners and later on they moved to the now standard 468x60. The amazing thing was that it actually worked! Since people actually paid attention to banners back then, you could show ads on your website and as you generated "impressions" you would earn credits for advertising your banner on other targeted websites.

Anyway, LinkExchange was a great company while it lasted (it eventually got bought out by Microsoft and then phased out as web users began to become blind to graphical banner ads). One thing that LinkExchange gave was a great sense of community with other webmasters. As it turns out, Gilby and I were both members of that webmaster community as well.

As time passed, the webmaster community remained and Gilby helped create the software that would help archive thousands of posts and make it possible to post to a usenet newsgroup via a vbulletin forum.

Later, he went on to create one of the most widely used web applications online, TinyURL

Enough of the name dropping, nostagia fest for the time being :) On to what this is all about...the t-shirts. Thanks to archive.org, I can post one of my original reviews of Gilby's Unicycling t-shirts:

One of our favorite sites to visit is Gilby's Unicycling page. He's been a long standing member of T-Shirts! Around the Web, and his unique shirts are definitely worth a mention.

With a recent site redesign, Gilby's site has become even easier to navigate, with a simple drop down box on the main page, as well as helpful, bold image links to take you to where you want to go. Once you're at his site, you'll want to see all of his amazing unicycling accomplishments before you even get to the great t-shirts. Colorful photography, and a log of his long distance unicycling trip across Minnesota to help raise money for Multiple Sclerosis are all features you'll find on his content rich site.

Whatever you do, DON'T miss the t-shirts! Gilby.com features an expansive collection of brilliant colored t-shirts and original artwork by Gilby himself. With his recent addition of secure online ordering and an easy to use shopping cart, you'll see why unicyclists and t-shirt lovers in general become instant fans of Gilby's work. Don't miss our favorite the, unicyclist's dream, "E.T" shirt.

After you've cycled around Gilby's site, be sure to keep surfing the ring!

Although Gilby isn't selling shirts on his site anymore, his designs are still being printed and sold to the unicycling community via the Unicycle.com Online store!

If you're a fan of unicycling or if you just had a good time going down memory lane with me, I highly suggest you visit the unicycling online store and check out some of Gilby's creations.

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badass coffee bad ass

There's just something about a t-shirt that says "Bad Ass" across the front.

Big thanks to Adam for pointing out this shirt to me. We both had a big dose of badass coffee on a recent road trip up and down the coast of California. We stopped in Ventura to "refuel" and the bright sign of the BadAss Coffee Shop beckoned us inside.

The employees there were really laid back and had a good time with the company name. All the drinks were badass (badass mochas, badass espressos) in various sized cups (smallass, largeass, etc). I had to go for a largeass mocha for my drive back to San Francisco. Caffeine was my co-pilot :)

I dug the concept of this coffee shop so much, the first thing I did when I got back home was try to find a BadAss Coffee shop near me. Turns out there was one not too far away in the nearby village of Roseville.

People often ask me: "What makes a t-shirt sell?" Along with this question, I often hear, "How can I get people to wear my 'brand'?"

The first thing you need to do is to create a brand that people can identify with. Not necessarily a brand that sounds cool to you or a brand that has your name in it, but a brand that MEANS something to large segment of the population.

Like badass. I bought the badass shirt above not because they have great coffee (which they do), but because the word badass means something to me. It's funny. It gets a reaction when people see you walk by with "Bad Ass" written across your chest.

In comparison, I would never wear a "Starbucks" t-shirt or even a "Peet's Coffee" t-shirt. Putting aside the quality of their coffee, the strength of their brand as a t-shirt line is very weak.

While Starbucks and Peets may sell a "few" t-shirts or apparel items with their brand name on it (mostly to employees or to true fans of their coffee), BadAss Coffee has a much wider appeal on the basis of the name alone.

So to all you buddinig t-shirt designers and folks wanting to start a t-shirt company and build a true brand: forget naming your company Joe's Cool Tees or even hotlavashirts. If you're trying to build a brand, start by naming your company something cool...something that people won't mind wearing across their chest or on their back. Think Hard Guy and Whoop Ass instead of T-Shirt Stop or Bob's Shirt Company.

Don't get me wrong. Not everyone selling t-shirts is out to create the next cool brand name. Some folks just want to sell a few funny t-shirts and get their ideas out there in the fashion world. This advice isn't for everyone. But if creating a brand is what you're after, then your brand name has to be cool AND meaningful (or you've got a you're work cut out for you).

If you're a bad ass or a fan of a good cup of coffee, be sure to check out the Bad Ass Coffee Company of Hawaii online store.

They've been around since 1989, so they even fit in with my November theme of paying tribute to the long time t-shirt sellers :)

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Anatomy of a clown Perspicuity

Back in 1998 there weren't as many t-shirt sites as we have today.

I remember when I first started selling T-shirts back in 1996, it was a challenge to find ways to promote a new T-shirt line. Basically, there was Yahoo and that was about it. There was no Google there were no AdWords or Overture. No T-Shirt Links directory (although teefinder was in the making), no Buy Tees, no T-Shirt Forums, no CafePress, no Zazzle or PrintMojo.

One of the only sites that existed to help promote t-shirt designs was a site called the Top 50 T-Shirt Countdown chart. It was a site that manually collected votes for the top 50 t-shirt designs on the web and every week, the webmaster would tally the votes and post the rankings.

I bought many a t-shirt from that site, and it's interesting to think how many t-shirt sites that have vanished that were around back then.

I was happy to see that Craig from Perspicuity was still posting t-shirts, drawings and other musings to his website.

One of the first t-shirts I bought online was the Anatomy of the Clown design from "Perspicuitees".

Although I really hate clowns, one of the things that stood out for me with this design was how simple it was. A black and white skeleton with a red clown nose seemed to fit perfectly together. It now hangs in my closet as a tribute to online t-shirt sales history (and as a memory of me fitting in a size large t-shirt :)

This month I hope to take a trip back through the t-shirt memory lane of 1996-1999. Showcasing some of the most notable sites and designs that existed before print on demand spawned a whole new generation of t-shirt sellers and before Wall Street discovered online t-shirt sales :)

I can't say it was a "better" time for t-shirts back then. Time brought innovation in both t-shirt design, t-shirt printing and ecommerce. By lowering the initial starting costs, I think hundreds of great designs were unleashed that may have never seen the light of the web. Not all the new t-shirt designs are great of course, but it's great to see the industry grow each year.

This month will be a tribute to those that did it "the hard way", with a slight nod to the up and coming new t-shirts that are worth noting.

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