“You Can Say Get A Job In Helvetica” Shirt

Chances are you know someone who needs this shirt. All respect due to the folks at Veer, but it’s getting to be a little much. As of the second I finish writing this, words in Helvetica no longer count as “art”. 

You can no longer take a Campbell’s Soup can, posterize it in Photoshop, paste it 36 times and hang it in the Met. You can’t issue “limited editions” of a Mona Lisa post card with a moustache and a French pun scribbled under it. Globs of paint on canvas applied via drip, fling, or another unconventional action verb? It’s been done. 

I’m not saying Helvetica isn’t pretty. I’m not saying it won’t still sell overpriced furniture. I’m not saying you can’t make your own cool-looking things with it. I’m not even saying there’s no room to riff off the concept.

But please—typing text on a background no longer qualifies as epic skillz. American Apparel is circling the drain because they didn’t realize this until far too late. Don’t be the next person sucked into that artless void

Available in Black and White

[buy the shirt]

The Aquapocalypse Continues

I’m still showering in run-off from the dog-walking residents of Brighton at the moment, so I’ll keep it brief: digging the nifty design by Holly Gordon, though I’d sure love to see it on something more robust than a Zazzle digital print.

[via MissGordon and UniversalHub]

Boston Aquapocalypse Shirt

We’re a Boston-based organization here at Better Shirts!—and in case you hadn’t heard, this neck of the woods is having a little trouble with the water right now. Quite apropos, really, considering Boston’s best-known anthem.

Anyway, Adam Gaffin, who runs the excellent local blog Universal Hub has created a commemorative aquapocalypse t-shirt. It’s no masterpiece of design, but still an excellent keepsake for these troubled times. 

[via UniversalHub]

Spill, Baby, Spill! Shirt

Remember back in 2008, when RNC Chairman Michale Steele was whooping up the crowds, chanting “Drill, baby, drill”? Who could forget, right?

Opponents of the erstwhile Lt. Governor’s appeal really didn’t come up with a good counter-slogan. Pelosi made some snark about drilling into people’s brains—kind of eerie, and, at any rate, giving the impression that there might be valuable resources inside those skulls.

The best environmental advocacy groups could drum up were some complicated maths about it taking ten years and saving four cents or something like that. The slogan was too complicated for me to remember well enough to find in Google.

As is so often the case, actions speak louder than any witty comeback ever could. 

Your choice of colors, white or black art. 

[buy the shirt]

[hat-tippage to Kate Klonick, who thought this would be cool]

Safety School Shirt

This isn’t the traditional “safety school” rip. I’m not making fun of where you went to school under some pretense that it’s easier to get into. 

No, this shirt is for the person that, for whatever reason, didn’t end up at a top-tier college or university, and accepts—nay, embraces—his or her matriculation to a school regarded as somewhat less competitive. 

There are a lot of institutions that drum up self-celebratory blather to soothe the wounded psyches of freshman that didn’t get in somewhere better. I think that encourages the very sort of masturbatory, co-dependent behavior that organizations molding the next generation of Americans should strive to stamp out. 

And so, Safety Scholar—accept it, embrace it, wear it. No one ever got famous by getting into college. It’s what you do after that counts. 

[your choice of possibly recognizable colors]

Fuck Users: The Shirt for Anyone Working on the Internet

Designers. Engineers. Entrepreneurs. Developers. Support. QA. Doesn’t really matter where you work—this shirt is for you. Even management can get in on the act. 

Clients take a lot of heat for bringing misery into the online world, but it’s not their fault. They’re simply the group most directly impacted by the utter fuckery of the average user.

Users can’t figure out how to login in. Once they do, it’s non-stop bitching. They forget to plug things in, then chew you out for lousy support. They build a MySpace page that looks like it someone stuffed the sales rack at AJ Wright into a blender and use it to bitch about how crappy your designs are. They never bother to read anything, let alone the fucking manual.

Users are the single least-useful group of people on the Internet, and yet paradoxically, the one upon whom all online fortunes rely. 

Well, screw that. I could give a shit what users think, and I’m not afraid to put it on a shirt. Buy one and wear it. It’s fucking liberating. 

[your choice of colors]

Confuse everyone with topical “Socialisnt” shirt.

These are dangerous times we live in, people. Gone is the united, happy-go-lucky America of the George W. Bush administration. The time has come to make a decision: are you a social-IS-t or a social-ISNT?

Granted, it’s not exactly clear what the precise message of this shirt is—but worrying about that means the terrorists win. Just know that the only reason you wouldn’t buy this shirt is because you hate America. 

Available in “I want my country back” Red or “red, white and” Blue (“white” being the assumed skin-tone of the wearer). 

The Definitive “Bat Country” Shirt

The car suddenly veered off the road and we came to a sliding halt in the gravel. I was hurled against the dashboard. My attorney was slumped over the wheel. “What’s wrong?” I yelled. “We can’t stop here. This is bat country!”

Oh, sure—we all know the quote. It’s graced a multitude of shirts, posters, and god knows what else since the Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas movie brought Hunter S. Thompson’s savage journey into the Heart of the American Dream back to the cultural fore.

But where exactly is Bat Country? Just outside of Barstow, on the edge of the desert—as clearly labeled on this shirt.

[buy the shirt]

Yeah, Law and Order fans, there’s a Hudson University shirt out there. 

It’s a cool concept, but they didn’t to much to connect it to the show—and it’s damn expensive. I’ll have to see if I can’t throw something a little nice together.

Boston Townie T-Shirt

Represent your Boston Towniedom with style and pride in our lovely Boston Townie t-shirts. Available in a wide selection of colors, in men’s and women’s sizes.

Also available in Charlestown, Southie, and Somerville editions.