T-Shirt Advocate

Akumu means nightmare in Japanese, and with a little inspiration from Japanese horror movies, the hardcore music scene and black and white indie comics, the Akumu Ink t-shirt company certainly convey that in their designs.

Based in Montreal, Akumu screen print all their shirts themselves, to order, so you know you are getting a true indie product, just the way I like it. Their designs tend to be bold shirt fillers, which really shows off the detail in the dark artwork of Akumu Ink.

Check them out at www.akumuink.com

I used to be really into vintage tees, and although it is a love that’s somehow declined over the last couple of years, after following a link from an old email today, I slipped into the world of Defunkd. Now buddy at Defunkd, Jimmy J, knows a thing or two about vintage t-shirts, in fact his ebay store bagged him the ebay Canada entrepreneur of the year award. There are a whole host of vintage Tees available at the store, from penny auctions, to rare vintage classics for a couple hundred dollars. I particularly love this KLF shirt.

Check out Defunkd.com for some vintage goodness.

Yes that’s right, LOL! I’m always more into t-shirt art than funny t-shirts, so there are not many that actually make me laugh out loud. “Foam Monster In Emotional Reunion With Severed Limb” however, changed that trend when I saw it last night. So hats off to Aled Lewis for this awesome design available from Threadless.

So today I’m posting another one of my faves, yes I know there are a million new t-shirts that I could be blogging about, maybe if I had started my blog 4 years ago I might have caught up by now, but there are so many classic stores and t-shirt designs that I have loved for the longest time that I just don’t know where to start. But anyway… Concrere Hermit, I love the store, love the t-shirt designs, love the name, love the logo.

So I chose to show off the “Logo Pattern” shirt. If you are not familiar with Concrete Hermit then check out the site to see why the shirt is called that.

I was always a big Lego geek as a kid, so this t-shirt jumped out at me right away. There are a million variations on the old evolution design, so it’s nice to see one that still clings on to a bit or originality for a change. Love it.

Evolution, available from Glennztees

Gotta love a t-shirt store born from the idea of making tees based around mustaches. Mustache and Friends are exactly that, aiming to bring a some liveliness and giggles to the torso, Mustache and Friends are achieving their goals with some awesome lighthearted designs.

They are powered by Mechline so you know the quality is there too. They also have some cool accessories, including limited edition batstachio vinyl record necklaces. Check them out at www.mustacheandfriends.com

Hello all, just a quick message to say The Advocate will be back soon! I have been away at my wedding, and am now back at home a married man. I’m now sporadically back at my desk and will be starting the blog back up soon. I have a backlog of posts plus a whole load of hot tees to catch up on since I have been away, so with T-Shirt season is well under way, there will be lots to posts in the coming months.

Thanks for your patience and for all the emails, I’ll get back to you personally soon. Thanks too to HideYourArms for the nod in the list of 143 T-Shirt Blogs. A list well worth checking out for all us T-Shirt lovers.

Cheers, Paul

Hans and Fras recently opened their store at www.hansandfras.com a mere month or so ago. They are a true indie t-shirt store printing every shirt that they sell by hand, adding that bit of a human touch to each and every one. They seem to love every minute of it too, which can only be a good thing.

Their current series, MortaliTee, focuses on death and the skull as iconography. Yeah I thought it sounded pretty depressing too, but some of the characters, like Lil Vampy, are so cute, that you will soon forget about all the death and such.

They just updated the website too, the swanky new version being easier to navigate I have to say. Which gives me all the more reason to encourage you to go check them out and don’t forget about their cool blog too.

Owl Movement just released their series 7, entitled Lines and Diagrams. It has been a while since I have checked in at Owl Movement, so it is awesome to see that they are still going strong with the release of their latest series.

From left to right: Natural by Jean Spézial, Dog Zone by Yoink, Snakes Mistakes by Miss Lotion and Birthday Surprise by UPSO

Prooby 5 are a company that are totally new to me, I just found them after seeing this design on Rumplo… I Yield Sir, by designer “tgentry”. Originally a submission to Woot’s “Quiter” derby.

It seems Prooby 5’s mission is to pick out some of the losers from tee design competition’s like Threadless and Shirt.Woot and print them themselves. Giving the artists a commission on each shirt sold. If they keep picking up awesome designs like this one then they could be on the right track.