two stubborn sideburn t-shirts: "Stereo", & "Sumo"

stbn emblem

Some cool designs from Stubborn Sideburn, designed by talented Japanese artist Junichi Tsuneoka, who describes his style as, “California Roll,” combining Japanese pop culture and American urban culture together into something very unique and eye-catching. (mmm… California roll)

All of STBN SDBN tees are hand crafted, and are printed in ultra-limited numbers of less than 24 per design (only 24 of each!?) adding that, “It’s more of my design output purpose. I would rather design more than produce same thing over and over.”

He also showcases some slick sticker and print designs from his store at stbnsdbn.com. I look forward to seeing more designs from the very talented Mr. Tsuneoka, as he is off to a great start!

Check out some of the stickers; these designs would also look great on some t-shirts:

stbn sdbn stickers

Umami (meaning "Tasty") Girl - Tokyo Revenge

Jadore (loving her kitty to death?) - Mad Hatter

jessi making tshirt look good

Akumu Ink – Thanks to Aldora from Akumu Ink for sending me a link to their site which features some pretty cool & unique t-shirt designs. “Akumu,” meaning “nightmare” in Japanese, pretty much describes the theme of their dark designs in a single word.

Combining elements of Japanese anime, horror, and pop culture into a creative nightmarish design, Joey (the artist) has come up with some pretty sweet illustrations. On many of the designs you can see nice hand drawn lines that give you the feeling of a charcoal drawing from a sketchbook.

They also update their blog w/ some great sketches and new designs.

death before dishonor

I’ve always felt that combining 2 uniquely different elements is a good way to come up with something new and original (it worked for the movie Snakes on a Plane!) and that is what they do over at Akumu. I could even see fans of goth (like Abby from NCIS) sporting one of these.

Good stuff! Check out their website at akumuink.com

Wefab - 85 Icons of Fab History and Songs (can I say "beatles" w/o getting sued?)

Tron Guy w/ Frisbee dog!?

Chop Shop – So, I was just intrigued by looking through the (mostly sci-fi) designs at chopshopstore after Thomas sent a link to me. They do some cool stuff by making a larger design out of a collection of individual silhouettes in designs like, “wefab” (above) “51 Celebrity Robots” (w/glowing eyes & buttons) “54 celebrity vehicles,” and “34 Celebrated Vampires.”

The style kind of reminds me of those stock vector illustration collections you can get on sites like istockphoto, except in this case they all work together in a larger design. I think for this reason, everyone has a unique viewing experience, and relates uniquely to different parts.

Alien celebrities t-shirt

If you are a Beatles fan, you’ll surely appreciate the design above, and might even get the irony of the “apple” shape, and the “Apple-esque” title of “WeFab.” (Remember that Apple Music vs. Apple Computers lawsuit?)

I also liked their “robots nofollow” t-shirt, which is probably understood only by people like myself that work with HTML.

Anyway, I found myself looking through the deigns trying to name as many of the “51 Celebrity Robots” as I could for some reason. I imagine that if you are standing at a party in someone’s kitchen wearing one of these shirts, you’ll find others doing the same!

*Check out ChopShopStore.com & use coupon code: popcultureplease for 15% off!

coupons: free business cards

French Bear loves eating little children

...psycho bears with machetes kill people

You know, the great thing about designing t-shirts is that there are no limitations; so why not have fun with it? With all the designs out there, you really have to do something to distinguish yourself to get people’s attention.

That’s just what Sebastien Millon seems to be doing on his site & with his t-shirts for sale over on Etsy.

His simple cartoonish style works well with his often dark humor, creating some designs you have to look twice at. Kind of reminds of a parody on those hugely successful “Life is Good” designs.

little owlie loves a fat beat

While not all illustrations are dark, subjects like alcoholism and murder are perfect with these cute drawings, right!? (Personally, I’ve always wanted to see one of those happy little Care Bears brought to their knees with a serious meth addiction) The simple, handwritten font is a good match, too.

Check out more illustrations at sebastienmillon.com

Coupons:

the many lives of Spock t-shirt 1

who killed the wicked witch? t-shirt

sons of anarchy / ghost of christmas future sketch

apes shall rule t-shirt

Thanks to Ramsey for dropping me a line about his brilliant illustrations at Raz City Studios. I may have missed his cool Halloween themed monster t-shirt which was on sale at Shirt Punch for a day, but I definitely like his Christmas Carol / Sons of Anarchy sketch.

A must see for Trekkies is the hilarious Many Lives of Spock t-shirt above; envisioning how pop culture influenced Spock over the years. (available through Red Bubble)

Ramsey has a great blog which showcases not only his t-shirt designs, but his great comic book style illustrations and sketches. Check it out!

coupon: 20% off allposters

"Fallen from Grace"

"Secret Life"

"Daggers"

Remuse is a new artist collective brand offering sweat-shop free t-shirts (American Apparel, I believe) that are released seasonally. Remuse designs are meant to inspire “the pondering of everyday life both subliminally and direct.”

Like myself, they hail from outside Philly & also seem to share my glass half-empty view of where society is headed. They intend to encourage awareness of society’s decline through their work.

I think the artists at Remuse are off to a great start. Although they only have a handful of designs, the ones they have showcase impressively illustrated, thought-provoking illustrations printed on quality tees.

Check out their shop and use coupon code: POP10 for 10% off!

Another Coupon: 20% off all t-shirts at allposters Coupon code

femme fatale - shinobi (aka Kim Kardashian vs ninjas!?)

femme fatale - americana

femme fatale - tigress

Thanks to Kyle at krypton t-shirts for letting me know about this awesome Femme Fatale t-shirt series illustrated by the very talented Matthew Skiff.

I’m loving the lines, color, and balance in these designs. Really, no text is even needed in these vignettes of sexy femme fatales that combines exotic fantasy art w/ vintage comic book style.

Brilliantly illustrated, these limited edition t-shirts are available in 2 colorways, and are printed on soft American Apparel tees.

You can get 15% off with coupon code: POPCULTURETEES.
Check them out now!

New coupon: Up to 22% off t-shirts and posters with allposters coupons

battle of the beards

Chuck Norris Beard

Battle of the Beards T-Shirt – While a lot of people have wondered who would win in a fight of, oh, let’s say Godzilla fought King Kong, Clack Industries (who only does one t-shirt design a year) has proposed a deadly face off between Chuck Norris and The World’s Most Interesting Man in a Battle of the Beards.

Let’s not forget the influence that beards have had in modern popular culture. Whether it be San Francisco Giants closer Brian Wilson, or Federal Reserve Chief Ben Bernanke (can you imagine the global economic meltdown if he shaved his beard!?) beards have made a stunning comeback in recent years.

Although the outcome isnt clear, whoever wins this epic battle will surely have to contend with the formidable challenger Kenny Rogers. View / buy this t-shirt

coupon: 4inkjets coupons

Big Robot T-Shirt

112 anime retro cartoon characters on one t-shirt!

Cool Ghostbusters T-shirt - Who You Gonna Call?

1980s Pop Culture T-shirt - ¿Quien es malo?

Mister Black Tee

I love finding out about great t-shirt shops online that I’ve never heard of. Spanish t-shirt shop Mister Black Tee is just that. Above are a few of there newer designs with some cool American pop culture references like Ghost Busters. (how many 80s characters do you recognize in the shirt above?)

For someone like myself who grew up watching these 80s movies, it’s really cool to see them reinterpreted in these creative t-shirt designs. (Would these designs be even cooler to me if the text was en Espanol?) There is even a design on the site featuring famous movie directors and one with little anime drawings of retro cartoons. (112 personajes de dibujos animados – desde 1962 hasta 1997)

Mira! Tarantino!

I’m not an expert on copyright law, but I’d say that they have done a great job with the retro-looking illustrations; alluding to the characters in these movies without getting in trouble for using actual movie names or pictures of actors.

They also have some great paper toys under their “Goodies” section.” Check out their shop at Mbtee.com

Burn Card t-shirt

This week I received a cool t-shirt from UK-based Burn Card Clothing. Their first set of designs center around the playing cards-inspired logo. Actually, before I speak about the shirt, I have to tell you how impressed I was with the t-shirt packaging, also inspired by old-school playing cards.

Packaging is often overlooked, but as we said in a previous post about t-shirt packaging ideas, it can really make an impression. I couldn’t help but be impressed when opening the package from Burn Card, and here’s why:

burn card hang tags

burn card t-shirt logo

As you can see, their branding is carries through all the way from the packaging to the hang tag, to the shirt itself. (Check out the creative hang tags above. What a nice touch)

Anyway, back to the t-shirt. I got one of the black ones with their logo on it. Very cool, and understated. I remember back when the “sport” of Poker was exploding in popularity, about a million people tried to make t-shirts to capitalize on the craze. More than 9 out of 10 designs were lame, as people were kind of missing the point.

T-shirts with poker-lingo on them, or designs incorporating poker chips and playing cards really just missed the mark. What high roller would want to walk through a casino wearing a shirt that says, “Poker Freak,” “Texas Hold em,” or “I Got the Nuts.”

However, this understated logo design would look very cool, and could go places like a casino or restaurant and still look classy. Well done. Looking forward to seeing new designs from them soon! Buy at BurnCardClothing.com