National Handicapped Month

This crude design is sure to stir up some opinions in your direction. You're sure to find people who share your sense of humor with a shirt like this.



SOURCE: The Rift

Twilight Live Forever

Official Twilight Fan Merchandise Shirt. Features the popular phrase, "When You Can Live Forever, What Do You Live For?" along with "Twilight" on a tribal-esqe floral backdrop. Show your love for the vampires and be the eye at the theaters during the Movies release with this beautiful shirt.



SOURCE: BoltZ DesignZ

Made In China With Lead Paint

Toy recalls abound - child safety is at stake! The Tornado Republic wants you to be sure of your exposure to lead paint. So, here's your shirt.



SOURCE: Tornado Republic

Cafepress: Revamped Look

At Cafepress, we're all about "Self Expression, Rewarded." (our mantra). Yet as you can see from teh note above, even our Co-Founder and CEO Fred Durham wasn't feeling it. So we put the wheels in motion for a rebranding.

Quick note from the team on our make-over:

It all started with a new logo. With a stamped-on feel, it's a tip-of-the-cap to our community's hand-crafted creativity. It says "do it yourself," which is what we're all about. It's also slightly distressed, which again speaks to the fact that none of us -- including folks in our community and the CafePress team -- are perfectly polished.

We've also added some fresh new colors to the palette, which we'll also be sprinkling in. Why? Because if there's one word that reflects our community, it's "colorful." You'll also notice that in some places we're keeping the palette very neutral. This lets your designs be the real heroes on pages, since enabling our Shopkeeper community is paramount.

Naturally, this is just the first leg on our new road to self-expression. It's our way of growing up, while staying fun.

Enjoy,
CafePress Team

MY THOUGHTS:

Some good, some bad, some what the hell were you smoking? There are some things about the overhaul I like (like how the Marketplace looks), some things I don't like (the text size increased throughout the site), and even some things that had me thinking, what the hell were you smoking? (The new CP logo is ugly and very unprofessional. It looks bad on CPs site and even worse when shrunken and blacked out on Premium shops). Alot of CP Shopkeepers are not pleased with the changes. Even some that are ready to pack up and head to the competition. I will ride it out for a while and see if I can adapt to the changes. I loved CP for its ease of use. If it stays easy through this change, I'll still be using it. If not, I'll be with others in exploring the other POD options out there.

SOURCE: Cafepress

Zombie Wants Brains

Halloween is right around the corner. To celebrate this most ghoulish of holidays, here's a Monster Design shirt. This design that depicts hungry zombies eating brains is from a fellow CPer, Brev87. He has more Monster type designs to go along with this Zombies Want Brains design. Happy Halloween Everyone. Hope its a great scare and the lil one's load up on neighborhood candy!

SOURCE: Brev87

McCainia

Awhile Back I showcased an Obama Design. To be fair and equal to both political parties, now it's time to showcase a McCain Design. McCain followers have had a nickname of McCainiacs for quite some time. This McCainia Design shows the world you run with McCain and are a follower of McCainia. Whatcha Gonna Do When John McCain Runs Wild On You?


SOURCE: BoltZ DesignZ

Cafepress Partners With Pure Digital Technologies

From Cafepress:

CafePress is thrilled to announce a branded partnership with Pure Digital Technologies — makers of the wildly-popular Flip Mino Camcorders. By teaming up together, video lovers can now take their movie-making creativity one step further by customizing their Flip Mino camcorders. How fun is that?

Thoughts:

Only time will tell how this plays out. There's plenty of Pro's and Con's to this. A few pro's are: Perfect time for release (Holiday Shopping Season is nearly upon us) And Marketing is at teen's (which love customization). And A few con's are: The economy isn't doing so well, the regular white/black version can be found for much cheaper, And as with any electronic device, it'll be outdated before long. From a shopkeeper perspective, I love the out of left field that Cafepress went with. They are very fun to design for, but I myself have limited myself to just 21 designs due to not expecting to sell alot if any at all. I do hope the Partnership lasts and us shopkeepers get the opportunity to Create Designs for other Pure Digital Technology products in the future.

SOURCE: Cafepress

9-11 Never Forget

Remember the somber horror of 9-11-01 with this "I will Never Forget" design depicting the burning Twin Towers with American flag, bald eagle, and Statue of Liberty interspersed.



SOURCE: Right Leaning

I Rock With Barack

An original Punk Rocker design Pro-Obama shirt brought to you by Gobama. Become a unique part of the Barack Obama movement with this punk rock inspired design. Be a one of kind Barack Obama supporter!






SOURCE: GOBAMA

Zazzle's New Seller Incentive Program

Email From Zazzle:

On the heels of Cafepress' announcement that they would be changing their Volume Bonus Program so that Marketplace sales were no longer included in it, Here comes Zazzle to introduce their Seller Incentive Program.

Dearest Friends and Zazzle Members,

Today is a very special day. We are thrilled to announce the Zazzle Seller Incentive Program, which will enable all users to earn significantly more money! With the introduction of volume bonuses and a more-than-doubled referral fee, the earnings potential on Zazzle has now skyrocketed.

Zazzle was originally founded upon the principle of network incentives – that helping others earn real money is a powerful way to grow a business. We’ve experienced tremendous growth in the past few years, and now is the right time to further align your success with ours. The Seller Incentive Program will enable all sellers – whether contributors of content or referrers of traffic – to earn much, much more.

Speaking on behalf of everybody at Zazzle, please consider this a big “Thank You!” as all of you on this email list have contributed to our success in unique and important ways. Empowering people to earn a living on our platform is our passion and we’re more excited than ever about serving you with the very best products and features.

We continue to be humbled by your creative genius, inspired by your entrepreneurial spirit, and we anxiously await your increased success from this launch. So, at last, please check out the new Zazzle Seller Incentive Program!

Very truly yours,

Bobby & Jeff Beaver
Co-Founders
Zazzle.com, Inc.

Un Censored

What a great shirt to confuse people with! Normally swears such as "Fuck" and "Shit" will get blurred in public viewing spectrums. This shirt makes fun of this by showing a blurred out list of words. Thing is, all these words are the acceptable forms of common swears; Frick, Shoot, Darn, Heck. Instant classic of an idea and shirt!


SOURCE: Threadless T-Shirts

Good Girl Gone Biker

Since it's Harley's 105th Anniversary this year and the party is this weekend here in Milwaukee, I've decided to pick out a Biker themed shirt. I chose this one because, well, I didn't wanna grab a typical male biker shirt. Also this one has a really nicely designed woman on a bike design. This great design came from Motogear4Her and they offer many more different sayings with this same design.

SOURCE: Motogear4Her

I'm Totally Blogging This

Saw this and just had too....

Blogging is definitely the hip thing to do these days, and everyone is doing it! This trendy, cute, cool "I'm Totally Blogging This" saying gear is a great gift idea for the blog fanatic.


LINK: KippyGo Designs

Zazzle's Got A New Look

Email From Zazzle:

Welcome to the new Zazzle!

As a commerce re-defining platform, Zazzle is much less interested in promoting itself than it is in promoting our users and the content they generate. This overhaul of Zazzle's identity is intended to create a brand that allows us to step back from the limelight so that your content takes the center stage.

Our new, subdued black and white color scheme is neutral, friendly, inclusive and kind of hip (just enough that it won't turn anyone away). We chose this clean and simple aesthetic to let the colors and beauty of your original content really pop off the page. You might even think of this new site as a kind of empty coloring book and your products as the crayons.

Our new logo is also simple and bold. We designed it to look a little bit like a copyright © or registered trademark ® symbol, because we want you to think of the Zazzle logo as a kind of trademark symbol you might slap down next to your own brand as a way to let the world know that Zazzle's got your back. We will ensure the best consumer experience and retail quality products for all of your designs.

Some of the key descriptive words we used internally when working on this new brand included simple, clean, trustworthy, strong, universal, and unique. We hope you agree with the intent and like the results.

As always, we're very interested in hearing what you think. Feel free to drop us a note anytime, about the new brand or about anything else you might have on your mind, using our feedback form.

From the entire team that made this rebrand possible, thank you for Zazzling!

Darren Luvaas
Creative Director, Zazzle

I must admit the new look is a major improvement over their old layout. But I feel they can still do better. Look at Premium Shops on Cafepress once...

It's Not That I'm Lazy

Say it with pride, It's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care. Most of the american work force hate their jobs, and who could blame them if their offices ar anything like office space.

SOURCE: Media Tees

Around Barstow

Hunter S. Thompson art t-shirt inspired by the opening line in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. "We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold."


SOURCE: Gonzo Tees

Atrium

Ekset Apparel was founded in 2002 with a message in mind: hindsight is foresight. Through design and a creative team, Ekset Apparel focuses on a motivated message that we are all able to learn from our life experiences and in turn be a part of a movement that will make for a better tomorrow. Here is one of my favorite designs from them, Atrium:

SOURCE: Ekset Apparel

Cowbell Hero

It started a few years back on a faithful day in April. April 1st to be exact. The fools day. One of the jokes spread that day was that Harmonix, makers of Guitar Hero, announced they're next version of the popular game. They were ditching the Guitars and going ahead with the Cowbell, yes thats right COWBELL! Over at TorsoPants they have created a great Guitar Hero Parody shirt with the Cowbell. More Cowbell?

SOURCE: TorsoPants

Custom $2 T-Shirts from PrintFection.com

Yes, thats not a typo. For a (supposed) limited time, Printfection.com is offering (1) White T-Shirt with a design you upload for just $2. All you need to do is upload your image, pick your size, and your shirt will ship in 3-5 days. It's as easy as one, two, three!

How can they offer it for so cheap you ask? Simple, its like a test shirt. They want to get you to try it out, and continue to use their services. I myself will be taking up their offer on the shirt shortly. Can't say no to such a cheap custom designed shirt, can you? Now just what design to use.... lol!

Of course after the fine print you find out while the shirt is technically $2, you'll pay more since shipping and handling is not included. But still, its a great deal.

SOURCE: PrintFection

Google Insights: A look at POD Brand Awareness

[This is based on brand awareness. Each graph shows how many people in the country of U.S.A. are aware of CafePress, Zazzle, Spreadshirt or Printfection.]

Google just released a new product called Insights, a tool designed to helped advertisers gain a clearer picture of search behavior, aided by some very cool heat maps .

I decided to have a little fun by typing in the four main PODs, to visually see which had the greatest brand awareness in the U.S. Talk on WebmasterWorld suggests to take the information with a grain of salt (or two) - so I’m not sure how accurate it is, apparently it’s not yet tallying up with the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. But take from it what you will, it’s just a bit of fun And the results are what I’d expect anyway.

CafePress:
(I like how it clearly shows that CafePress need to do some work in Wyoming and North / South Dakota)

Zazzle:

Spreadshirt:

Printfection:

Go and have a play yourself - Google Insights >>>

SOURCE: TShirtChat

Circuit-ulatory System

Todays Great T-Shirt Design comes from Shirt.Woot!



Shirt.Woot! is a derby type t-shirt design contest site. Some amazing and original work comes out of those derbies. Not only that but Shirt.Woot! has a great writing style and sense of humor. Check out some of the descriptions they put on the items they sell. Pure comedy gold. Here is one of the recent Shirt.Woot! winners that has become a favorite of mine.




SOURCE: Shirt.Woot!

Zazzle Now Offering Custom Shoes

Zazzle's custom shoes are the first shoes that you can design from the soles up! Their proprietary technology allows you to create the highest quality footwear with your photos, designs, text and more, ensuring a pair of shoes unique as you. Choose from 5 different Keds shoe styles for women and kids to make your perfect custom shoe today! Delivered in one to two weeks, depending on shipping method.

SOURCE: Zazzle

CafePress Changes Volume Bonus Program

Straight from CafePress:

A successful CafePress Marketplace is essential for us all, and as time goes on we’d like to continue its growth. Over the past few years we’ve invested lots of time and money into increasing Marketplace sales, and it’s been worth the effort; what was once just an “idea” is now an incredibly significant part of business for Shopkeepers and CafePress.

As a result of that success, we’ve now reached a point where the combination of Volume Bonus and advertising costs are exceeding Marketplace profits.

Rather than halting promotional and advertising efforts that drive Marketplace sales – which would result in significantly fewer sales for both Shopkeepers and CafePress – we’ve determined that we need to restructure the Volume Bonus program.

This will play both a positive roll for some CafePress shopkeepers and a negative for others. The Volume Bonus is being restructured to where Marketplace sales a no longer accounted towards the Volume Bonus. So if a shopkeeper gets most of his/her sales from the Marketplace they will no longer see that nice Volume Bonus they are used to. On the other hand, for shopkeepers that get consumers to buy straight from their shops, they will see a nice increase in the bonus. CafePress has upped the percentage on the Bonus with this change. A positive for all with this change though, is that Affiliate sales will no longer be taken from the shopkeepers markup.

For more information, CLICK HERE.

SOURCE: CafePress

8-Bit

Starting off kicking it old school. This great homage to the 8-bit gaming era is brought to you by Krushervision. Features a graffiti-esqe type design with the buttons from the old NES Controller and the saying "8-bit". Show your love for the days of the 8-bit renaissance... Mountain Dew-fueled all-night Zelda sessions, making Metroid maps, and the Contra Code.


SOURCE: Krushervision