Comments on: Rumplo' and behold!

Rumplo' and behold!

defenestration — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 16:50:59 -0800

Rumplo will help you waste even more of your hard-earned cash on artist and designer created T-Shirts. You can submit shirts you've found anywhere online, as well as comment on and favorite other people's findings. Thanks to user-submitted tags, you can browse by c o l o r, type ('boys', 'girls', 'kids'), and many other attributes. If you get bored of browsing aimlessly, you can always check out what's popular.

By: jokeefe

jokeefe — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:02:57 -0800

Um....

By: jokeefe

jokeefe — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:05:11 -0800

These are cool, but is this appropriate for Mefi? It seems like one of those posts that are really, you know, advertisements. Pepsi Blue. You know the drill.

By: defenestration

defenestration — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:05:11 -0800

Why does everyone always think I'm pushing something? Haha. I just like to share cool sites I stumble upon. I guess I frame it in too much of a sales pitch sort of way.

By: !Jim

!Jim — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:07:42 -0800

Some of these shirts are neat, but I'm on page 2 of 25. Sometimes less is more.

By: Razzle Bathbone

Razzle Bathbone — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:15:02 -0800

Interesting, but did we really need 16 links to the same site?

By: box

box — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:18:26 -0800

Serious question: Who's buying all these artist- and designer-created t-shirts? It wasn't so shocking to see CafePress get big, because it's one of those deals where the Internet makes something easier. And Threadless has that for-profit-manufactured-community thing going. But every day, it seems like, I see another thirty-dollar screenprinted American Apparel t-shirt. Is the market really that big, or is it just that the barrier to entry is so low?

By: DU

DU — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:30:23 -0800

Finally, a place to buy clothing.

By: phooky

phooky — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:30:27 -0800

Box: I think what's happening is that these small-run designer shirts are eating away at the fringes of the enormous, enormous mass t-shirt market. Look at how many kids wear the same Abercrombie or Gap or Urban Outfitters t-shirts. Take ten percent of that market and, well, it's pretty huge. I can't remember the last time I saw someone under the age of twenty-five wearing something that wasn't a t-shirt on their torso. It seems kind of lazy and homogenous, somehow. And remember, kids: if you choose to remain on my lawn, kindly garb your torso appropriately.

By: defenestration

defenestration — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:35:03 -0800

box: In my opinion, the best part of all of this is that there is no real barrier of entry at all. Internet commerce lets designers and artists that want to create and market T-shirts—and well, anything else—the ability the overhead of more traditional methods of selling. Also, the very nature of the web allows them an almost limitless field of distribution, granted they're able to process orders and ship to many locales. It also gives us—the consumers—a gigantic, dynamic, ever-changing inventory to peruse, and the ability to purchase directly from the artists and designers, maximizing their profits. The catch is, the massive amount of shirts out there, spread over thousands of designer's individual websites, are daunting to keep find and keep track of... That's why I like the idea of this site.

By: defenestration

defenestration — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:36:26 -0800

*'anything else—the ability the overhead' should read 'anything else—without the overhead'. Oops.

By: Smart Dalek

Smart Dalek — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:37:08 -0800

Rumplo of the Bailey

By: jack_mo

jack_mo — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:44:56 -0800

Weak. When the first t-shirt on a t-shirt site has the slogan "Bukkake ruined my carpet", I'm not going to browse further, let alone buy anything.

By: defenestration

defenestration — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:50:04 -0800

jack_mo, that's kind of like looking at the most recent posts on del.icio.us and ruling out its usefulness, no?

By: delmoi

delmoi — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:53:17 -0800

Serious question: Who's buying all these artist- and designer-created t-shirts? Obviously someone? I got a couple of shirts off Defunker.com back in the day, but they seem to be a little defunked? They're just a sub-site of bustedtees.com Anyway, all these shirts start to look the same after a while.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:55:14 -0800

Box: I think what's happening is that these small-run designer shirts are eating away at the fringes of the enormous, enormous mass t-shirt market. Look at how many kids wear the same Abercrombie or Gap or Urban Outfitters t-shirts. Take ten percent of that market and, well, it's pretty huge. It's an 8 billion dollar industry or something like that. I had a friend who ran his own t-shirt company for a while. I'm not sure if he made a lot of money in the end, but he did a lot of business.

By: box

box — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 18:00:12 -0800

Okay, so, as it turns out, the market is that big, and the barrier to entry is that low? Well, that pretty much explains it.

By: sparkletone

sparkletone — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 18:02:37 -0800

Something tells me this one isn't properly licensed. If I dig further, will I find some with Calvin on them?

By: Lentrohamsanin

Lentrohamsanin — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 18:17:33 -0800

I was prepared to come in here and snark, but WANT WANT WANT.

By: Lentrohamsanin

Lentrohamsanin — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 18:19:57 -0800

Something tells me this one isn't properly licensed. Note that the link to buy that one goes to Urban Outfitters, so it probably is licensed. This site doesn't appear to be just independent designers after all.

By: box

box — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 18:21:51 -0800

Now, now, maybe Urban Outfitters stole that design from an independent designer, like they did with that cupcake guy.

By: mkb

mkb — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 18:33:27 -0800

TWENTY EIGHT DOLLARS FOR A NINJA TURTLES SHIRT

By: mullingitover

mullingitover — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 18:35:54 -0800

I wish the internet was as good at producing really cool pants. My clothing collection is heavily skewed toward tshirts these days.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 18:36:59 -0800

I think it's just linking to various t-shirt designs

By: Galvatron

Galvatron — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 18:39:09 -0800

I like a clever, well-designed shirt as well as the next guy. But whenever I stumble across one of these designer T-shirt sites, I can't help but notice that I have an immediate, visceral dislike of roughly a quarter of the people modeling them. It's like their images are positively screaming out, "Look at me! I'm an attractive, self-absorbed hipster!" Is that just me?

By: selfmedicating

selfmedicating — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 18:44:30 -0800

These are done by a mefite, but I don't remember who.

By: progressor

progressor — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 19:02:10 -0800

Do they have Pepsi Blue T-Shirts?

By: cashman

cashman — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 19:11:52 -0800

When the first t-shirt on a t-shirt site You want a t-shirt on a t-shirt? There you go. These are done by a mefite, but I don't remember who. That would be Jezztek.

By: alicesshoe

alicesshoe — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 19:30:48 -0800

ThankYou, defenestration, I haven't clicked to the other links yet, still on the first one, but Love Tshirt art. These are great. 'better than than your dog food'-helicopter pilot, RoadWarrior'. jack_mo, I wasn't impressed with that one , but moved on to find some great design. but I thought of another Tshirt for you... 'Fuck Your Carpet, Fuck Face'. in retort. C'mon, i-got-another-whale is brill./ and I couldn't stop laughing about don't mess with breakfast, the cheek. Gold./ space invaders..., for muxtape heads...say. see, fun for everyone. hey old farts, get off your chair and visit the lawn. Lochness Imposter, beautiful graphic. Endangered Species - hey.

By: euphorb

euphorb — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 20:30:55 -0800

So they pretty much just ripped off flickr's interface, right?

By: erniepan

erniepan — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 21:12:16 -0800

Serious question: Who's buying all these artist- and designer-created t-shirts? Um, that would be me. Someday my will daughter ask why she can't go to college; I'll just point to my Threadless closet.

By: jayder

jayder — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 21:14:07 -0800

I had the opportunity to be around a bunch of hip young people in a nightclub setting a few months ago, and I realized: The big revolution in t-shirt design in the last ten years is the printing that extends up to the shoulder seam. Practically every young man was wearing the uniform of expensive jeans and a dark-colored t-shirt with a kind of intricate, flowered, ornate design that extended up to the shoulder seam. Why did it take so long for that breakthrough in t-shirt design to happen? When I am old, I am going to have a hard time explaining to my grandkids that, "we only had t-shirts with designs on the main part of the chest ... none that extended up to the shoulder seam."

By: delmoi

delmoi — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 22:42:28 -0800

So they pretty much just ripped off flickr's interface, right? Uh, they appear to have borrowed the little on-page navigation thing, but so what? What's wrong with re-using interface ideas? Their main page is nothing like flickr's.

By: Baby_Balrog

Baby_Balrog — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 03:40:01 -0800

I was bored and designed my first t-shirt ever the other day. It combines my favorite thing with my least favorite thing.

By: jack_mo

jack_mo — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 05:45:37 -0800

defenestration writes 'jack_mo, that's kind of like looking at the most recent posts on del.icio.us and ruling out its usefulness, no?' I suppose - didn't realise it was all folksonomic and shit, and assumed Rumplo had selected that shirt as the best of their wares. Browsing further, there is indeed some okay stuff. I'm just not the target market, really, though the one printed t-shirt I wear does mark me out as a bit of a tosser (it has the old Susan Kare-designed bomb icon you used to see when old Macs crash on it). delmoi writes 'Uh, they appear to have borrowed the little on-page navigation thing, but so what?' That, the exact colourscheme, and the footer layout. But, yeah, it's maybe more 'very much inspired by' than 'ripped off'. cashman writes 'You want a t-shirt on a t-shirt? There you go.' Heh, that one is pretty nice.

By: Uther Bentrazor

Uther Bentrazor — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 10:31:16 -0800

One thing I've noticed about the explosion of online t-shirt designers is much of it was made possible by the simultaneous explosion of 'make your own shirt' sites. A scant few years ago, CafePress was the only game in town, and their product is mall-kiosk level shoddy. Now there seems to be tons of such sites that make it possible for anyone to become a t-shirt designer. I'm always for technology breaking down barriers; there is a part of me that does get frustrated at times, as mastering screenprinting is one of the things I take pride in, and seeing the majority of t-shirt sellers as graphic designers who outsource their stuff, but I don't wish to come across as one of those cranks who swears that cheap digital cameras is ruining photography. also, is this the thread where shirtmakers shamelessly plug their own sites? Not that I would be so crass... :)

By: P.o.B.

P.o.B. — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 12:47:02 -0800

I understand why people like these t-shirts and all that, but why would I pay fifty bucks for a shirt that says "Bukkake ruined my carpet"?

By: lullaby

lullaby — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 15:45:56 -0800

It's like their images are positively screaming out, "Look at me! I'm an attractive, self-absorbed hipster!" Most of the people buying the shirts are trying to look like that too.