What's the big ideal?
Basically we want to provide an alternative to the most common vegan t-shirts available, while also showing off *dynamite* vegan artists and designers, and we want to pay you to help us.
As you probably know, lots of vegan shirts are designed with a specific message or argument in mind: some are more about conversion, i.e. "pigs are friends, not food" and some are more about shamin' folks, i.e. "meat is murder." Some are so ugly they are cute. These definitely have their place and we hope people keep buying these types of shirts.
But we want to make shirts that: 1. are super amazing art in themselves and 2. show a little vegan love.
Why? Art is rad. Vegans are rad. I like fashion. Kirby wears a ton of t-shirts.
We hope that wearing a well designed shirt that says "vegan" will remind folks that: veganism is an option (duh); vegans have good taste (yay); all vegans aren't angry all the time (maybe?). Also, a bunch of other folks have said they wished there were better vegan shirts out there too.
How are you going to design a shirt that conveys "vegan" without being lame, preachy, or ugly? I don't know, I'm not a very good designer. Think about it this way: all you have to do is design something inspired by the series topic (oooh, like project club), make it something you'd like, something you think others would wear, and then make it say vegan either in words or pictures or both. Good times. Agreed.
I like to think about it like a love story. What if you were in a crowded room and some super hotty you were droolin over turned around and had a t-shirt that was so wicked cool and then you got closer and it turned out that he/she was also vegan. That would be awesome. You could fall in love right there.
Lastly, a couple of you have asked for examples of what we consider good design and bad design, so we created this little list. This is not exhaustive and if you don't agree, don't worry. These is just some examples for those of you who have asked for them. No pressure. You have been invited to produce an original piece for this vegan t-shirt project, we already know that you are a great artist and will create something good.
Designs/designers we like:
- Ric Stutz: Owl and BackUp
- Super Maandolini
- Brennan & Birch
- Julia Sonmi
- Matt Moore
- Hannah Stouffer
- Kall Wejt:
- Yeoh GH:
- Five Shirts we Posted on Flickr that we liked
Not so good designs (again, some are adorable, and I 'd probably wear them, but they aren't art):
- Text with clip art
- Fake tattoo, 70's peace retro, country kitchen
- Cartoon Gandi
- MS Word Type design
- First day using Qwark in 1998 (I secretly want this one because of the little chicken message. too cute for my heart)
- Flower Power
Hope this is helpful. Each of you have a different artistic style, fashion style, life style, hair style. Hopefully this will create a pretty diverse line of t-shirts. Thank you for playing.
Reminder: what you design for Lion's Share should be original, not re-purposed from something else. We will also use your design for the catalog, web site, posters, prints, and may be other very cool things. Also, don't post your design in your portfolio, flickr, or tumblr until we release the shirt. Secret squirrel!
Manufacturing Choices
- details to come
Physical Distribution Targets
- London: Bourgeois Boheme; Vegetarian Shoes; Black Truffle
- Los Angeles: Ella Bella; Alternative Outfitters; Cusp; Humanitaire (Santa Monica)
- New York: Moo Shoes; 99x; Eponymy; Hayden Harnett; Jungle Planet
- Portland: Herbivore
- San Francisco: Little Otsu; Arkay Workshop; Therapy
- Seattle: Sidecar; GOODS; Fancy; Kuhlman; Zebra Club
Like all good art galleries, the t-shirt designs will be organized by a common thread.
- Series 1: Flying
- Series 2: TBD
- Future series ideas: places that don't exist, favorites, the color pink, goats, cities, uncommon/misrepresented fruit, trigonometry, and friends.
Have ideas? Email shout@lionsshareindustries.com
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