T-Shirt Reviews Blog

Posted: 09 Dec 2009 11:22 AM PST

Print Liberation break all the rules when it comes to t-shirt design, yet their range of tees deliver such a powerful punch, offering an deceptively basic typographic home-made style, which personally forces the likes of people like me to reassess exactly what makes a great tee. The truth is their simple and straightforward designs offer an alternative to the slick graphics and ideas of most of the indie market. Sure, putting it bluntly, they’re as basic as can be, which in most circumstances is a risky position to take in fashion, yet their philosophy works. In fact it shines.

When you buy a t-shirt from Print Liberation you’re buying a message, you’re opting in to an ethos that hasn’t reared it’s head in decades. Big bold upper case fonts declare their ideology like a heavyweight knock out blow to the head. Don’t expect ‘pretty’ or exuberant illustration - that just isn’t what Print Liberation are about. Don’t expect glib and throwaway sentiments either, this brand doesn’t mince their words, this brand is about as close to an ‘anti-label’ as anyone has managed to create in decades. Their home grown basic design ethic is born out of experience and need, not ambition or fashionable attitude. You get what you see, and what you see is the truth.

They offer a range betwixt the big bold and rather glib typography tees that flooded Britain in the 80’s and the highly politicised tees of the 60’s and 70’s psychedelic era. Avoiding the petty thoughts of famous bands of the time like Wham’s “Choose Life” and Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s “Frankie Says“, and taking on a deeper and more politicised line more suited to the revolutionary downturn of the hippie movement. Yet there’s nothing sentimental or amateur about Print Liberation’s presentation, with a total lack of pretension, their designs get to the point straight away. There’s no room for art when it comes to this label’s idea of fashion, their hard-edged design ethic tells you why and how it is the way it is. They never cushion the blow, they never ‘decorate’ the truth with illustration and a spectrum of colour. They think the way many of us think, and in turn, their customers help to spread their message.

Founded in 1999, a moment when much of the media touted the world as we knew it would end, well if the Millennium Bug had had its way, a bedraggled collective of burnt-out advertising executives decided to turn the tables on big government and big business. Using the same talents prostituted to the corporations in the name of profit, they began to brainstorm their way through to a new beginning, an new era of indie urban fashion and art. The message would always be the truth, the mechanism for delivery would be popular culture, and the ideology revolution. You’re either with them or against them, that’s just how they roll, live with it.

Destroy Fox News

I spent a considerable time here in the UK, during the run-up to Obama winning the US Presidential elections, skipping between BBC, CNN and Fox News, and I what I found most enjoyable about my exploration into the political process in America was the rapid decline in cheap shot journalism and snide reportage as the producers and presenters of Fox News realised that Palin is an idiot and McCain was about to lose. One of the greatest moments of Fox News has to be the coverage of the empty hall (bar a solitary cleaner sweeping the floor), where McCain and his party faithful were supposed to be consoling each other in a celebration of what they had managed to achieve, even if they hadn’t won. They didn’t, they all left seconds after McCain’s farewell speech. The news reporters were silent and sullen, it was the most miserable night in the history of Fox News. Whilst the rest of the world celebrated Obama’s dramatic win, Fox News sulked. Hilarious. If you’d rather not see ultra-right bias conservative opinion-based news spouted across the airwaves, then vote with your chest and sport the Destroy Fox News tee for $15 in white - sizes S to 2XL.

Screw The Holidays Tee

Christmas is cancelled, or it should be, unless all the bankers of the world decide to shell out and pay for it this year, I mean. What the hell did the huddling masses do in The Great Depression for Xmas? They’d have been lucky to have found a roof over their head and a crust of bread. Yet still the mega-corporate machine trundles on, consuming all desires for a more balanced way of living and spewing out nostalgic sentiments designed to guilt-trip parents into digging deeper. Santa is on crack, Rudolf has been roasted over an oil drum hobo barbecue, and the trees are all dead from pollution and land clearance for bio-fuel. Get over it. Buy the Screw The Holidays tee for $14 in white - sizes S to XL here.

You’re Not Dead Yet Tee

Wake up, get on with your life, don’t give up… You’re Not Dead Yet is a t-shirt that delivers a powerful message. Even though it might seem that things can never get better, this might be it, sure you can have religion if it makes you feel better, but what if there’s nothing more, you die, you’re finished, kaput, zip, nada. If the world were filled with people who thought this was their only chance at existence I’m sure one of two things would happen, either no one would give a damn, or they would. We’d enjoy life no matter what, we’d appreciate it, instead of clouding it with ideas of what comes next. Perhaps, just maybe, we’d even all look out for each other more too. Available in lemon at $18 - XS to XXL.

Fix Health Care Tee

If you don’t you’ll be too ill to do it later. We have the NHS in the UK, it’s a mess but at least it works upon a humanistic principle. Letting people die simply because they don’t earn as much is tantamount to murder, it’s the ideology of some of worst rogue states in the world. The tyrant, despot, billionaire sheik or king have their own hospitals, for themselves, family, friends and foreign dignitaries, whilst the rest have to rely on an untrained ‘healer’ living in a damp and squalid hut in the village. Healthcare for everyone should be a human right, otherwise you may as well hold a gun to the head of everyone earning a pittance right now. Get the Fix Health Care tee for $16 in white - sizes XS to XXL.

Check out all of PL’s feisty and politically charged tees at www.printliberation.com or if you’re in Philadelphia visit their Flagship Store!

Lifestyle World

Wednesday, 9 December 2009