Custom T-Shirts

DIY Universe of the Custom-Made Tee

Custom t-shirts have long been the very best way to add a bit of sparkle to a drab wardrobe. And the best thing is, a good custom tee doesn't take a lot of work. Take, for example, Forrest Gump, the world's greatest custom T shirt designer. It was with the most effortless grace, and without even once chewing the end of a paintbrush (or mouse mat) that the Gumpster produced the smiley face tee - and the world was a better place for it.

Of course hailing Forrest's success requires complete suspension of belief and the complete ignorance of historical fact; but the point being made here has very little to do with historical fact.

Gump became an artist just by wiping his face. The monotone print left on the tee-shirt ticked many of the boxes that good design requires a good designer to tick. It was simple. It was original. And it was appealing.

Custom T-Shirt Cottage Industry

But the history of the custom tee has always been littered with such success. Doubtless, in the sixties, when tie-dye everything became the height of fashion, designers of men's and women's tees thought their creations would last forever. There is, it has to be said, a unique iconographic quality to the tie-dye design, but rarely are they seen these days other than at Glastonbury Festival, the back of a very old wardrobe, or on your old school music-teacher at weekends.

It is not very often, in these less hallucinogenic times, that people take their drabbest white tee and think, 'what this could really do with are some buttons, elastic bands and splash of purple ink.'

The reason for this, other than improvement of taste, is easy enough to discern. There's a welter of tee shirts on offer now, with designs to suit everyone. Even if your music teacher is after that unique tie-dye effect or a hippy stencil pattern there are plenty of retro stores, and websites, where they can be sourced. The world has gone custom t-shirt crazy on your behalf.

Handmade Printed Tees

For those who remember those artistic school daze, or are still living them, the screen-print always offered the best way to customise your top. Sure, punk allowed you to let loose with a pair of scissors, badges and safety pins, but it was merely a fleeting moment in the history of custom tshirts. The screen print was the way to really bring your ideas to life.

Split the Atom's first screen-print involved the stencilled outline of a rabbit holding a gun (oh, the politics). It eventually came out looking rather like a manic cloud with one eye and a cigar.

Thankfully the demand for demonic clouds was quite high in the South-east of England and Split the Atom sold nineteen of them to friends, at least seven of whom thought the images had something to do with Tears For Fears.

Which just goes to show - even when you get it wrong, there can often be a market. The best advice for designing a good custom tee is either to not try too hard, or try hard, but make it look as though you haven't been trying that hard.

Of course, this is only true to a point, your unique duotone splodge of colour can easily look like you rustled it up in minutes, but none of Split the Atom's judicious members are likely to vote for it.

No, there's a balance to strike. Like Forrest Gump did. Now there's an act to follow.