At You Design It, we are a fan of all things design whether it be t-shirt related or not. We scour the internet regularly for design resources that improve our skills and increase our knowledge. Finding websites that aggregate these resources make it that much easier to find the relevant and useful tutorials and inspiration. The two design resource aggregators that we would like to share with you are:

Design Bump

Design Float

These sites are styled similarly to Digg and are updated by the community of users submitted new articles and tutorials. Check them out when you get the chance.

If you’re not sure what ‘Halloweek’ is in the first place, then you’re probably quite confused as to what ‘Halloweek 2′ might be.  So, for clarification, ‘Halloweek’ is the Halloween t-shirt contest being done over at Design By Humans, and as you’ve probably now figured out, this is their second annual edition.

Here’s the info from DBH:

“HALLOWEEK 2!
Calling all monsters, mummies, and ghouls! The 2nd Annual DBH HALLOWEEK is here! So get designing the scariest, most halloweeniest tee design out there! Please feel free to submit all forms of the bizarre. As usual, we reserve the right to filter any submissions we consider too over the top (dead babies and such).”

The top five winners will receive $500 cash and $250 in DBH credit.  The contest began September 16th and will end tomorrow on the 30th.  That means there’s still time to vote on your favorites designs and even submit something if you can scramble!

Winners will be announced one each day starting on Oct. 13th. We were definitely a little late to this party and wished we would have entered. It looks like we will have to set our sights on Halloweek 3.

One of the hottest trends right now in the t-shirt design world is to design VERY detailed, intricate prints.  These amazing t-shirts are like a work of art and they turn the wearer into a sort of walking canvas, showcasing the designer’s masterpiece and impressing friends along the way!

One trend is the use of patterns, colors, and designs that would also look very much in place on tattoos.  Check out this incredible design called ‘Platinum Flocked’.  It’s done on a very cool double shirt:

As you can se the under-sleeve is very reminiscent of the kinds of tats people often get on their arms.  The main shirt images and designs are also in the style of a large, fancy tattoo.  All around it’s extremely well-done and very beautiful!

Another great use of really intricately designed t-shirts is in the creation of very sharp, beautiful images in creative, abstract renderings.  Check out this awesome design called ‘Bonafide Lovin’ ‘:

As you can see it’s very reminiscent of the 60s peace movement and imbues the wearer with a sort of air of spiritual enlightenment.

This next one called ‘Live Lyrics from the bank of Imaginary’ evokes the music movement to get its message across.  Don’t be fooled though, this is still a very serious, artistic shirt.  Check out the life-like face and design of the man and the amazing details and colors scattered throughout the shirt:

Finally, we wanted to showcase a design called ‘Radical Beauty’.  Check it out:

As you can see, the design features a beautiful women in a radical explosion of color and imagery.  Despite the chaotic nature of the print it’s also extremely sharp and clear.

These terrific shirts really highlight this popular and excellent trend.  Cool!

Our administrative offices are located in Houston right across from the Galleria. We are in those offices right now tying up loose ends before we evacuate because Ike wants to rain on our parade. It is definitely the “calm before the storm” with almost no traffic outside our offices on one of the busiest streets in Houston.

To our customers – we will be running everything like normal because we have prepared in plenty of time.

To Hurricane Ike – we hope you are all talk and no action.

To Google – I hope you recognize our browser title for this post. 

We just wanted to take a quick moment to say that we are not going to be open on Monday September 1st in observance of Labor Day. Our site will still be up and we encourage the orders to keep rolling in because we will be cranking out custom printed tees and embroidered hats at a furious pace again on Tuesday.

We want to wish everyone a great Labor Day Holiday and remember to take it easy!

Not only is that title the longest one we have ever written for a blog post but it is also the title to a great book about used t-shirts. We all have them….t-shirts that just have been worn to the point that they can’t go any longer. It is a sad day when a great t-shirt has to be retired, but it doesn’t have to be so bad with this t-shirt book. They literally walk you through 99 different ways to cut up and reconstruct your t-shirts into a whole new top.

Most of the instructions I had seen catered to females but I can admire the creativity and originality. We definitely recommend any t-shirt enthusiast purchase this book for all of the tee shirts out there in need of rehabilitation. The book can be found at Amazon by clicking here.