The Daily Render

A Digital Scrapbook for the Past, Present, and Future

Twitter T-Shirt Design: “I PREFER TO BE FOLLOWED @USERNAME”
|| 8/24/2009 || 8:15 pm || + Render A Comment || ||

An Animated GIF of a t-shirt for Twitter Users

I recently saw a photo on-line of someone’s hand-written white shirt that basically said “follow me @USERNAME” and was inspired to modify his concept. Thus the image above is by no means an original design. However, I was looking through other t-shirts featuring roughly the same notion, and very few used the concept of following @USERNAME placed on the back side of the shirt. Most of the tacky shirts on customization websites merely mention that the wearer is on twitter or ‘huge or twitter,’ but since they are generic and don’t mention the user’s actual name, they have little practical use. In this design, the Twitter Bird (does she have a name?) extends the branding to visually legitimize the @USERNAME. Replace the stylized Twitter Bird with your company’s logo and, in theory, you’ve got a brand & social marketing t-shirt campaign. Or what about an entirely fake URL? “I PREFER TO BE FOLLOWED BY @JESUS” Or “I PREFER TO BE FOLLOWED BY @SPAM” By using an incorrect @USERNAME the wearer is poking fun at the nature of the website, but paradoxically advertising the @USERNAME. Since I joined Twitter I’ve taken issue with the lexical aspect of following people and while I’ll eventually start following (in name) people, I am curious about how this t-shirt design will slowly creep into the mainstream. On the other hand, I hope its not from people buying this shirt, which is cool in concept, but also somewhat aesthetically tacky.

Teki Latex dans un QR Code tee-shirt
|| 8/11/2009 || 12:06 pm || + Render A Comment || ||

Screen grab of Teki Latex in a QR-Code T-Shirt

Teki Latex in a QR Code Shirt

I came home very early Sunday morning from a long night out with friends and before I passed out I checked Facebook one last time. It’s a good thing I checked too. It just so happened that Parisian Rapper / Producer / Record Label Owner / DJ Teki Latex had just posted that he was doing a live DJ mix via webcam. I had recently signed up for a competing streaming video website and was curious about what were some of the pros & cons of the service he was using. So before nodding off, I decided to watch/listen to his mix. What I saw, however, was that he was wearing a t-shirt with a big QR Code on it. Over the last few years I’ve tried to document QR Codes that I randomly find, so I futilely tried to take a few screen grabs of the t-shirt, but was unable to get the full image that is needed to decode the message. It would have been the first time I’ve been able to decode a QR Code that was displayed over streaming video.

The next day I left a message on his Facebook page asking what it decoded to and he responded that it was “probably Grenoble.” I guess I’ll have to find a photo of him wearing the shirt again to find out for sure….

Below are a couple YouTube videos featuring Teki Latex:

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No Requests: a t-shirt for DJs who don’t like to be bothered
|| 7/26/2009 || 10:53 am || + Render A Comment || ||

My DJ friend wearing a shirt that says No Requests

About a year ago I made this t-shirt for my DJ friend Will Griffin. The story behind the t-shirt is as follows: One Wednesday night way back when at the 18th Street Lounge, we were chatting outside while he was taking his break from DJing. He noted the number of times people had come up to him and asked if he had X song & if he would play it. I chuckled and said “Maybe you should get a shirt that says ‘No Requests’ so you can point to your shirt instead of vocally replying” and he said, “why don’t you make me one?” A couple months later I found the right font, a large image of ESL Music’s iconic Eero Saarinen Tulip chair, and ordered the custom t-shirt. A few months later I ordered a second one for the manager of the lounge who also DJs there, but I have yet to take a photo of him wearing it.

Although I don’t DJ anymore, if I were to DJ at a club, I’d probably order one for myself.

Federico Aubele’s Anthropomorphic Map of Panamericana
|| 9/12/2008 || 11:18 pm || Comments Off on Federico Aubele’s Anthropomorphic Map of Panamericana || ||

I am a bit late on posting this t-shirt, but since I have been posting other t-shirts lately, I feel the time is write to put up this entry. I went to see Federico Aubele and Natalia Clavier the other night and saw that the shirt above was for sale.

Argentinian-born Federico Aubele‘s Panamericana was released in the United States last September on Washington, DC-based ESL Music. It’s Federico’s second full-length album and it turned out being one of my favorite CDs of 2007. In full disclosure, I “sing” in the chorus with 4 others on the track “Este Momento” (a long story for another posting).

The map above combines his head and curly hair with the continents of North and South America. The greek prefix pan means “all, whole, all-inclusive,” hence the geographic title of the album, Panamericana. I’ve always been a fan of how his chin exudes the Alaskan Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands almost as if its cartographic goatee. The songs on the album even include geographic sounding titles like “In The Desert” (En El Desierto) and “In Every Place” (En Cada Lugar) and to compliment the map t-shirt, the CD’s insert even contains a map of the Pan-Aamerican Highway.

Unlike the Addias map shirts and the Express Clothing map t-shirts, Federico Aubele’s Anthropomorphic Map of Panamericana t-shirt was made in America by American Apparel. However, I don’t know where the graphic was printed (maybe by American Apparel?) For some reason I own two copies of the shirt, but I haven’t taken a picture of myself wearing the shirt…yet.

Here’s a YouTube video of the song La Esquina from Panamericana:

He’s currently on tour with his wife Natalia Clavier (who’s first CD is great, BTW). Check either of their MySpace pages (links above) to see if they are coming near you because you might be able to get the shirt above in person.

Related Fashion:

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America Supports You, “Freedom Walk”
|| 9/11/2005 || 7:17 pm || 1 Comment Rendered || ||

Today Angela & I took part in the America Supports You “Freedom Walk,” and I must say that we definitely celebrated our freedom….

read my account:

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Nikolas Schiller is a second-class American citizen living in America's last colony, Washington, DC. This blog is my on-line repository of what I have created or found on-line since May of 2004. If you have any questions or comments, please contact: