Graphic Tees: Why Do Most Suck?

I was going through the t-shirt section of solisstyle yesterday and was appaled by how God-awful most all of them were. Only about 5% would I even consider wearing, let alone buy. You'd be better getting a novelty t from the clearance racks of Target.

That said, I do have quite a few graphic ts, although I realize they're orthogonal to the style prevalant on this forum. My favorite is a white t-shirt with a monochromatic Lichtenstein-style illustration of a woman praying a rosary. Strangely enough, it's from Drifter, who aren't exactly known for subtle, tasteful design.

I notice many of the high-end t-shirt companies try to rescue the graphic T form with uplifting, socially-conscious messages. These never fail to make me wince... I would strongly advise anyone not to go in this direction.

As I've said before, clothing in general is an abstract art form, but a graphic t can bring a tantalizing little touch of concrete meaning to it. Like everything, though, the t-shirt has to meet some minimum standard in terms of color and composition on its own to be incorporated into an outfit.

And to answer the question "why do most graphic ts suck?", the answer is because they're basically advertisments for themselves, even if they don't say "Ambercrombie & Fitch" in big honking letters on the front. The graphic t companies are constantly trying to one-up eachother with the obnoxiousness of their deigns, so as to arreest the attention of people who will then query the wearer as to the maker, and the company gets word-of-mouth.

Also, threadless Ts sometimes gety recommended here, but I've yet to see one I would wear. Full-color prints rarely work for t-shirts, IMO.

I've never found a graphic interesting or likable enough to want to wear it more than once or twice... Graphics get old fast.

There are some interesting ones:

Originally Posted by Teger

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I've never found a graphic interesting or likable enough to want to wear it more than once or twice... Graphics get old fast.

Whenever I see the novelty Ts at Urban Outfitters, I always think that there must some wacky novelty t-shirt guy out there, and people say, "Oh, you have to see this guy, he always wears the craziest t-shirts!", and every time people see him, they're falling over themselves in paroxysms of mirth with his newest wacky find. But then maybe a few of them fall flat, maybe "Corn: Always Up in My ****" didn't go over as well as he expected, maybe on the odd day he makes the mistake of wearing the same t-shirt twice. Maybe he finds that his friends slowly start falling away, and that without his t-shirts, nobody has anything to say to him anymore. Maybe he starts spiralling slowly into alcoholism and depression, etc.

Originally Posted by JD_May

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There are some interesting ones:

Interesting... but look at those sleeves. I'd wear it under a hoody, but not by itself.

Haha, I wasn't really making a point of fit, I'm just saying that there are some decent graphics out there that people have put on shirts. I have only 3 (I think) graphic tees, all with nicely fitting sleeves. 2 are warhol factory x levis and... I forget what the third is. I don't think graphic tees are definitionally offensive, but they're sort of like modern poetry: there's just so much complete garbage out there that it's not really worth sorting through to find the good stuff.

Originally Posted by JD_May

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Haha, I wasn't really making a point of fit, I'm just saying that there are some decent graphics out there that people have put on shirts. I have only 3 (I think) graphic tees, all with nicely fitting sleeves. 2 are warhol factory x levis and... I forget what the third is. I don't think graphic tees are definitionally offensive, but they're sort of like modern poetry: there's just so much complete garbage out there that it's not really worth sorting through to find the good stuff.

Agreed. Many of the so called "good" graphic tee sources seem nasty. Many of the ones that you might find at Target et al seem to be better...

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Well call me tasteless too because that one is sweet.

http://www.tshirthell.com/hell.shtml

I would never have the balls to wear one of these in public, but they do have some original ideas. My favorite is the Kermit Dissection.

Originally Posted by brohymn

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Well call me tasteless too because that one is sweet.

Agreed. I think this is the best of the bunch.

One of my problems with graphic tee's is that, even if you find the one in a million good one, you can't wear it very often or it will get played out. With solid tee's you can wear them every week, or even more often.

While I'm not crazy about any of the ones you posted, I agree that graphic tees are something you have to be careful with--it looks best basic

Originally Posted by tagutcow

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Whenever I see the novelty Ts at Urban Outfitters, I always think that there must some wacky novelty t-shirt guy out there, and people say, "Oh, you have to see this guy, he always wears the craziest t-shirts!", and every time people see him, they're falling over themselves in paroxysms of mirth with his newest wacky find. But then maybe a few of them fall flat, maybe "Corn: Always Up in My ****" didn't go over as well as he expected, maybe on the odd day he makes the mistake of wearing the same t-shirt twice. Maybe he finds that his friends slowly start falling away, and that without his t-shirts, nobody has anything to say to him anymore. Maybe he starts spiralling slowly into alcoholism and depression, etc.
Hah. I only rarely wear one graphic T and it came from UO. In my defense, it says, "Keeping it nerd free with my TI-83" on the front. I couldn't, in good faith, pass up an opportunity to own such a shirt and graphing calculator humor is not the type of humorous slogan T most people associated with such things would wear.

im found is the most interesting to me.