Where to find t-shirts that are cute, cool and clever??

August 17, 2006 12:43 PM

Where can we find cute/cool/clever t-shirts? Especially those made by a company called Map?

My boyfriend, in his young and reckless days on the Dutch party scene in the late 90's was famous for his cool cartoony t-shirts. They were original, cute and clever and he bought them from a little shop the near the Dam in Amsterdam. They exclusively sold T-shirts made by a company called Map.

Now he wants new t-shirts, but the shop stopped stocking Map years ago, and then disappeared and now we can't find anywhere selling these tees at all. It's hard even to find a (See the yellow fishies on the blue background) picture on the net, never mind a retailer.

The shop in the links above sells them, but preferably we'd like somwhere with a store we can visit or which has a proper online store where we can easily get a Map fix whenever we need it. In English. Or Dutch, of course.

Does anyone else remember Map? Do they still exist?

Or, where can we buy similarly cute/cool/clever/cartoony t-shirts without the shipping costs to Holland making them prohibitively expensive?

Threadless.com is great, for example, and has really reasonable shipping but he's looking for something cuter and less political. We just got him the, admittedly lame but cheery gnome shirt from You Me & Dupree, (getting kinda desperate - his old shirts are seriously threadbare), but he likes the cartoony clever stuff best.

A lot of the t-shirt websites we're finding are pretty crude or silly, and all sell the same unoriginal designs. Geeky is good, but not this geeky.

He wants t-shirts that will make people smile, not cringe or feel stupid. And in size XL. :-) And if anyone knows where you can get these in a ladies' XXL (US size 22 or UK size 24) I would be amazed - I've never found affordable plus sized cool tees for girls anywhere!

posted by pootler to clothing, beauty, & fashion (22 comments total)

Bugger.. I checked and double checked and then something went all squirly before I hit the "post" button.

I meant to say:

Geeky is good, but not this geeky.

Where should we look? Her needs a US Man's XL size (That's real man XL - not an XL for waifs or Munchkins). And *I* would LOVE to find this kind of t-shirt in a lady's plus size: too UK 24 or US 22. I've not found anywhere making this kind of shirt for bigger girls! Do they exist?
posted by pootler at 12:59 PM on August 17, 2006

Wow... I might buy that bear hug shirt!

I once stumbled across a webcomic site that sold really cool looking tshirts. I thought I remembered finding it from a link on explodingdog.com. So I went looking just now... and found this.

It's the website of a guy who silkscreens t-shirts for webcomic artists (including explodingdog). There are links to about thirty different webcomics there. Something should fit the bill!
posted by PercussivePaul at 1:18 PM on August 17, 2006 [1 favorite has favorites]

it might be worth checking out www.caliroots.com some of the US urban labels are slapping cartoony graphics on their tees nowadays
posted by moochoo at 1:20 PM on August 17, 2006

Ah, I have that "three second memory" shirt, but unfortunately it's way too small for you. Also unfortunately, I believe I bought it at that same store you mentioned in Amsterdam, many years ago, so all I can do is applaud your impeccable taste in t-shirts.

I think one of the reasons it's hard to find pictures was that store's draconian anti-camera policy. I remember the wall was lined with miles of exposed film they'd confiscated from people.
posted by bink at 1:22 PM on August 17, 2006

P.S. The original webcomic I was looking for was this one. (it's in the link I gave as well).
posted by PercussivePaul at 1:24 PM on August 17, 2006

Preshrunk is a really nice t-shirt blog that I've used to order more than one t-shirt. Everything from funny to cartoony to political, on there. He also has a penchant for squiddy designs (I know there's a word for that--you know, like equestrian? bah).

Just scroll through the archives, see if you find anything.
posted by Lockeownzj00 at 1:25 PM on August 17, 2006

A bunch of web comics have t-shirts for sale that may meet your strict needs.

Scary Go Round

Goats

Diesel Sweeties

They're all good comics too.
posted by aubilenon at 1:25 PM on August 17, 2006

Threadless is probably the best.

If you want to choke up the cash, you can make whatever you want and get Spreadshirt to print it.

I picked up a great shirt I adore from Cretin Art when I was in Portland recently.

You may want to dig around for various artist's web sites to see if they offer t-shirts.

Seventh Heart in San Francisco makes some great shirts too.
posted by smallerdemon at 1:31 PM on August 17, 2006

Cute and apolitical? Methinks you just haven't explored the Threadless catalog enough; if anything I find the more recent designs too cute. I mean, what about this (though currently out of stock), or this, or this, or this, or this, or...
posted by chrominance at 1:39 PM on August 17, 2006

Might also try Upperplayground/Fifty24SF

Sometimes not as "cute" but usually quite graphically striking.
posted by otherwordlyglow at 1:50 PM on August 17, 2006

I came to say Threadless, but it seems others have beaten me to it. They really run the gamut between cutesy and political, with some artsy thrown in for good measure.

At the least, sign up for their newsletter, they have new designs quite often and you might be able to catch a $10 sale.
posted by utsutsu at 1:57 PM on August 17, 2006

Domy Books has some fun T-shirts. And One Horse Shy looks fun too.
posted by dog food sugar at 2:09 PM on August 17, 2006

Oddica
Chimini
Owlmovement
beautifuldecay
Poketo
Gama-go
posted by gemmy at 3:53 PM on August 17, 2006 [3 favorites has favorites]

Cool plus-sized shirts for ladies? Don't try to order the girl-style shirts, they're made small. Just get the XL or 2XL in the man's size.

Attitude Tees
T-Shirt Humor
Nerdy Shirts
Powerup Tees (video game related)
Robot Cow
Split Reason
T-Shirt King
ZeStuff
Jinx
posted by IndigoRain at 5:44 PM on August 17, 2006 [1 favorite has favorites]

Toothpaste for dinner!
posted by onlyconnect at 7:39 PM on August 17, 2006 [1 favorite has favorites]

Hopeful Monsters, for one. I think she does some really cute shirts. And she says she does custom sizes, which is good news for you if you like any of the shirts.

Other Etsy sellers might be just as flexible, and they do cute work.
posted by anjamu at 11:53 PM on August 17, 2006 [1 favorite has favorites]

Once again, mefites totally rock! We're going to have fun looking at all of these. Thank you!

Threadless is fabulous - more my taste than his though. (Comes from being way cleverer than he is, obviously.) I think he finds them too artsy and designy and a lot of the designs are a bit on the depressing or creepy side. Map shirts always made us smile. :-)
posted by pootler at 7:11 AM on August 18, 2006

Don't forget Metro Three.
posted by Mr. Gunn at 4:26 PM on August 18, 2006

may I recommend:

http://www.imaginaryfoundation.com
posted by krautland at 11:25 PM on August 18, 2006

here is an Etsy shop with interesting, cheap, original-design shirts (and other stuff). I like the panda one. Etsy sellers often accomodate special requests on colors & sizes, etc. And most sellers I've seen tend to charge only actual shipping costs.
posted by jessicapierce at 8:01 AM on August 23, 2006

Hey! I think I found your answer, a week later:
mapprint.net
posted by bink at 7:48 AM on August 30, 2006

BLINK! Thank you! :-))))))))))))
posted by pootler at 10:56 AM on September 22, 2006