Slogan tee-shirts have never been my style (personally), but they are a great-looking and efficient medium to get a message across – and as such, I found a few that I wouldn’t mind wearing.
I was doing some research and I stumbled upon a few examples of this simple and clear wearable personal billboard.
The tee with the most credentials has to be the one by We Add Up. ‘The medium is the message’ applies in full to this campaign: We Add Up is founded and based on the t-shirts they print. “We Add Up is a global campaign using organic cotton t-shirts that literally “counts you in” to help solve the climate crisis. Every shirt is printed by hand with a unique number. YOUR number is your position in our sequential global count of people who are taking steps to do their part. As the count grows, we demonstrate to the world that “WE ADD UP.” On the back of each shirt is a word or phrase that describes an action almost anyone can take to reduce their carbon footprint – the contribution their lifestyle makes to greenhouse gases – such as, Unplug, Lights Off, Carpool, Hybrid, Bike, Buy Local, and 27 others. You choose which action you are committed to doing and get counted in. No one can do everything. Everyone can do something. And, WE ADD UP.”
Totally dedicated to the cause, check. Organic cotton, check. Customizable with funky graphic, check. Full points. And they have the perfect one for Rewardrobe: out of the several option, we would have to go for ‘Line Dry’!
We Add Up also have a funky design with a bike, but if it’s sustainable transport we are talking about, here in London our obvious choice would have to be I Bike London. This new limited edition t-shirts is the visual manifesto for the growing masses of cyclists in London. There’s one for every two-wheeled tribe: the classic, the fixie and the Brompton. They don’t tick the box for organic fibres, but we love the graphics and we applaude the idea behind these shirts, that sustainable transport is good, and even cool in bright colours.
When it comes to i/denti/tee, on the other hand, it’s not so much about the message, but it certainly is about the ethical credentials. Not just made of your ‘average’ organic cotton, these tees are as ethical as it gets. Produced by Edun Live, they are ‘grow-to-sew’ African – from the cotton they source, through the spinning and knitting stages, all the way to the final logo print on the inside of every music tee – the benefit of each goes back to the people working on the product in sub-Saharan Africa. Pick a line from your favourite song, and what best slogan would you want displayed right across your chest.
Finally, I found this on Cafe’ Press. No sustainable product here, but as a follower of the Slow Movement…
