Would you buy a Japan Reference T-shirt ?

[Grandpa Frank]

I'll Take Extra Obese To Hide My Belly !!

If it looks real good on me, I can wear it to work.

Frank

 

[Elgin]

This is what I got, It's pretty much all I could do with Ms paint .
I kinda like that sakura I got it off this Japanese army flag. I'm just posting to give other people ideas.

 

[neko_girl22]

Well, Frank, us girls don't want to go around looking all frumpy in regular t-shirts! We have to have them fitted and cutsie-fied. They've got to hug our curves..

what curves? since I've lost nearly 9kg on this stupid shokuji ryoho most of it has come off the bust booo hoo my hubby's muscle-ly chest almost looks bigger than mine *sigh*

anyway.... a fitted small size t-shirt sounds good!

 

[Mandylion]

I think I like this one the best of what I have been playing with recently

 

[Maciamo]

Mandylion and Luc are hard at work as I see. Maybe we should choose more than one design.

I really like your new flag (and the old too), Mandylion.

 

[Mandylion]

Thanks Maciamo

I think more than one design is a very good idea - if it is affordable to produce. More choice is always better.

It has been a long time since I put together shirts but the basic rule was the more colors, the more expensive things got. Maybe technology has changed and made the process cheaper. From a cost standpoint, should we be thinking about limiting designs to the number of colors (of ink, not counting the color of the shirt) that will keep the consumer price at around 15 USD (too expensive?) or am I getting too far ahead of the game? That would take some research...

 

[Maciamo]

I have found this site which proposes customized tshirts for 13,75US$, and another site that makes them for 16US$.

I am still unsure whether to print them in the US, Europe or Japan. I guess that most members are from the US, so it could be cheaper, but only if I can do everything on Internet (design, shipment, payment...). It seems to be possible with the above companies, but it could be cheaper to go to Chinatown, then send them.

 

[jeisan]

i wonder if you could set up some sort of clothing shop for jref with zazzle, like have people select from designs and types of shirts then order and pay. though that may be abit far in the future...

 

[Elgin]

What shipping company will be used? Let's say the shirts are made in the US and UPS is the shipping of choice. Sure its faster then normal shipping but it comes with cost. Probably not the US residents but for outside ones. I know when I order stuff and its UPS I get a present when it arrives at my house. Taxes, border check fee, employee delivery fee and so on. So the shirt could end up at 45$USD. So maybe there could be different shipping companies so these fees wouldn't apply.

This may be a little in advance but this could avoid some hate mail.

 

[Maciamo]

Maybe we should just print tshirts in 3 different areas : US, EU and Japan, to avoid too high delivery cost.

 

[Mandylion]

Just a few variations.

The main color (black, yellow, green, blue or white) is the color of the shirt, so we would only have to do a one color print. I don't know if they makes anything cheaper. I just put them all together to avoid posting the same thing over and over, but you could do an Andy Warhol and put them in a block on a white shirt (like in the image below) but that would be 5 colors...

 

[MHtrStevie]

All the designs look very good so far... great work!

If I could make one suggestion, it might be nice to have two different designs, but I think the two shirts should be quite different in design...

I like the idea of a shirt with one of Mandylion's flags on the back and Maciamo's island design on the top left corner of the front... but if possible I think I like keeping the background of Mandylion's flag white. It makes the design stand out more on the shirt of any color (except white, I guess), and this would be the T-shirt I'd wear by itself...

But I don't know how many other people do this, but I often like to wear a T-shirt with an unbuttoned flannel or collared shirt over it... so all you see is the front of the shirt. Obviously this would cover up all the designs on Shirt #1, so maybe there should be a second option with nothing on the back and a more flashy design centered on the front... which would look good with a shirt over the tee. Something like Jeisan's original design might be good for this...

Of course, I don't know how possible this is... but I just wanted to share a few thoughts I had. Keep up the great work, and I'll be sure to buy one... then all the J-Reffers can spot each other at conventions and other such meeting places!

 

[Chipi]

The measurements for women clothing in different countries>

Scandinavia and Germany> 34 36 38 40 42 44 46 48
France and Spain> 36 38 40 42 44 46 48 50
Italy> 38/40 40/42 42/44 44/46 46/48 48/50 50/52 52/54
Great-Britain> 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22
USA> 6/8 8/10 10/12 12/14 14/16 16/18 18/20 20/22

Source: Suomen Tekstiili & Muoti

Unfortunately I haven't found the measurement differences for mens clothes yet, but I'll do some more searching when I've got some more time (and maybe a better one for women too)..

 

[Satori]

Just a few variations.

The main color (black, yellow, green, blue or white) is the color of the shirt, so we would only have to do a one color print. I don't know if they makes anything cheaper. I just put them all together to avoid posting the same thing over and over, but you could do an Andy Warhol and put them in a block on a white shirt (like in the image below) but that would be 5 colors...

I just want to say what a great job you have done on these, Mandylion!! Super!!

I should add that your designs would make really cool coffee mugs too!!!

 

[Shadow]

I like the idea of a shirt with one of Mandylion's flags on the back and Maciamo's island design on the top left corner of the front... but if possible I think I like keeping the background of Mandylion's flag white. It makes the design stand out more on the shirt of any color (except white, I guess), and this would be the T-shirt I'd wear by itself...

Great idea, since I usually wear Tshirts by itself; having images on both the front and the back would be cool! Especially if we can have the island image on the front, and then some fine print saying: "member since ....." (altho this might be too much hassle), but it does add uniqueness to the design.

I'm going to get several Tshirts and wear them to work for sure!

 

[TyPe-ZeRo]

i'd definately buy one , if they have like things like what jlist does, like i have that "Beware of Perverts" shirt, if you can do that, you can GUARANTEE a purchase from me

 

[nikki_the_insane]

Very interesting designs you guys. I'm not very gifted with makeing logos and such, but I'll try to come up with something. Would it be alright if I encorperated a anime kind of figure on the shirt? I'm very good at my manga/anime drawings.

 

[Elgin]

Very interesting designs you guys. I'm not very gifted with makeing logos and such, but I'll try to come up with something. Would it be alright if I encorperated a anime kind of figure on the shirt? I'm very good at my manga/anime drawings.

Ya that would be kool, like Gaki he posted some drawings. I find it brings life to the shirt. Well this is just my opinion, I'm not the guy making them.

 

[silver angel]

Some characters i use for sticker and t-shirt designs for my own work, but since i'm a nice guy you can use them for free.

I like the second one

 

[Mandylion]

Please post away guys! The more designs the better.

Hopefully we can do a couple different t-shirt options to appeal to all sorts of people.

 

[Bluebird]

Here's an idea from me. The colours are discuss- and changeable ofcourse and so is the kanji used. I think the font used in "JapanReference" is correct but I'm not sure.

Isn't the question also whether to use sewn patterns or plastic ones (hm, how to explain that...?), I mean the ones that are directly ironed (?) on to the shirt. I don't know what would be cheaper though.

[Edit]What happened to the [ IMG ]?

 

[Elgin]

That doesn't look that bad, well better then my logo

The flag in the back rules! Just one thing bugs me about it though. How its square it just seems weird.. if the rays would just continue off and fade away that be kool.

 

[Bluebird]

I was thinking about adding an outline to the flag but eventually dicided against it (I can change it of course). It might be that it looks weird and very square as it's only a gif picture placed over a shirt. I tried to darken the edges a little to make it seem it was part of the shirt but it's hard to make it look good ^^ I'll see what I can do.

And you're right, it would be cool with a fade but I don't think it's possible on a shirt though as you'd need a lot of different colours.

 

[Mandylion]

Just a thought - I know this won't matter to the vast majority of people here, nor even others out in the non-Internet world, but I thought I should bring it up.

Flag-based images, including mine, might be met with a bit of hostility. The flag still carries very strong emotional connections. There was an article about a scandal frcing teachers to sing the national anthem at graduation on JREF recently. I'm not picking on you Bluebird - I think yours is quite cool - but the rising sun was the naval jack in WWII (still is) and is still stongly associated with that period of history.

I am sure and JREF member is articulate enough to explain the situation to someone who might take offense at such symbols. Indeed to the type of people who will get ticked about such an issue, any shirt related to Japan might set them off. So really this is all about degrees.

Perhaps I am overreacting, but I was mulling this over after my mother related a story about how a Korean seamstress in our hometown in the US took an occassion to outline why Japan and Japanese people are cut from a bad cloth.

By no means do I think we should scrap all flag-based designs, but we need to keep in the back of our minds all the issues that such imagry carries with it.

Bluebird - if you want some help coming up with the rays fading out into the shirt, I can PM you my e-mail address, you can send me the files, and I can play with it in Photoshop for a few days...

 

[Eternal Wind]

I like all the designs! It's great!!

So how many designs will Maciamo san choose?