The BlueCotton Blog

12 September 2011 ~ 1 Comment

This One Time… at Band Camp…

It’s football marching band season! Field shows, parades and fight songs are taking over football fields across the country. Over the past two weeks we have noticed a spike in marching band and sectional t-shirt designs. Take a look at a few of our customer created t-shirt designs below!

Read more…

01 September 2011 ~ 0 Comments

Tees in the News for the Last Week of August 2011

JC Penny Pulls “Sassy” Tee for Tween Girls

Yesterday, the women-focused entertainment blog, The Frisky, posted a brief piece calling out retailer JC Penny on a shirt targeting young girls. The shirt was printed with the statement, “I’m too pretty to do homework, so my brother has to do it for me.” Jessica Wakeman, the writer at The Frisky responsible for the post, expressed her disdain for the poor message being communicated by the shirt. Only hours later–after the post had been picked up by dozens of other news sites–JC Penny emailed a formal apology to The Frisky and notified the author that the t-shirt was being pulled from their stores and website immediately. You can read the original post here: Kill Me Now, Please: JC Penney’s “I’m Too Pretty To Do Homework” T-Shirt For Girls.

Credit Card Fraud Suspects Tracked-Down Using Logo on T-Shirt

Two New York men suspected of using a stolen credit card were tracked-down by detectives using surveillance footage. A logo on the back of the suspects’ t-shirts led the detectives to the shop where the shirts were printed. Once there, the employees of the shop were able to identify the shirts and where the gentlemen worked. You can read the full story here: APD: T-shirt logo leads detectives to two suspects with stolen credit card.


Hell’s Angels Slap Amazon with Lawsuit for Trademark Infringing T-Shirt

The infamous biker gang known as Hell’s Angels has filed a lawsuit against online retailer Amazon.com for trademark infringement. The shirt features the phrase “My boyfriend is a Hell’s Angel” and a winged symbol reminiscent of the actual Hell’s Angels logo. You can read the full article here: Hells Angels sue Amazon for selling T-shirt.

25 August 2011 ~ 1 Comment

T-Shirt Tidbits Round-Up

I’m often scouring the web for some useful or interesting things involving t-shirts. Here’s a round-up of some great t-shirt related tidbits I was able to find this week.

Neo-Nazi Giveaway T-Shirts Reveal a Secret Message

A group in Germany called “Exit Deutschland” created and gave away t-shirts seemingly in support of Neo-Nazi ideals. However, a hidden message of change and tolerance was revealed after the t-shirts were washed. Check out the full article at Gizmodo.

Measure Up Your Beard with this Clever T-Shirt

The Beardly has created this fun and clever t-shirt (seen above). Where does your beard fall on a scale of “Manly” to “Beardly?”

The 10-Shot T-Shirt Cannon

I couple of months ago we shared how you could build your very own t-shirt cannon. Well, there’s always a bigger gun. Team 254 Robotics of Bellarmine College Prepatory of San Jose built this impressive 10-shot t-shirt cannon. You can read their full log of the build process on their website.

Former Threadless CTO Hired for Obama’s 2012 Campaign

Harper Reed, formerly of the popular “Threadless” t-shirt site, has joined Obama’s 2012 campaign as the Chief Technology Officer. Read the full article from the Chicago Tribune.

T-Shirt Uses Sound Waves to Power Smartphones

23 August 2011 ~ 0 Comments

How to Make a Word Cloud T-shirt

Word Clouds are an easy and visually appealing method of presenting text as an image. Word clouds weight the most frequently used words with a larger font, while less important words become smaller and provide a pleasing background and context to the image.

Word clouds are a great way to spice up your club’s t-shirt when you would like to include everyone’s name in the design. Instead of the predictable columns of names, a word cloud will scatter your member’s around the name of the club.

1. Head over to Wordle to create your word cloud. Paste your text (club roster, club name, school, words that describe the club) into the box. Enter the club name multiple times so it considers this the most important word and makes it the largest word in the cloud.

2. Take a snapshot of your word cloud and save it to your desktop.

3. Come back to the BlueCotton Design Studio and upload your wordle to a t-shirt.

TIPS:
1. Creating your word cloud in black and white at Worldle will allow you to change the color of the text in the BlueCotton Design Studio.

Easy-breezy! Check out a few of word cloud t-shirts I created below.

19 August 2011 ~ 0 Comments

A few weeks ago I blogged about Chuck Norris’ favorite t-shirt, the American Apparel TR401. This week we are featuring Tom Dolan’s favorite t-shirt, the American Apparel BB401. Tom loves the light weight, 3.7oz., super soft, 50% polyester / 50% combed-cotton blend, and the durable rib neckband. Unlike other Poly-Cotton t-shirts on the market, the BB401 is made with combed cotton, giving it an ultra soft, worn in feel. This t-shirt’s smooth surface is ideal for screen printing and embroidery. Tom prefers the BB401 to the 2001 because it has a slimmer fit.

tom 2

15 August 2011 ~ 1 Comment

Hang With Us And Win!


Back in March of 2010, we invited you to play Words with Friends with us. Now we’re throwing down the gauntlet on a new word puzzler. Brought to you by Zynga, Hanging with Friends is the latest game we just can’t stop playing.

If you’ve ever played the popular blackboard game “Hangman” then you already know how to play Hanging With Friends! That’s what it essentially is–a mobile, turn-based version of the casual word guessing game. One really great thing about HWF is that you can have several games going at one time! I currently have 4 games going and am ready to add you to the mix!

Do you have an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad? If so, play with us! Just download the app to your device, create a new game, and search by any or all of our usernames below!

If you start a game with one of us, let us know that you’re a BlueCotton customer. If you beat us – we’ll send you a BlueCotton prize. Be warned- we’re in it to win it!