progresswear/t shirt

typographyShop.com

We've just launched Typography Shop, our latest imprinted wearables venture. For years I've wanted to design shirts for designers. We'd had these in the hopper for awhile when I ran it by Jeffrey Zeldman. He loved them and we had them up in a week. On our first day we were fortunate to have Jeffrey linking to us on twitter and facebook as well as zeldman.com. Josh Spear followed suit as have dozens of other design bloggers in just a week. The design community seems to dig it, but we wanted to get it off Progresswear and away from the overtly political messages.

It's been an absolute pleasure corresponding with fellow designers around the globe. Seeing them opening their wallets to purchase something I've created that speaks to them is a better honor than getting a call hearing I've just been awarded the next identity project or website. They say we all work to be respected by our peers more than the public. This shirt is giving me that in a way that winning awards and showing up in annuals never could. Keep your eye on the site for new product.

Presenting The Wisconsin Store
Wisconsin gear designed from the heart, The Wisconsin Store is my latest venture in partnership with my brother. Though I basically left the state nearly 30 years ago my heart still lives there and I get back there as often as possible. My family's there and I may find myself relocating there before long.

We've got some clean, elegant and witty takes on my home state. Check out our first few offerings as we build the site. We're just beginning to contact retailers in the state and will have our site fully operable within a week or so.

Progresswear is far from my only line on the drawing board. From the beginning I've wanted to address other non political interests of mine. And I'm sure they'll be much easier to market than the more volatile topics of the war, religion and evolution. I also plan on designing shirts for fellow designers as well as painters and photographers. And more than a few of my ideas are simply silly or stupid. But hopefully funny and saleable. These lines are all down the pike a bit, but we've recently picked up the pace for the Wisconsin Store.

Wisconsin is a colorful, fascinating state. It has enough of its own history, lore, industry and culture to be a sovereign nation. To speak with many a resident you'd come away convinced that Illinois and Minnesota were enemy states. Wisconsinites are proud of the stuff that makes them who they are: humble, strong, self-deprecating, fiercely stoic.

Ask any American about the state and they will reply with one word: cheese. Upon moving to the East Coast over 30 years ago I introduced myself to a new acquaintance, mentioning that I was a Wisconsin native. He stared at me as if I were an alien, finally saying that he never thought that anybody actually lived there. He then asked "Isn't it very gray there?" Years later, upon informing another of my heritage I was greeted with a new response. "You're a Cheesehead!" I thought it was her personal term for Wisconsinites. A week later I caught my first glimpse of thousands of Packer fans at Lambeau Field sporting chunks of Velveeta upon their heads. I knew from that moment that the state would need to undertake serious spin control to shed this new stereotype.

Wisconsin is Harley Davidson, Miller Beer, nearly all the paper produced in the nation. It's cranberries as well as cows. It's a rust belt state that's thriving, the GNP of its industrial southeast combined with Chicago equal one of the most powerful economic forces on the planet. It's more than just cheese. A hell of a lot more. And we look forward to helping the world learn about that from Sheboygan to Singapore.

The Philadelphia City Paper is on the streets today with a very nice article on Progresswear and yours truly. Give it a read. Digg it. Stumble it. Stop by the shop to see some new Believe in Science themes.

Intelligent Design Isn't.
"Intelligent Design Isn't" is one of our best sellers. I wish I could say I coined the phrase, but I'm sure thousands had uttered it before me. Months after designing the shirt I came across a New Yorker article by H. Allen Orr entitled nearly that, "Why Intelligent Design Isn't."

My mother loved our themes, but not this one. She felt the one which smugly states "Intelligent Design is Stupid" implied that I felt God was stupid. I bit my tongue lest I inform this woman who brought me into a very Catholic world that I had little time for gods these days. I stated that those who were trying to get the theory of Intelligent Design taught in schools were scientific dolts grasping at straws to bring God into the public classrooms of America.

While we high five each other as school boards, starting with Dover, are struck down in their attempts to meddle with local curricula, hundreds of other cases are brought monthly, virtually strangling science education in America. A friend who teaches science in my hometown is forbidden to teach evolution. If you think we're winning this particular battle, guess again.

The first woman to buy this shirt was Jennifer Miller, the Dover, Pennsylvania middle school science teacher at the center of the maelstrom. Look for her in the forthcoming book "Into the Great Divide" by Matthew Chapman, great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin. Jennifer has volunteered the services of her fellow science teachers to proudly sport our attire at various science education functions.

In future photoshoots I want to show what our messages mean in the context of the history of this burg I call home. Ben Franklin's Grave. Independence and Carpenters Halls. The Liberty Bell.

Philadelphians are often guilty of treating this nation's birthplace with a smirk, cursing at the tourists we trip over daily. Never visiting these treasures unless we have family in from out of town.

Living in the middle of history central for five years gave me a rare appreciation. Walking my dog through the various parks and buildings spread over a quadrant of Center City forced me to think daily about these amazing, crazy men who started this American Experiment. They were the most radical of souls, and they're spinning in their graves as the theocrats steer us back to the middle ages. Every American needs a kick in the ass tour cum Constitutional seminar of this city, replete with in-your-face quotations about the founding fathers' fervent disdain for religion and the religious.

Want a nation under God? Go visit, or better yet, move to Iran. Afghanistan. Iraq.

We're raising a generation of children who shall, through the narrow mindedness of blind faith, become the least educated scientifically in the industrialized world. There's a war on science. This message fights back.