Dragon Wind Prevails

Tomorrow, Singularitee will be announcing the winner of our contest watch contest (astute readers may be able to ascertain which shirt locked spot #25 just by this heads-up). Today, though, we take a moment to talk about Prevailing Dragon Winds. It's new today at Threadless, which released a surprisingly strong crop of new shirts (I was expecting some weaker choices to wind things down after a pretty wild sale), and is the third print in as many weeks with one Terry Fan's name on it. Terry may be better known as Igo2cairo to regular readers, who have surely seen his handle in a few Contest Watch segments... indeed, this could have been update 25 in another place and time, as I had highly considered including it the week I scored it. I love the Asian influence... as much as I may dislike "chibi" and other similar predominantly Japanese pop culture styles, true Asian art is breathtaking. To me, a piece like this shows the designer really understands the style... it's a great cultural homage. The palette is gentle, almost pre-faded, which not only carries weight stylistically, but makes the whole piece incredibly tasteful. Tasteful dragon shirts don't come along all that often (nerds, I'm lookin' at/blaming you). I'm also big on the textures, with even the colors benefitting from a hand-drawn vibe (as if created via colored pencils). Finally, it hits a one-two punch of preferences I didn't realize I had until starting this blog: sea imagery and creme shirts. Clearly the designer knows his audience. Easily my favorite release in an unexpectedly strong week.