Space is the Place

Ideally, Contest Watch will be back in the ring next week. We (in the royal sense) have been pretty out of it with the reliability of late. Lots of busy and lots of exhaustion, combined with lots of really mediocre and uninspired work. It's been hard to really get stoked for the voting when even the most inspirational designers seem to be unable to do anything worthy of those skills. Repeat after me: "my skills are dramatic enough that I don't need to only draw other people's characters." Feel better? Great. Now to move on.

One great thing is that today comes with NOT A TILTEED TEE. Believe me, I love being able to feature those guys any time I can, and I love being involved with them, but I also love talking up great tees from everywhere. Today, I'm particularly excited at a return to form from Design by Humans. After a couple very questionable releases (Guntree? Dogfight? Srsly?) they've been unloading quite a few sweet ones this week. For me, of course, the creme-de-la-creme has been biotwist, and his "Traveling in my Space Suit," a former contest watch featured design. I love the colors: how they work together, and the economy of them. I love the image itself: it's somewhere between white-collar superhero and formal spaceman, but whatever it is, the juxtaposition of spacesuit and business suit turns something incredibly boring (I am still unconvinced people -aspire- to cubicles) into something incredibly awesome. The thing that's really the best, however, is the outline of the spaceman, or perhaps I should say the lack thereof. he's framed by stars, flames, action and light, but he has no defined outline. I've always loved the effect, though... the way the background creates an outline where there is none, so in those places where there is no background (see the raised arm), your eye draws one anyway. Maybe I'm easily amused as a non-artist, but I think it's hard to deny this tee's awesomeness either way. I'm just glad to see it print: it makes me feel like my design-mojo is back, and along with the Sonmi print earlier (and an interesting one from "DarkChocolat" between then) seems to show a DBH which hopefully is regaining their own mojo. Go pick one up and show them cats that they're on the right path.