Headline Design Blog

Find out how the t-shirts are made. (Hint: They're made out of sausages.)

[headlineshirts]

Rare Craft Beers

In the spirit of our new CRAFT BEER T-SHIRT, we’ve compiled a list of our Top 12 Pretentious Craft Beers. Bonus points if you can tell which one of these we made up! (Hint: It’s all of them.)

Celebate Steampunk’s Pissed Off Porter

Horatio Mantitty’s Oatmeal Cheddarbiscuit Stout

Slobberin’ Moose’s Odious Musk Brown Ale

Boring Todd’s Unremarkable Amber

Room Temperature Brewery’s Pisswater Pilsner

Pale Dale’s Snail Mail Pale Ale

Laughing Monk’s Rogue Mole Hair Weizenbock

Wheaty Pete’s “Will Fuck for Wheat” Hefeweizen

Funky Rasta’s Jerk Chicken & Hemp Oil Rye Ale

Stumptown’s Homicidal Elf Winter Ale

Hoppy Toad Brewer’s Reserve Beard Yeast Bourbon Doppelboch

Maltese Falcon’s Objectively Unpalatable Sour Ale

If you like what you see here, go check out our new CRAFT BEER T-SHIRT at Headline! It’s barrel-aged (or something), with notes of oatmeal and seaweed. Mmmmmmmm!

[headlineshirts]

And So Begins... "The Pumpkining.”

Brace yourselves. For today marks the first day of fall. And that can only mean one thing... “The Pumpkining” hath begun.

Yes. It is officially “pumpkin spiced” season. It spreads like a virus, starting with lattes and cheesecakes, then quickly infecting all manner of consumer products. Chewing gum. Beer. Hummus. Motor oil. “The Pumpkining” cannot be reasoned with. It does not obey the rules of common sense. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it will not rest until every soul has surrendered to its gourdly grip!

Take heed, fellow citizens! For if we do not act now, this could be our future...

[headlineshirts]

This might be hard for you kids to believe, but before the minivan came along and ruined everything, vans were actually pretty awesome. Lately we’ve been fixated on the “shaggin’ wagons” of the 70s and 80s. (Yes, vans actually used to get you laid.) And we’ve channeled all that obsession into our latest tee, “Van Life.” Come check it out: http://www.headlineshirts.net/van-life-t-shirt.html

[headlineshirts]

The National Park Service officially turns 100 today! Check out this amazing photo essay by Roger Minick of sightseers at national parks during the late 70s and 80s. It’s a pretty awesome and amusing time capsule, and it’s seriously making us want to bust out the cutoff jean shorts and hit the road. (Fair warning!) 

[headlineshirts]

Cutting Room Floor: Socks That Didn’t Make It

With every production run there are casualties. Some ideas get to the design phase, only to have the plug pulled on them for one reason or another. (Usually a very good reason.) Here are three examples from our new round of socks: “Smoking Cats,” “Eggplants & Peaches,” and “Eagles & Beer Cans.” What do you think, did we make a mistake? Should we have gone through with any of these? Or are they better left to rot in the design graveyard? Let us know!

[headlineshirts]

Socks for Cinephiles!

We just dumped a veritable Category 5 Sock Storm on our online store. (And they’re all Buy 2, Get 1 Free today, so head over there now!) Part of our huge dump (huh huh) includes this series of designs inspired by some comedy and action classics.

[headlineshirts]

We’ve noticed a surge in coffee tees lately. Which is great. We love coffee and we have made our share of coffee tees. But does it seem like they’re getting angrier? And, I dunno... less grammatical? “OK, BUT FIRST COFFEE” is funny. We’re down with that one. But does anyone really go around wearing a “COFFEE. BLACK. NOW!” t-shirt? Like, they actually go into a coffee shop wearing that? And if so, have they ever had their preferred scalding hot beverage thrown directly in their face? Not saying they deserve that, but it seems like some low-hanging fruit on the ol’ karma tree. Come on, people, use your words! And, you know, be nice.

[headlineshirts]

Maybe we’re turning into crazy old cat ladies. Last month we released “Pulp Felines” and “Catpetite for Destruction.” And just when we thought we were done, two words popped into our heads. “Cat. Sabbath.” Oh, shit! How do you not make that into a t-shirt? You can’t! You can’t not make that into a t-shirt. OK, we’re starting to confuse ourselves with the double negatives, so we’ll just leave it at that. We hope you enjoy! Leave a comment and let us know what you think. 

[headlineshirts]

The NASA space probe Juno reached Jupiter’s orbit on July 4, exactly one second off schedule. That night, we also released our new “Science” design -- an homage to one of the great advocates for space exploration. We’d like to say that we timed this release with NASA-like precision. Truthfully... it was dumb luck. But what the hell -- we’ll take it!

[headlineshirts]

What does Captain Ahab look like? That was our first question when we started designing our new t-shirt. Depictions of the captain from Moby Dick have been all over the place. So we started with a few sketches of our own, ranging from grizzled pipe smoking seadog to bushy non-pipe smoking seadog. (And we managed to throw a droopy Mark Twain lookalike in there.) Ultimately we opted for a much simpler and stylized look. Sometimes less is more. Even for Captain Ahab.

[headlineshirts]

Unlike some, we at Headline are not “fair weather” doomsday cultists. When we commit to something, we stick with it. So the world didn’t end on May 21, 2011. Or May 21 of 2012, 2013, 2014 or 2015. What are you gonna do, cry about it? No! You dust yourself off, update your sandwich board, and start shouting at people again the next year! That’s what we do -- because we’re not quitters. 

And since it’s all ending tomorrow anyway, we’re having our 6th Annual End of the World Sale right now. Tees are $16 and $9. Take advantage of this while there’s still time. On Earth.

[headlineshirts]

Thinking about a Genghis Khan misquote tee. This seemed appropriate.

[headlineshirts]

Here’s a pixelated Van Gogh portrait for you. What other masterpieces would you like to see us ruin in 8-bits? Comment and let us know!

[headlineshirts]

LITTLE KNOWN FACT: One of our biggest fans is none other than Vlad Putin. Evidently he saw our Sochi shirt a while back and has been a loyal customer ever since. Anyways, he’s constantly rocking our gear and has been bugging us to put him on the site. We know better than to deny a ruthless autocrat his wish, so you got it, Vlad! Here he is wearing our “Slotherine” tee while fishing. Lookin’ good! We’ll be posting more shots from the massive dropbox folder he sent us, so check back soon.

[headlineshirts]

“Mount Ruffmore.” Great concept... or so we thought. Something about drawing dogs as stone monuments gives them that “I just barked at Medusa’s face” look. The result is something more creepy than cute. But we contend that a real Mount Ruffmore would still be a great idea. There’s some plenty of unused rock face in South Dakota from what we hear.

[headlineshirts]

Here’s a design we toyed with but didn’t make. It’s too bad because we can really hear the chorus right now:

Oh meow-meow-mia, meow-meow-mia,  Meow-meow-mia let me go, Beelzebub has some cat nip put aside, For me For meeee For meeeeeeeeee!

[headlineshirts]

It doesn't take much to develop a proof of concept here at Headline. Here's the original mock up for our "Three Derp Huskies" design. Not pretty, but it gets the idea across! From here it went through multiple iterations with one of our hard-working illustrators until we got to the final product. Good ideas transcend aesthetic... usually.