Part of It Gets Imprinted!

We were super pleased to find an image of the Alphabet shirt that Daniel Eatock designed for Gluekit’s Part of It proect in his brilliant recent monograph Imprint (2008). For more insight into Eatock’s meticulous practice and his projects, check out Eatock’s website and, in particular, the section on Imprint itself.

Part of It: Let’s Be Honest

As the American presidential race heats up, wouldn’t it be nice to see some honesty emanating from the campaigns and from the media? Part of It is proud to offer a refreshing way for everyone to get involved and spread a message urging transparency and truth (in politics and in life). Designed by Ken Meier and David Yun, “Let’s Be Honest” blue tees ($28.00) and red totes ($20.00) featuring Caslon type are perfect attire for watching the upcoming debates between McCain vs. Obama, and Palin vs. Biden, whatever your political persuasion.

Let’s be honest, together.

If You’re Friends Of P…

The Friends of P Tote (designed by Part of It contributors Ryan Waller and Garrett Morin) is now available from Part of It!

As we mentioned previously, the Friends of P project is raising money for the Lupus Foundation of America. If you purchase a from Part of It, a portion of your sale will go to the LFA. Direct donations are also still being accepted at the Friends of P website.

Part of It: Resistance is Fertile

Adrian Johnson’s wonderful “Resistance is Fertile” design is now available on totes and t-shirts at Part of It! These are perfect summer items with a terrific message and a smart graphic. The bags are printed on natural totes ($20.00); tees are silver grey in a variety of Unisex sizes ($28). Adrian’s selected WWF to benefit from sales of products with this design. We love the new totes and tees, and hope you will too!

Threadless “True Love” On Sale!

By the way, the design we did for Threadless is on sale this week as part of their giganto Summer Blockbuster Sale for a delicious $12.00!

We just got ours in the mail today and are so happy with the way they turned out. We hope you will be too if you decide to order one– Threadless prints in separate editions so this is your chance to snap up a first edition of the tee!

Part of It: Let’s Be Honest

We are soooo excited to release the next product for the Part of It project– smashing “Let’s Be Honest” tees and totes designed by graphic designers Ken Meier and David Yun.

We think it’s a statement everyone can support, especially in this all-important election year in the States. The totes, as above, are printed on a ravishing apple red with white Caslon type ($20), while the tees are on a fine azure blue ($28). On a purely personal level, both items are a great reminder in any context that honesty is the best policy. A portion of the sales benefit Free Press, a US-based, non-partisan organization that promotes decentralized broadcasting and works to reform the media.

Available now at Part of It!

Threadless + Timbuk2 + Gluekit

Wow! We are super super SUPER excited to have been asked to be part of a special Threadless & Timbuk2 team-up! Above is the limited edition Gluekit messenger bag (only 200 made!) produced by Timbuk2 as part of their Threadless artist team-up. We are super pleased with the way the all-over design print took to the bag and hope Timbuk2 customers will be too!

For those who can’t afford the $150 dollars for the bag, the design is also available in a wide range of super comfy tees from Threadless. We’re honored to be part of their Select line!

Hurrah!

Inherit the Wind

The Inherit the Wind tee (mocked-up above) and tote, designed by Mark Owens, benefit the American Wind Energy Association. Now available at Part of It.

Literary buffs and biblical proverb lovers alike– as well as renewable energy supporters– are bound to like this clean source of inspiration. It’s a serene shirt promoting and supporting a cleaner, greener, less toxic energy source. And that means blue skies for you and me.

Gluekit likes to be inspired!

I See Red

Here’s another design in our Imagined Shirt line-up. We can already see the photo shoot for this one, brilliant against a gritty brick wall. This shirt tempts us to pull out our spray cans, what about you?

Gluekit loves bricks, buttons, badges, and imagining games.

Make Art Now!

Hey there! Gluekit encourages our faithful readers and intrepid shoppers to check out a design near and dear to our heart– Dustin Amery Hostetler’s (Upso’s) “Make Art Now!” t-shirt (available at Part of It).

Dustin chose the Arts Commission of Greater Toledo, a great regional non-profit arts agency that develops and promotes the visual, literary, and performing arts (all stripes and colors) in Northwest Ohio. Among their many programs and services is a summer youth employment program that apprentices young people with arts organizations and promotes intensive exposure to the business of making art. ACGT also provides grants for artists, organizes high school and community competitions and shows, and partners with civic and local organizations to keep the arts front and center in a number of Ohio towns and cities.

One of the things we’ve enjoyed as the organizers of Part of It is learning about the non-profits and charities that artists select. It’s also been really fascinating to discover which artists choose to act locally, and which artists choose national or international efforts. Oftentimes, their choice is subtly suggested in work they’ve done elsewhere– or seems obvious when considering their background and interests. The diversity of vision that Part of It artists and designers have shown exemplifies both the rootedness and the complexity of social responsibility, and the many levels at which organizations and individuals can act.

Gluekit likes trends and patterns, collaborations, positive imperatives, and making art now!

Mountains Rock

Oh, whoozy whoo! Gluekit has finally gotten it together and launched a GLUESTORE! (About time we gave peeps a way to purchase our fine tees, prints, and other doo-dads.) To launch this exciting affair, we’ve priced everything, including this awesome and amazing Mountains Rock tee (a collaboration with Miss Amy Jean Porter) at a most excellent and affordable price of $14.00. Yes, that’s right, fourteen buckaroonies!

There is a small catch. A number of the items come in limited sizes or colors. For instance, Mountains Rock is available only in Women’s Medium/One Size Fits All (oh, and we know that claim isn’t true!), on the seemly gold shown in the pretty pink publicity shot above. It’s how the apple rolls in Gluetown as we’re sorting out our affairs. As an upshot, you get a super limited edition kind of product.

Mountains Rock does make a snappy tee for small stature mountain-climbing enthusiasts and ladies who love cute rockin’ characters. Perhaps someday we’ll reprint for all the gents out there who love the alpine heights.

Gluekit likes Amy Jean Porter, collaborative projects, and making our things available at long last! Hurrah!

It’s Just You and Me

Things are going well behind the lines at Gluekit Central (aka Part of It headquarters). As part of our on-going efforts to highlight some of the amazing pieces created for Part of It, Gluekit would like to draw your attention to this handsome “It’s Just You and Me” t-shirt, designed by Mr. Michael Perry (aka Midwestisbest) and featuring some of his hand drawn type and imagery. Perry’s work might seem hauntingly familiar– especially to readers who frequent Urban Outfitters stores or have an eye open to their whimsical type; he’s the man behind some of the more evocative type imagery the big UO has to offer. (And of course, he also just edited a very nice tome on hand type called Hand Job: A Catalog of Type.)

Perry designated that a portion of the profits from this shirt would benefit NARSAD, the Mental Health Research Association. In the 1980s, a number of mental health organizations and foundations got together and merged, creating NARSAD– it’s now the United States’ most prominent mental health research institution, awarding numerous research grants to scientists. NARSAD seeks to prevent, cure, and treat a host of mental illnesses, ranging from schizophrenia to autism, depression, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.

Perry’s shirt suggests the isolation and melancholy that can afflict those suffering from mental illness, but his shirt also seems to highlight the modern condition, and the strange equilibrium of happiness and sadness that can strike anyone, anytime, anywhere. It’s a beautiful shirt, for an important cause.

Gluekit likes supporting great artists and great causes.

If The Pyramids Were Brick Piles

Gluekit loves bricks. Blank walls too.

In the spirit of our Ping Pong tee, here’s a proposal for another Gluekit shirt we hope to make some day soon. There’s just something about simple lines and spare design that makes us woozy. Bricks and stones may dress our bones, and new designs always make us chuckle.

Quick Snaps : Part of It

Gluekit was doing our product shoot for Part of It over the weekend, and we took a few snapshots in between, to mark the occasion. Given the great popularity that the Library shirt has had so far– in part thanks to the very kind word-of-mouth from Jessamyn– it seemed fitting that we post a quickie-pic showing the actual shirt being set up. [And we can verify, wearing this shirt makes you feel like an open book-- and that's a good thing!]

Gluekit likes the soft feel of real t-shirts in hand, blurry motion photographs, and scary black hoodies. Mmm!

Ping-Pong-Tee

In our spare time– oh, train rides and car trips and waiting in line– Gluekit likes to think of t-shirt proposals. Often, these do eventually pop out the production side. To be truthful, many Gluekit items are simply things that make us laugh, or that we’d like to wear around the house. What’s nice is when other people feel the same way!

Anyways, we thought it might be nice to log some of our tee ideas here, as a way of keeping stock of them and sharing potential wardrobe options with others. If you spot a favorite, give a hollar, because that just might urge us to move this into the “Made” category.

This particular shirt is envisioned as coming along with a medium-sized white button that can be moved around as the wearer likes. The Gluekit team was very busy playing ping-pong this summer, and inspiration struck while the paddle was hot. What’s not to like about a very simple minimalist design like this?

Gluekit likes bouncing white balls and simple geometric concepts!

Alphabet

We’re floating out another Part of It design as we work on getting ready for the Part of It  launch. Profits from this shirt, created by Daniel Eatock, will benefit the International Dyslexia Association, an international non-profit that focuses its efforts on helping individuals with dyslexia, their families, and communities, as well as promoting research and knowledge about dyslexia and other language-based learning differences.

Update (2007 Oct 22): Alphabet tees and tote bags are now available!

Gluekit loves typographic t-shirts and Akzidenz Grotesk.

Oh No! Oh My!

Another band that Gluekit’s been luvin’ lately is Oh No! Oh My!

In tribute, we designed this limited edition (of one) shirt. The design’s super abstract and we’re missing the exclamation points and some key words, yes, but our hearts were dancing along with the poppy Whirlitzer goodness of ON!OM!’s 2006 self-titled album when we made this, and its blue softliness captures the bright blue purity of their melodies– so we’d like to think.

The band’s on tour right now, making some beautiful folk-pop. We hope they’ll come back to New England after their CMJ stint this October. We could to with some earnest beauty in our neck of the woods.

Gluekit hearts sweet songs and hand-claps in between.

Library Love!

Gluekit’s proud to present a mock-up of another of our forthcoming Part of It shirts. Designed by the talented Mr. Ryan Waller, this shirt is destined to warm the hearts of thousands of librarians (and fellow hipsters) across the globe. As the New York Times knows, librarians and friends are the vanguard of cool.

Update (2007 Oct 21): Library tees and tote bags are now available!

Profits from Mr. Waller’s design are destined to benefit the New York Public Library, a massive institution that serves as a locus for intellectual activity in New York City, and empowers citizens by providing access to knowledge in all kinds of formats (and forums). With over 86 branch libraries serving communities throughout New York City, there’s a lot of good going on. NYPL brings it!

Gluekit loves literacy, knowledge building, and the smell of library stacks.

Boat!

Gluekit had this idea over the summer, being that we’re big fans of new music and the different services, blogs, and media outlets that help tune us into new things. Funny as it sounds, we’ve found a couple of keepers on Spin’s Artist of the Day series. We started thinking how it might be fun to design one-off shirts that feature our favorite bands– participating in art-based fan culture, and spreading knowledge of the music we love. Proceeds could benefit Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts or Americans for the Arts or [fill in the blank for some good-doing non-profit]. Something that sustains a civic culture the supports or aids artists. [This is all still something we're rolling around in our heads.] We dubbed the nascent project “Positive Spin.”

Incidentally, we also thought making band-inspired shirt would be a great way to play with quick’n'dirty clothing production and try to bring in some play with textiles and form. So– without further adieu– here’s our first shirt, for a band that’s just so awesome: BOAT. We’re keeping this one– and probably won’t be launching “Positive Spin” anytime soon. But for the time being, we’ll continue experimenting within the sketchy lines we’ve set up.

Gluekit really hopes BOAT plays the East Coast someday soon!

Harmony, Nature, Future

Harmony, Nature, Future is one our very first PART OF IT shirts, designed by the talented Geneviéve Gauckler. Profits from Harmony, Nature, Future will go to supporting the WWF (formerly the World Wildlife Fund), one of the world’s largest and most respected independent conservation organizations. Here’s one of our digital mock-ups of the design, to whet your appetite as the launch date nears.

Gluekit loves Part of It and hopes you will too.