November 14, 2006

Hide Your Shame

Web 2.0 tonic bottle

Another issue of A List Apart has been pushed out the door, this one contains a blendy technique for gradients, and a call to stick up for clients, particularly the difficult ones. But, this also marks another kind of day for A List Apart: the ALA Store is finally back and stocked with shirts, both new and old! Well, not old shirts, but previous designs. And they are printed on different colors of new, previously unworn shirts!

Between finding a new vendor, setting ourselves up for stocking and shipping, and designing the shirts, it took us awhile to get the store back together. Luckily, we landed with a great vendor, my wife Liz, and not-my-wife Niff of American Solutions For Business. They handily do all of our printed materials for An Event Apart, so we knew they would be perfect to help us with some new shirts.

All the shirts are still printed on hyper-comfy American Apparel 100% cotton tees. We put together three new designs: the Web 2.0 tonic bottle from Jeffrey Zeldman’s Web 3.0 article, the Winged Bear from Cameron Moll’s Good Designers Redesign, Great Designer Realign article (both, Kevin Cornell illustrations), and a geeky -9999px shirt replacement technique. The original three designs have also been reprinted (two of them on new shirt colors): the ALA logo still on heather grey, the Warning Sign on brown, and the XHTML Fist on navy blue. When you have a moment, drop by the store and peruse the showroom.

One last thing: we’ve started a Flickr pool for ALA shirt wearers. If you like an ALA shirt you’ve bought, we’d love to see your beautiful face and best model pose while wearing it. As you can see, a few of us tried to be models. Unfortunately, we’re all too pale and bug-eyed from being inside all day. Oh well.

Commentary (21):

1. Blake says… nov 14, 2006 | 9:58 am

I’m diggin’ the whiskey bottle (or is that medicine?) t-shirt. Me like, me like. I think we need a t-shirt that says, “My Geocities account kicks your Myspace account’s ass.”

2. Jason Santa Maria says… nov 14, 2006 | 10:03 am

Blake: Thanks! It’s actually a bottle of snake oil.

3. Nate K says… nov 14, 2006 | 10:37 am

Gonna have to show the -9999px shirt to my wife. Thats a good one. Christmas IS just around the bend. he.

Some good shirts in there, glad you got everything back up and running!

4. Eric says… nov 14, 2006 | 2:00 pm

I’m so rockin’ the -9999px; shirt. I was really hoping for something geekier than the XHTML shirt, and you guys nailed it.

5. apartness says… nov 14, 2006 | 3:41 pm

Nice site and nice URL, Eric.

6. John Cassimatis says… nov 14, 2006 | 5:12 pm

The Web 2.0 shirt is great, well done

7. Eric Lim says… nov 14, 2006 | 6:03 pm

@apartness: are you just saying that cause I bought the shirt?

8. apartness says… nov 14, 2006 | 9:10 pm

No, I like your site’s layout and URL.

9. Jacob Patton says… nov 15, 2006 | 11:57 am

I love the new shirts, and the ALA design is still one of my favorites. Why not give your wife the gift of a redesign of her own for her business site, Jason?

10. niff says… nov 15, 2006 | 1:22 pm

Hey, we know that site is…well…lets face it, HORRIBLE. However, it really is only for browsing and searching for products. ONE day we will have an attractive site! Meanwhile, don’t judge a book by its cover…or in this case, Liz and Niff!

11. Jason Santa Maria says… nov 15, 2006 | 7:51 pm

Jacob Patton: Oh jeez, another project to throw on the pile :D

12. Jason Berry says… nov 15, 2006 | 9:26 pm

I think we need an ALA t-shirt competition… I’d buy one then :D

13. Jason Santa Maria says… nov 15, 2006 | 9:29 pm

Jason Berry: Do you mean a design competition… or a contest to see who wears their shirt most proficiently?

14. Jason Berry says… nov 15, 2006 | 10:02 pm

*To clarify my previous post*

Get an ALA t-shirt into the oddest situation possible AND have photographic proof.

15. Sasá says… nov 20, 2006 | 9:33 pm

Something that made me think twice before ordering was the shipping rate… each T has to be in an individual pack? Pricey… :/
If there was a way to get some discount on the handling when ordering multiple shirts…
(sorry about my horrible english…)

16. Brandon says… nov 21, 2006 | 6:09 pm

I’m definitely going to buy that -9999px shirt. A few of my friends will get it and the rest of the world will be like “WTF?”. Sweet! First time to this site and I must say I’m impressed. Much praise to a fellow Philadelphian.

17. Jason Santa Maria says… nov 21, 2006 | 7:27 pm

Sasá: The majority of people only order one shirt. But, we do pack as many as 2-3 shirts into envelopes. I am working on using the PayPal shipping calculator to get precise shipping values in the future. The biggest thing is: we’re not an ecommerce site. So, in order for a site like ours to try and have a little fun by selling t-shirts, it means that we have to use more generalized tools (like PayPal).

Brandon: It’s a really slick shirt. Hello to a fellow Philadelphian! I’ve never heard of O3 World before. It’s always nice to find new people and companies in your own backyard!

18. Brandon says… nov 21, 2006 | 8:24 pm

We’re only a little older than a year. Based out of the Northern Liberties, one of the buildings that used to be part of the old Schimdt’s factory. Check out work out. Lots of Flash stuff, lots of table based HTML sites. Got quite a few standards compliant XHTML sites in the holding pen. Just need some lazy (you didn’t hear it from me) clients to populate their sites so they can launch.

19. Brandon says… nov 21, 2006 | 8:28 pm

Check out work out = Check our work out. Typos are sweet. Forgot to ask where is the Happy Cog Philly studio located? Couldn’t find any physcial addresses on your site. If it’s double secret don’t worry, I won’t tell.

20. Jason Santa Maria says… nov 22, 2006 | 8:06 am

Brandon: We are also based in Northern Liberties. We occupy, what I am told is, and old brewery, but I couldn’t tell you which one. And don’t worry, I will be sure to check out your workout.

21. Brandon says… nov 22, 2006 | 9:30 am

That’s interesting, our office in the the old Schimdt’s brewry building. I wonder how many old brewry buildings there are up here? We’re right around the corner from The Standard Tap, if you know where that is.