Out of the Newsroom

I’m sporting a new t-shirt today, this one just acquired yesterday at the WordCamp NYC event. It’s great in that it is a long-sleeve black model, perfect for the oncoming cooler temps of winter here in New England. Even more special is that it sports the WordCamp NYC design, which is inspired by the classic design scheme* of the Massimo Vignelli-designed NYC subway signage of the 1960′s, which I have loved since my first trip to the city as a teenager.

(*Which may or may not feature the classic Helvetica typeface. If you are interested in design and so inspired, read more about the history of the design of the subway’s signage in Paul Shaw’s excellent article for the AIGA by clicking here.)

I love T-shirts. Particularly ones with design on them. I consider them wearable artwork for the masses. From the grungiest to the most elaborate designs, T-shirts can express so much about the wearer, their interests, their mood, their causes, and just about anything about anything else about them.

I consider the daily moment of choosing a particular T-shirt as often the most creative thing I am likely to do all day. Let’s face it, the T-shirt is a key part of the official college student uniform. Truth be told, I’m jealous of those who can wear a T-shirt everyday, and hope that at some point in my life I will be able to do the same.

I have also determined that the T-shirt is also the ultimate advertising platform. Any tech conference is a direct route to replacing and updating your T-shirt wardrobe. Like all advertising, we respond (and wear) the good T-shirts and shun the bad ones (but keep them for emergency no-clean-laundry situations.)

When told just now of the topic I am writing about, my significant other scoffed and said “you gotta get rid of some of your T-shirts”, gesturing to a large and leaning stack of them on my bedroom dresser. She has a point, but I quickly responded “Sweetheart, my life is in T-shirts.”

And thinking about it, that statement is really more true than I might have imagined when I first thought of it. Many of my burgeoning collection of T-shirts have a specific memory attached to either when I got them, or something significant that happened when I was wearing them. The ones that have shrunk to the point of being unwearable are in a storage box at the bottom of my closet, because I can’t bear the thought of permanently parting with them. But they are all important fabric reminders of the ever-unwinding fabric of my life.

Until of course, the next new and really cool T-shirt comes along.

So here is to you, mighty T-shirt. Basic, simple staple of the human wardrobe. Long may you be a window to our souls, worn in too small sizes by beautiful women everywhere, and ever the default choice of the answer to the ever challenging daily question posed to all of us:

What can I wear today?