For instance. My friend Sahadeva Hammari told me a long while ago that he was working on a new startup that would collect and display links to graphic tee-shirts from all over the Web. My reaction was, “That’s a neat idea, but to what end?” It didn’t strike me that it was a concept that would go very far. As it turns out, the resulting site, Rumplo is pretty damn engaging.
Entertainment You Can Wear
I’ve always been enamored of graphical tee-shirts, but rarely thought too much about them beyond their rather ephemeral entertainment qualities. Through the power of aggregation though, Rumplo unexpectedly shows that this kind of garment is in fact a rich medium of its own. Spend a few minutes perusing the site’s pages, and I think you’ll see right away that there is far more wit and visual invention than you’ll find in most graphic design annuals.
Actually, my favorite part of Rumplo is the email newsletter, which arrives once a week and features a hand-picked selection of ten of the best recently-added tees on the site. Amid the din of my in box, it’s easily the most enjoyable and consumable of my many email newsletter subscriptions. For fans of the more popular, generally excellent, community-driven tee-shirt site Threadless, you may already be finding similar amusement in their regular sales newsletter, which more brazenly hocks their latest wares. The Rumplo newsletter, though, is much less hard-sell, and feels more expansive in its culling from the most obscure corners of graphic tee-dom. In a way, it’s very much a weekly review of what’s happening in this hidden-in-the-open medium.
Actually, that part you should listen to.
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