Headline Design Blog

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!

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

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!) 

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.

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. 

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!

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

“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.

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!

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.