
Official Hacker News T-Shirt - pg
http://teespring.com/hntees
======
jug6ernaut
I don't really get this T, i understand its going for minimalism, but would
someone who frequents HN recognize it if they did not already know its
affiliation?(i wouldn't) & if the answer is no, then whats the point of the T?

Edit for clarity: Not knocking the cause, it is great. Just the design really,
maybe im missing something.

~~~
pg
I kind of wish this were the top comment. It would be humorously appropriate
if the top comment on the thread about the official HN t-shirt were the
traditional nitpicking/point-missing type that is so commonly the top comment
when people launch new technology here.

~~~
cperciva
I mean no offense, and I realize that this is your site; but I really think
jug6ernaut's comment added far more value than your response.

I don't think jug6ernaut missed the point whatsoever, and I wouldn't
characterize him as nit-picking either: The question of who is expected to
understand the t-shirt and what its point is (as compared to an unbranded
t-shirt) are perfectly reasonable. Personally I see nothing wrong with
t-shirts which can only be understood by an "in" group, but that doesn't mean
that there's anything wrong with asking if that was the intention.

Your reply, on the other hand, strikes me as exactly the sort of knee-jerk
defensiveness which often makes me wish that submitters couldn't comment on
their own posts: Not only did you fail to answer the question, but you implied
that jug6ernaut was being unreasonable to even ask it.

It's your site and you're entitled to encourage and discourage whichever types
of posts you want -- but I think if your desire is to have a site where people
engage in meaningful discussion, you made a poor choice here.

~~~
pg
I feel like I'm trapped in an HN parody.

It's precisely because I want HN to be a site where people engage in
meaningful discussion that I try to discourage people from upvoting the first
dismissive comment they come across. Even discourage is probably too strong a
word though. I feel like someone standing in the surf, trying to hold back a
breaking wave with his hand.

(I didn't answer his question because other users already had:
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5363492>)

~~~
edw519
_I feel like I'm trapped in an HN parody._

Congratulations! We have a winner.

You have just won first place in the crowd sourced competition for the front
of V2.0 of the official Hacker News Tshirt.

Honorable mention:

    
    
      Wear something people want.
      Correlation != clothesation.
      Fuck. That. Shirt.
      Take off this shirt and get back to work.
      Shirt early. Shirt often.
      Made from 100% down (votes).
      I clicked "threads" and got this shirt.
      RSS (Real Soft Shirt)
      Y Combed Cotton

~~~
mintplant
Don't forget the runner-up,

    
    
        Unknown or expired link.

~~~
caw
That one didn't get enough votes for obvious reasons.

------
pg
It seemed particularly appropriate for the HN t-shirt to raise money for
Watsi, since you guys in a sense discovered Watsi. They'd had some publicity
before, but it was after their highly upvoted post on HN that their growth
really took off. That was also how we found out about them.

~~~
danielhughes
I was surprised to see that the price is only $13.00. You could charge more in
my opinion. I normally am not seeking a bargain when my purchase is affiliated
with a group that I have a strong affinity for and when the proceeds are going
to a good cause. Most of my past purchases of charitable t-shirts were in the
$20-$30 range.

Perhaps you will test a higher price for the next iteration and share the
results in true HN style.

~~~
auxbuss
$13 is okay for us non-USians having to pay the $10+ shipping. So, an option
for an additional donation might be better.

------
jschuur
I just wish it wasn't black. I get what you're trying to do with the color
scheme from the site, but the black just completely overwhelms it.

If you're going to go with something without text, have the shirt be the
grayish color, with the orange stripe going across the entire chest.

~~~
kafkaesque
I was just going to comment on that.

To my eye, Slate, Asphalt, or Heather Grey would work better (in order of
preference).
[http://www.americanapparel.net/wholesaleresources/ExpressOrd...](http://www.americanapparel.net/wholesaleresources/ExpressOrder/catalog/product.aspx?s=2001&cid=198&w=0)

Also, these are 100% cotton, right?

~~~
wiwillia
We just added a Slate Grey option to checkout, you can now purchase! Thanks
for the feedback.

~~~
ImprovedSilence
any chance we can see a preview of it in the slate option?

~~~
wiwillia
I also added that to the campaign! Just click the thumbnails on
www.teespring.com/hntees.

------
kyro
Will there be a higher-grade customizable offering for us high-karma old
timers who haven't seen a top bar in that color for years? I'd hate to
associate myself with all these Orange Bars.

Buying, nonetheless. Not to wear in public, of course.

~~~
avgarrison
What color do you see? I never realized that the bar changes color.

~~~
jessaustin
With sufficient karma (trying to remember: was it 300? 400?), you can set the
color you prefer.

~~~
Yhippa
Interesting, I did not know that.

Anybody know why the bar is defaulted to that shade of orange (#FF6600) in the
first place?

~~~
minopret
I like the question. Until and unless the person who chose it wishes to
answer, here's my attempt at a more-than-complete answer.

I guess orange may be chosen as a rather eye-catching color. A reddish orange
may be chosen to be a bit more tasteful or distinctive.

The choice of RGB component values may originate in an older practice in web
design called web-safe colors (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_colors#Web-
safe_colors>). It uses the observation that 33 hexadecimal (let's write 0x33)
evenly divides the range of an HTML red-green-blue color component: 0x00,
0x33, 0x66, 0x99, 0xCC, 0xFF. Choosing each of the three color components from
among these six values yielded 6^3 = 216 colors, a palette that would fit into
a low-end graphics adapter's table of 256 colors with room left over for
system-defined colors.

Those who have studied Mersenne primes may recall that it is sufficient to
observe that 8 is a composite number in order to prove that 0xFF = 0x100 - 1 =
2^8 - 1 is a composite number. And we compute that 2^8 - 1 = 255 which ends in
5, so it's obviously divisible by 5, the quotient being 51 = 0x33.

------
edw519
Proud to buy and wear this. Thank you!

But I think I'll customize the back of mine:

"My cofounder went to Startup School and all I got was this lousy MVP."

~~~
juskrey
Mine will be "Stay away and work"

------
scoot
Nice "insider" design!

Since international shipping is $10.50, putting the cost per shirt at $23.50,
but shipping for additional shirts is only $1, if there was enough interest
I'd be happy to front a UK HNLondon Meetup group-buy, with all costs shared
equally, and shirts to be distributed at the next event following their
delivery.

~~~
wiwillia
Hi from Teespring! If you guys wanted to collect a few UK orders together we'd
be happy to ship them for free on us!

We used to use a cheaper international shipping service, but things would get
lost too often and we hated seeing people wait weeks for their tees. We
recently upgraded to USPS Priority International.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
There must be a myriad number of dye-sub printers in the UK that use AA shirts
- wouldn't it be cheaper to simply commission them to print and deliver your
shirts in UK and Europe with your [customers] branding?

Shipping simple tshirts piecemeal seems so terribly wasteful to me.

~~~
wiwillia
We looked into this and surprisingly it's cheaper to produce the t-shirts here
in the US. Their isn't the same level of competition on blank garment
suppliers and screen printers, so the costs are significantly higher. Coupled
with the fact you don't capture the bulk discounts it actually ends up a
little more expensive!

We'll continue to look into it though, perhaps when we reach a certain scale
we'll be able to command better prices.

------
jiggy2011
Can I get one with "Unknown or expired link" on the back?

~~~
pg
We considered that, but it seemed too heavy handed.

------
eumenides1
To everyone who doesn't like the shirt design, but agrees with the idea:

Just donate 13 dollars to Watsi.

------
adnam
If I saw someone wearing this t-shirt, I wouldn't know that it was HN-related.
But wearing the t-shirt below, I have occasionally bumped into other people
"in the know":

<http://sdf.org/store/shop.cgi?3;sdf10>

Plus the design is way cooler.

~~~
adventureloop
I dont really get why people want the shirt to be recognisable. To me it seems
that only super brands will get a huge recognition, other brands will be left
in an equally puzzling world.

Instead I prefer tees that trigger intrigue and sometimes awesome
conversation. I have the 20th anniversary SDF tee, in four years of wearing it
I have added a score of users to the service. Even once someone saw the DEC
terminal and struck(?) up a really cool conversation about the hardware he
worked on.

As an aside, my favourite conversation starter is the Double Fine Costume
Quest Blueprint tee.

~~~
Legion
> I dont really get why people want the shirt to be recognisable.

That's kind of the core concept of putting something with any sort of meaning
on a t-shirt.

~~~
sneak
What he meant to say was "widely recognizable".

------
nollidge
The Teespring homepage seems to be designed just for people wishing to _sell_
their apparel, not for people looking to browse around for shirts. Is this in
the works?

~~~
wiwillia
Most definitely in the works! We're planning on releasing a product iteration
that has more discovery tools soon.

~~~
nollidge
Sweet. Just followed on Twitter so I can check it out.

------
hkmurakami
Ah interesting, all proceeds going to the nonprofit 'Watsi' (YC's first
nonprofit [1]) with the thread started by pg. I guess there must have been
latent demand for such a shirt for a long time, and now that there's an
appropriate recipient of the profits, the tshirts have become a reality :)

[1] <http://ycombinator.com/watsi.html>

------
yesimahuman
I guess the only reason I would know this has anything to do with HN is
because this post. Other than that I think it's a little too obscure.

The price is right though, so I might go ahead and get one (plus I love HN),
but I hope to see more designs in the future!

------
wiwillia
Per request, we just added a Grey option in both men's and women's cuts!

The specific color is Slate - you can check it out on American Apparel's
website at <http://store.americanapparel.net/product/?productId=2001>.

~~~
citricsquid
Skip the colour selector and go direct to Slate:
[http://i.americanapparel.net/storefront/photos/zoom/serve.as...](http://i.americanapparel.net/storefront/photos/zoom/serve.asp?media=2001_slate.jpg)

------
chaddeshon
Lots of negativity here, but I love the design. I wouldn't buy a shirt if it
said hackernews on it. I would get to many questions for too many people, and
I don't really want to explain what I'm wearing.

This is perfect. People who know, know. People who don't, won't care.

~~~
mintplant
I don't seen an overwhelming amount of negativity here at all. Only couple of
posts near the top respectfully commenting on the design. The reaction here
seems to be positive across the board.

------
austenallred
I love the shirt. I was nervous at the concept of a shirt dedicated to Hacker
News, but it's very simple, yet will promote solidarity amongst weathers.

And I hear black is the new black.

------
orangethirty
Ok, let's break it down a bit.

What is it?

A t-shirt.

Why?

To help charity through Watsi.

Why that design?

Because this is a shirt about hacker news and not ycombinator itself. Even
though they are hosted in the same place, they are two different things and
brands.

Also, notice that the only common design clue in hacker news is the orange top
bar with the gray background. Hacker news lacks a logo. The nex best thing to
use would be the only other thing that visually differences it: the ugly
design.

Why not the ycombinator logo?

Because the shirt is about hacker news. Not ycombinator itself.

------
cijdl584
This is ugly. I was shocked to Ctrl-f "ugly" and come up with nothing, but
that's exactly what this shirt is.

~~~
arasmussen
That's funny because Ctrl-f "ugly" is the first thing I did after seeing the
shirt, which is how I came across your post.

------
nblavoie
Why is the Hacker News not even written on the shirt? In my view, the favicon
would have been a better design idea than this one. I don't get it.

------
brador
I knew these reminded me of something!:
[http://www.google.com/search?q=london+train+ticket&tbm=i...](http://www.google.com/search?q=london+train+ticket&tbm=isch)

------
127001brewer
How is it "official"?

 _Edit: I missed who posted it - thanks for head's up._

~~~
pg
We organized this.

~~~
127001brewer
I have ordered my t-shirt as well.

------
6thSigma
There are minimalist shirts, and then there are official Hacker News shirts.
Count me in.

------
blhack
Hey, good job on the t-shirt! I like the color, _and_ the design, _and_ I
think that proceeds going to watsi is AWESOME!

I ordered one and can't wait to get it!

------
kylelibra
I am disappointed by the price. Why $13 and not $13.37?

------
joelandren
I love that people can't even refrain from negative comments on a t-shirt.
You're not adding to the discussion here but still you need to snipe.

------
user-id
I don't mind the minimalism, it just looks weird sitting in the middle of a
tee like that. Something a little more practical would have been cool, like a
white tee with a beige pocket and orange trim on top of the pocket. Heck, even
if it was just a printed faux practical pocket, it would actually be quite apt
really.

------
parad0x1
Does the price include shipping?

~~~
thecoffman
Looks like they tack on shipping when you check out. It was very reasonable
for me though < $4.00

------
silverlight
We used Teespring recently for a campaign for Roll20 t-shirts, sold around
200, and we've already gotten tweets coming in from people who have gotten
their shirt and love it! So if, like us, you'd rather keep focusing on your
product/customers rather than filling t-shirt orders, give Teespring a shot.

------
fuddle
The t-shirt is really boring.

------
spydum
all that's missing is for a DMCA takedown notice to replace this page in a few
hours, and a new thread of about three-hundred responses saying that copyright
is destroying our freedom, followed by someone downloading the design and
making it available via torrents to set it free!

------
mrcoles
Teespring looks interesting. Has anyone here used it before? Does it print
well?

I've been using printfection for a personal shop that does all the fulfillment
(<http://shop.mrcoles.com/>), but the campaign approach looks pretty cool

------
pdknsk
Why is the selection of payment methods so limited? :( They should learn from
Humble.

~~~
robert-wallis
MVP

------
steven2012
I will buy the black t-shirt, but can I humbly request a white t-shirt option
too?

------
tehzergrush
Awful design. So many other ways to do minimalist without doing downright
ugly.

------
soneca
Great idea! I would never use a t-shirt that "brand" me as HackerNews. Not
even one that a "fellow HN user" would recognize - going further, I even think
that wearing a t-shirt with my own startup logo is kinda silly.

Like it was designed though, as an "ode to the defining style of HN" (not an
ad for HN, which is _very_ different), it fulfills the goal of relate to HN
for the _buyer_ and promote the fundraising campaign. And I would still use a
cool t-shirt, not a branded one. A jackpot, as I see it. I will check if they
deliver to Brazil.

------
theoutlander
It would be cool if my alias was printed on it.... and maybe my karma and my
#1 post/comment (which would force me to purchase a new one every time I hit a
new milestone, haha!))

------
kfury
It's like a burqa for your nipples.

~~~
adnam
This is the best comment on this whole page

------
fredley
Small thing: I bought a slate T, and the confirmation page featured a large
image of a black T, I had to go and double check the right one had been
ordered.

~~~
wiwillia
We're working on that! The MVP for Teespring was originally built to support
only 1 product, we've since realized that almost everyone wants to sell their
tees on a few different styles/colors and have been revising the system to
support the new functionality.

------
peterjs
I was going to read through the comments in my usual routine of gathering
insights the original link missed. Then it struck me. I liked that t-shirt. It
simply looked good. What comment was I expecting? Some kind of logical
reasoning about what's wrong with that t-shirt? Or a proof that the t-shirt is
just fine? As wise barber once said, "We think too much and feel too little."

------
therandomguy
I like this. I was ready to jump in here an complain about attracting
attention from outside the hacker community. But this is perfect.

------
INTPenis
No deal, I clicked the link excited wanting to finally show off my love of HN
to my co-workers and was faced with a strange orange bar with a gray bottom.
What? What are you trying to say with this? Watsi suffers for your decision. I
would have bought two of them if it had actually said HN or Hacker News or
anything more identifying than a bar with two colors.

------
SebMortelmans
Love the idea, dislike the 1 color and the design. nothing wrong with minimal
but this feels to narrow.

Should have put the [Y] somewhere in there imo

~~~
wiwillia
Hi Seb, we just added a Slate Grey option to checkout!

------
prawks
Does anyone know _which_ American Apparel shirt these use? Specifically, the
fabric? 100% cotton, or 50/50 poly/cotton blend?

~~~
msteinert
It appears to be 100% cotton [1] (linked from the "Launch a Campaign page
[2]).

[1]: <http://amzn.to/WlmcDR> [2]: <http://teespring.com/design>

------
baby
In the middle? Seems a bit tacky. Especially with the black color.

I'd see something like this would be better : <http://i.imgur.com/vURo089.png>

EDIT: I'm not fan of the design at all. Here's an idea (I suck at photoshop):
<http://i.imgur.com/EqhulyO.png>

~~~
robert-wallis
Any reason the logo is on the right instead of standard left?
[https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&biw=1435&bih=762...](https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&biw=1435&bih=762&tbm=isch&q=company+tee+shirt+logo)

~~~
baby
I supposed I pictured myself in a mirror when I did that.

------
jneal
Anyone else having issues paying? I use my CC online all the time to pay bills
and buy off Amazon, and never have any issues, but I receiving an error first
that my card was declined, and then after retyping everything "There is a
problem with the card you entered." - Contacting my bank now to see if they
can give any insight.

~~~
wiwillia
Hey jneal, sorry to hear you're having trouble - want to shoot me an email at
walker@teespring.com? We can tell you what error we're getting from the cc
processor.

------
SkittlesNTwix
I'd love to donate to Watsi + proudly wear a Hacker News shirt, but this
design doesn't really do it for me.

~~~
xauronx
It's plain and simple. My first instinct was "ugh, really?" because I don't
like the design of the site to begin with. But then I realized... no one would
ever ask me a question about the t-shirt, which is a big plus. Only people who
frequent HN would recognize it, and where I'm from that's like zero people.

------
DanielBMarkham
If the top comment is going to be nitpicking and point-missing, then I want to
make a point about how the site has gone to hell in a hand basket, dammit.

Obligatory pointless side note: going to hell in a hand basket is much worse
than simply going to hell. Perhaps it is because hand baskets are flammable?

~~~
Mz
It's actually because first they chop you into little pieces to fit you into
the handbasket. You go to hell as a collection of parts, like legless C3PO,
thus helpless to do anything about it.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
pg selling t-shirts on HN, gambling at Rick's, cats and dogs lying together.

The barbarians are at the gates, I say!

------
pw7
They look pretty darn slick to me.

------
shocks
Fantastic. I just ordered mine. I shall wear it proudly and see if anyone
recognises it. Hehe.

Thanks pg! :)

------
giardini
Awful design: why design a shirt that won't sell?

Aside: why is white so often not available for t-shirts?

------
nvarsj
This is really cool. I don't usually like to wear printed shirts of any kind,
but this is nice and minimalist. Also I can never have enough black tees. And
the watsi donation is icing on the cake. Thanks for doing this!

------
fsckin
Could we get a black bar version? For Aaron. And Steve. And Robert. And so on.

------
andymoe
Nice, I got two. Might be cool to write you HN username on it in sharpie.

------
markkat
Nice design. Kudos to whoever came up with it.

Forget the naysayers. People have been spoonfeed by corporate advertisers so
long, they think anything that doesn't function as an effective corporate logo
is flawed.

------
mehulkar
I'm sad that this one didn't get quite the same attention. Disclosure, I made
it. <http://teespring.com/fundraising>

------
intended
Now if only there was a way to set up an NGO which could be run on auto pilot.
Then it would be possible to do this for Dwarf Fortress without getting
bothered by the hassle!

------
jcfrei
ok, really like the idea, but I can't get comfy with the design. I would've
really preferred a version with a big (orange) Y on it - or something a little
less cryptic.

------
Yhippa
HN has crept into one of my most frequently visited sites over the past years.
I've spent way too much time on this site over the past several years.

This shirt's an autobuy for me.

------
amerf1
Here's an unofficial shirt of the famous YC saying "make something people
want"

<http://teespring.com/makesomething>

------
gourneau
I am looking for a PyCon pass. If you are a hacker news reader and have an
extra pass. I would buy ~20 of these for you, maybe for you to give away at
PyCon.

------
weej
Well done. Happy to contribute and pick one up. Cheers!

------
Katelyn
Order Placed! I'd be curious to know the the male/female tee style breakdown
of the sales. Could the nice folks at teespring provide us with these stats?

------
SandB0x
Now _that's_ a minimum viable product. Great execution and focus. You should
double the price though - you would get twice the number of orders.

------
tariqr
Beautiful. Abstraction has a much longer shelf life :)

------
jkaljundi
Is the price the same shipped anywhere in the world? Its starts asking for
your credit card details before shipping information.

~~~
xauronx
To the right it shows shipping cost, with a question mark next to it that
explains the fee.

<not affiliated, just on that page right now>

~~~
pisarzp
I think it's really misleading. I didn't notice this question mark, and found
out about total price with shipment to UK only after I purchased it. There was
no second step with confirmation or anything...

Shipping costs should just change on the page based on which country you
select.

~~~
xauronx
Oh, that blows. I guess I assumed it somehow knew I was in the US but would
ask/figure out if you were elsewhere. You should probably throw them a
message. I know someone who works there WAS creeping on this thread.

------
smosher
I won't wear this kind of branding, but if it was a HN-grey shirt with HN-
orange collar/cuffs/trim, that I _would_ wear.

------
adamman
They should increase the height of the orange header and add the Y logo to the
left as it is on the site.

------
magoghm
Tried to buy one, but I just get a message that says "Your card will not
accept a charge at this time".

------
webbruce
<http://teespring.com/rubypowered>

------
epsylon
I would've loved a fully orange design with a plain white Y in the middle.

------
meunier
"Larger" view is smaller.

------
dmragone
Is the color not brown? Perhaps I need to calibrate my monitor

~~~
user-id
It's pretty much beige.

------
rbn
It wont accept my card. It keeps saying there is a problem

~~~
jneal
Having same issue. My bank says they are not declining but the website keeps
saying declined...

------
omilu
anyone have experience with american apparel tshirts? are they big, or
smallish. Can't decide if I need double x or x.

~~~
omilu
from what i read elsewhere, they run a little small, 2X it is!

------
tehwalrus
I'm a sucker for cryptic T-shirts, sold!

------
dylanz
I love the minimal design. Purchased.

------
justplay
pg you are very kind .

------
christofd
nice and subtle :)

------
youngerdryas
Watsi is great but I am not sure if I want to be constantly explaining the
shirt to people.

