FREEDOM54 is a clothing company inspired by the universal appeal of the African Aesthetic. The brand creates original designs by fusing traditional African art customs with modern typography and urban fashion.

Drawing its name from the 54 independent nations forming the African continent, FREEDOM54’s clothing covers a spectrum as vast as Africa itself, with designs as diverse as its many peoples. “We strive to stay true to our concept of using the strong standard of beauty present in the African Aesthetic to create distinctive designs which promote both the value of individualism and the virtue of tradition in today’s society” , says the brand’s founder. Check out their online shop!

If you’re looking for an innovative way to package and deliver t-shirts, Compressed Tees has a great service for that. Compressed Tees offers over 160 different and unique shapes to compress or package your t-shirts. All compression molds are made in their own factory located in San Diego, California.

Compressed Tees can also make a custom mold, if you’re unable to find the one you’re looking for. One of the great things about the t-shirt compression done to tees is that once compressed and prepared, they can act as their own mailer (no additional packaging needed). Just add a mailing label and postage and the tee is ready to ship.

Compressed Tees also offers full service printing and t-shirt custom graphics. Send them a message with T-Shirt Magazine in the subject line, and they’ll send you a FREE compressed tee shirt sample.  This offer is limited to the first 50 e-mails they receive. Check them out at CompressedTees.com

Urban streetwear label Nemis Clothing has released 8 new tees, alongside some shorts, a limited edition shirt, and some new tanks. The new items follow the label’s artistic take on streetwear, making use of geometrical shapes and patterns in the designs. All parts of the production process are done by hand, from printing and dyeing to stitching and finishing.

All items are available worldwide from www.nemisclothing.com and T-Shirt Magazine readers get 10% off with coupon code “TSHIRTMAGAZINE”

Vaughn de Heart just released their Spring/Summer 2013 collection, which is available now at their online shop.

Check out the behind the scenes video of their lookbook photoshoot.

You can find all shots from the lookbook here.

Also, check out this cool video by the brand’s founder, RoyLyn Le’Vaughan Palmer-Coleman, created to celebrate the 2 year anniversary of Vaughn de Heart.

Loud Silence is a clothing brand based on the love of music and urban culture. “Make a statement without saying a word” is the brand’s motto because “sometimes silence is the loudest thing you can say, and we let the clothing speak for itself”.

With much anticipation we have released 2 new tees as our summer release part 1. T-shirt Magazine readers can use coupon code “TM15” for 15% off their purchase.

Thoughtful Minds Clothing is a new clothing line established in 2013 from New York City. TMC represents individuals that are changing the world with their drive, ambition, and thought process, with the belief that they can achieve anything they want.

Check out the signature Thoughtful Minds Clothing t-shirt and other products from their online shop.

Cashletes presents the Summer 2013 Collection Delivery 1. Unveiled last month in the Summer ’13 Lookbook, the first half of the Summer 2013 Collection is now available. A new set of wealth inspired sportswear garments for the breadwinner’s Summer wardrobe, featuring t-shirts, raglans and tanks. Available now in the Cashletes online shop and at select retailers. Check out a few tees from the collection below.

Quoted Tee was started on May 14^th, 2013 by Michael Holmes, a Los Angeles based designer. “I enjoy playing with type because it combines two art forms, literature and illustration, for really artistic possibilities,” says Michael. “Quoted Tee seemed like the perfect platform to share my work while giving inspiration and some smiles. It’s not about selling shirts with words, it’s about sharing of joy between people. To take a shirt home is just another way to share it in wearable cotton.” Michael currently is the sole artist of the website.

Each day a quote shirt is published on Quoted Tee and is available for $11 for the first 24 hours. Each quote is either funny or inspirational and is uniquely handcrafted with in a typographic illustration. Check out them out at QuotedTee.com!

With the Summer Season approaching, Bobby Fresh Clothing is taking no break from releasing “heat to match your kicks”.

Friday, May 17th at 1Pm EST, their entire Summer collection will be released at bobbyfresh.com! For a limited time, Bobby Fresh Clothing is giving T-Shirt Magazine readers 20% off, when using the discount code “tshirtmag” at checkout! Visit their online shop and check out the latest products from their “Very Fresh Summer” line up!

Big Cartel is a simple shopping cart solution created for small business owners looking to sell products online. Whether you’re selling clothing, artwork, accessories, crafts, or digital downloads, Big Cartel can do the job.

Pricing

Big Cartel is a very affordable shopping cart solution with plans ranging from $9.99/mo to $29.99/mo. Big Cartel also does not charge you a percentage of each sale, unlike many other shopping cart platforms. The only additional fees are the Paypal transaction fees, as expected with when using any payment gateway for an online shop.

Big Cartel also offers a “forever free” plan, which allows for a 5 product limit, 1 image per product, basic stats, and limited customization access. For full control over your shop’s appearance, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan. For Big Cartel’s $9.99/mo Platinum plan, you can have up to 25 products, 3 images per product and have the ability to track inventory and use discount codes. Currently, Big Cartel’s highest level plan, Titanium, allows for a maximum of 300 products.

Design

Big Cartel comes standard with four basic themes with a minimal shop appearance. Each default Big Cartel theme has it’s own simple customization panel, which allows you to change colors and fonts, as well as uploading your shops header and background image, without any coding knowledge.

Check out the video below of Big Cartel’s backend customization panel in action:

The default Big Cartel themes do come with a few limitations. Big Cartel does give you full control over your shop’s HTML and CSS (for paid plans), which is great if you have web design experience. However, if you don’t have any coding knowledge, you may find it very difficult to implement certain features found on modern shops, such as home page sliders and showing related products. Many other shopping cart platforms have themes that come standard with such features.

Luckily, there are several, third-party, premium Big Cartel themes out there that include a host of advanced features. Theme Fiend, for example, offers an extensive collection of themes for Big Cartel that will allow you to give your shop a professional appearance, while still taking advantage of Big Cartel’s simplicity.

Backend and Shop Management

When operating a Big Cartel shop, one of the major benefits is the ease of managing the shop on your own. Big Cartel has a very simple backend that’s super easy to figure out. Almost any body opening a shop will be able to do things such as create new products, pages, and categories and add content to them very easily.

In your Big Cartel shop backend, you can also review order details, check payment statuses, and track shipped orders. With these features, customer service can be handled more efficiency.

If you have a custom domain that you’d like to use for your shop, you can easily configure it with your Big Cartel shop, so instead of visitors seeing ‘yourshop.bigcartel.com’ in the address bar, visitors will just see ‘yourshop.com’. Even as a startup shop owner, it’s still important that your shop is presented professionally, and customizing the domain name helps.

The main drawback to managing your Big Cartel shop is that there isn’t any way to make bulk changes to your shop such as deleting several products at a time, or putting several products on sale at once. Also, while you can export your shop’s theme design, it’s not possible to import a theme; you need to manually install the theme. Another thing that would be great for Big Cartel to offer is the ability to bulk import/export products and their respective fields. Understandably, Big Cartel doesn’t offer this feature since the platform is intended for those selling a relatively small number of products.

Search Engine Optimization

By default, all Big Cartel shops are already search engine optimized. Big Cartel automatically outputs meta titles and descriptions for your shop, based on your product titles and descriptions. Big Cartel’s url structure for shops is also optimized for search engines.

Although Big Cartel is already set up to be search engine friendly, it does have some disadvantages when it comes to tailoring your site for SEO. Unfortunately, you can not create a custom meta title and description for your products, categories, or pages. This would come in handy, for example, if you wanted your actual product name to be one thing, while having the meta title (what’s seen in the search engine results for a term) to say something else that’s more targeted to the particular search term.

These SEO drawbacks aren’t major issues and shouldn’t be seen as deal breakers for using Big Cartel. You will still gain visibility in the search engines and you can still edit your product description in a subtle way to include keywords that you want to target.

Marketing

Big Cartel comes with some simple features that can assist you in your shop marketing efforts. You can create time sensitive discount codes, configured to give customers a dollar amount or percentage amount discount. With the discount code feature, you can even offer exclusive free shipping deals to customers. Another cool marketing feature is the ability to integrate your Big Cartel shop with your Facebook page. Big Cartel’s Facebook app makes it easy to sell products directly through Facebook.

Since Big Cartel is positioned as a simple shopping cart, there aren’t really any advanced marketing features that come with the platform. Unlike more some other platforms, you can’t do things like create autoresponders to automatically follow up with customers, set up an affiliate program, or send notifications to customers who abandoned their carts, just to name a few of the marketing limitations. Now if those marketing features sound complex or excessive, then you most likely wouldn’t need them now anyway, but they can come in handy as your company grows.

Conclusion

Big Cartel is best suited for startup businesses looking for a shopping cart platform that’s easy to manage, contains simple, yet essential, features, and allows for total design customization.

If you’re company is more advanced, and looking for a more robust shopping cart solution, that’s just about as easy to manage as Big Cartel, Shopify would be the next best thing. Shopify’s backend and management features are similar to Big Cartel’s at the core, but some of the features may be overwhelming and unnecessary to a brand owner just looking to get their “feet wet’ and start selling products.

Big Cartel is a great starting point for new brands and comes with all the features you’ll need when starting out. And with Big Cartel releasing new features in the future, you may find Big Cartel to be suitable fit for your company even as you grow. If you’re ready to get your shop up, and think Big Cartel is the best option for you, then try Big Cartel today!

YONIL released a brand new collection consisting of custom cut tees with some cool, unique designs. All tees are 100% combed cotton with a “really nice, soft feel”.

Free shipping on all orders over $65 (use promo code TSHRTMAG).

YONIL is an illustrator and a graphic designer based in Tel-Aviv, Israel. Check out his online portfolio and his facebook page.

LIMBO REMEDY presents “MAY IT BE” spring SALE! Use coupon code “MAYITBE” for 35% OFF at the LIMBO REMEDY online store. The code will be valid through May 2013.

All You Perfect Heroes is a new Uk-based clothing brand with a focus on original designs which promote freedom of expression. The brand’s ‘All You Perfect Heroes’ name embodies the idea that we all have the potential to be great, no matter who you are or where you are from. The debut Spring Collection includes the ‘Earn Your Stripes’ design (pictured) and the popular ‘Have More Sex’ ladies tee, both of which you can find at www.perfectheroes.co.uk

BYDFAULT is a socially conscious clothing brand from Seattle, WA that combines fashion and art to improve people’s lives. They sell shirts with social cause-inspired designs from contemporary artists. They donate $5 of every sale to the cause that inspired the design.

This new shirt was created in collaboration with UK-based fashion designers VIN and OMI for BYDFAULT to support the nonprofit Sightsavers and help eliminate avoidable blindness. The shirts are hand printed (sublimation) in Seattle and made 100% of recycled plastic bottles from USA yarns.

Go to their online shop and use the coupon code MAG to get 10% off when you order before May 30th.

BYDFAULT was launched in August 2012, based on the idea that art combined with fashion can be inspiring and help someone live a better life in the world every day. Check out the BYDFAULT website for more info.

The MSTRPLAN presents their second release featuring 3 new graphic tees. The new designs feature a dirty cop in the form of a Peanut’s parody, Death riding a drone, and a CCTV camera-head army.

The MSTRPLAN is an independent streetwear based out of LA/SF and takes inspiration from the powerful, the corrupt, and the clandestine. Society is filled with the questionable. “Think for yourself, and question what you have been made to believe as fact. Trust The MSTRPLAN”.

The MSTRPLAN is offering T-Shirt Magazine readers a 20% off code for your entire purchase. Enter code “TSHIRTMAG” at checkout to receive your discount. Code is valid until the end of May 4th (May 5th 12:00am PST). Also, all orders $50 and above receive free shipping! Check them out at their online shop!

Make Believe just launched the first half of their 2013 summer line. The lookbook was shot by photographer Steven Taylor and features Katelyn Tarver and Malese Jow from Big Time Rush.

You can check out the latest tees at their online shop.

2live2love, a Baltimore-based apparel brand, offers original designs that promote love and self-expression. The brand’s name embodies the ideology that we are living on Earth to experience and share love. 2live2love uses its apparel to promote positivity without being “sticky sweet” about it. Its spring collection includes its D.O.P.E. (Dealing Only Positive Energy) t-shirt and Peace t-shirt that bears the I-Ching symbol for peace.

Check out their latest collection at 2live2love.com. Use promo code “SPREADLOVE” and receive 15% off of your purchase.

PurpleJunkie Clothing Co. has launched the Spring+Summer 2013 Line. New Crop Tops and V-Necks for both men and women are now available, as well as onesies for babies. Check out their online shop.