Design by Rick Calzi, he a native to Buffalo, NY. He moved to St. Petersburg, Fl and began to create his own work. The style is a hybrid of comic and tattoo art that consists of bold lines and graphic images. He has worked with local bands in making posters for concerts and events. Works have been applied to stickers, buttons, patches, shirts, posters, and tattoos. Rick recently came up with the name of “Dying Breed” for his collective pieces. He had the desire to give his work its own name and face. “Dying Breed” captures the feel of the audacious images used in his art.

You can see more of his work on dyingbreedillustration.com
 

We have chosen to try and wear Why so serious? designed by Dracoimagem – men’s shirt, navy, size M, and Fonte des glaces, designed by Vinsse – men’s shirt, light blue, size L, both screen print transfer.

Delivery took less than a week (we are located in Europe) and the package was shipped from Germany and traveled via regular post labeled as priority. The t-shirts were packaged separately in branded plastic bags and wrapped up in an A4 envelope.

Besides the 2 t-shirts the envelope also contained a delivery note describing the products, a laFraise sticker and a cute card containing care instructions in 3 languages (English, French and German).

The sticker had on the backside this nice presentation of the company: “this is not (just) a sticker. laFraise is Europe’s largest t-shirt design competition. Everyday, hundreds of talented designers submit their creations while thousand of members rate, praise or flame them. After a week-long struggle, only a few designs survive to finally be printed in a high-quality, 500 t-shirt limited edition. laFraise.com: We love design, we love t-shirts and stickers are okay too.”

Opening the package made us really happy to notice the quality and the vivid colors of the designs, especially on the Why so serious? one which has more colors / contrast. We really loved this design from the very first moment when we have seen it in the shop, so seeing it live and such clearly printed made us really happy. Both t-shirts designs have a cartoonish / illustrative feel and the print underlines this very very well.

The designs are printed on American Apparel t-shirts and on the neck label you can read that “Thish t-shirts was sewn by 9 people in a sweatshop-free environment in Downtown LA, where they are paid fair wages and have access to healthcare and benefits.” Besides the “made in the US” on this label you can also read the size and the care & wash instructions. So, we can easily mention that quality is a good keyword to describe both the design printing and the t-shirt / material quality.

A small observation: if you are looking for a more slim fit t-shirt we may recommend you to consider a smaller measurement that the ones you usually order or check very careful the dimensions presented on the website. The t-shirts seem to be a bit larger that what we are usually used to buy and wear.

Our verdict? We recommend laFraise t-shirts for the material quality, for the printing quality, for their designs originality and for the fast delivery.

Buy
– Why so serious? tee designed by Dracoimagem
– Fonte des glaces tee designed by Vinsse

or choose your own from lafraise.com

T-shirt designed by Emery Greer
You can buy this t-shirt from threadless.com
 

The inspiration comes from within and I am not influenced by other artists, because I always seek for originality. I love using natural elements, shapes and colors that make me feel good. Sometimes I seek inspiration in photographs. – robsonborges

T-shirt designed by robsonborges
You can buy this t-shirt from springleap.com