You may have noticed a few subtle changes around these parts in the past few days. (Boo if you didn’t, you need to pay more attention!)

So I wanted to take a few minutes to share with you some of the things that are new with Pop Culture Tees, and some of the things we’re working on.

1. Commenting is now un-moderate That’s right; you post, your comment is live instantly. We’re counting on our systems to keep the spam count down and allow your quality posts through without the wait time. Yay comments!
2. New micro-advertising options We’re playing around with some ways to generate a little more revenue to help support PopCultureTees by adding some different advertising options.

   In addition to our standard advertising rates for the 180×75 pixel banners, we’re now working through Project Wonderful to offer some less expensive options with only slightly less visibility.

   If you’re interested in a custom advertising option that isn’t one of the two we’ve mentioned, just let us know.

3. New Press Contact We’ve set up a new email address specifically for companies who’d like to save some typing and want to add us to their PR list for automatic news. That address is: press [at] popculturetees.com. We love you guys!
4. Featured Articles You thought we just reviewed t-shirts? Pfft! There’s some meat here too. And to help highlight some of the awesome articles we’ve had recently, check the new sidebar listing of our most popular ones. We promise, there’s going to be even more.
5. Pop Culture Tees author talks about blogging (and refers to herself in the 3rd person during this post) on two separate sites: Copyblogger and Remarkable Blogging.

Got any suggestions of things you’d like to see on the site? Or questions about t-shirts you’ve been dying to find the answers to? Drop us a comment and let us know.

We totally dig highly detailed bright designs like this, but we have to sympathize with the poor printer who had to try and put it on a shirt. Can you imagine the dude’s face when someone told him he had to put this on a tee?

It’s also a real pleasure to read the interview with the artist who came up with this design.

22EU + shipping at ShirtCity

Have you ever spent countless hours creating a masterpiece for t-shirt printing only to receive bad news back from the printer? You have probably heard something to the effect of “the resolution is bad” or “we can’t separate the colors” or even the silly response of “we can print this but it’s not going to look good”. Now why would you want someone to print something, if it isn’t going to look good?

Since we did our first post about awesome Obama shirts, we’ve found even more great designs and had a bunch of submissions to the site.

So here’s part II, with five more outstanding designs!

1. There’s Something About Berry

Super-clever concept that’s been well executed. Lots of different designs available around the same theme. $25.00 BUY NOW

2. Hope

We really dig the clean simplicity of both the designs offered through this shop, but this one is our favorite of the two (and not just because they’re one of our advertisers). $19.95 BUY NOW.

3. “Yes We Can” Around the World

It’s no secret that the rest of the world heavily supports Obama. Now, no matter where you are you can wear your support. Through cafepress and spreadshirt (if you’re in europe) you can pick up one of these shirts in one of 10 different languages. BUY in the US or EUROPE.

4. “Yes We Can”

Most of the shirts on this site are only so-so, but this one fits the bill for being cleanly designed and straight to the point. Tons of different styles available.

5. Restore America (vintage)

One of the more expensive designs out there, we still really dig this one because it’s printed on a cool baseball tee and has a great vintage feel. Plus, the site says a portion of all proceeds will go to the Official Barack Obama Campaign. $35.95 BUY NOW

A few weeks ago, we put out a call to readers of Pop Culture Tees to help us bring new views and content to the site.

Stuff that YOU want to read about.

The response was great, and we’re really thrilled to have Blake from You Design It as one of our first guest authors.

Blake’s post (we’d tell you what it’s about, but we don’t want to ruin the surprise) will appear on Friday, but we wanted to introduce him to you today, and ask him a few questions about t-shirts, design, and everything else.

Here’s what he had to say:

Can you talk a little bit about your background in the apparel industry? (How did you get involved? Which aspects are you most passionate about?)

I got started in the apparel industry as a teen sweeping the warehouse at a local printing company. I moved into a sales position after college and really found my niche on the apparel side (the company printed paper, tags, etc.)

The part that made it less of a job and more of a passion was t-shirt design and more specifically… design that prints the best. We like to come up with creative ways to simplify the print but still maintain the design’s integrity.

You must see a lot of artwork come through your doors… what are some of the biggest mistakes you see artists make when designing for t-shirts?

It would have to be to much use of gradients, shading and glows. Those techniques are great for web design and digital printing on paper, but they rarely translate into 100% quality for screen printed t-shirts. We can do it and it will still look good, but the expectations of the designer have to be in line with the limitations of the print process.

What’s the single most important thing that you would tell someone who was designing a t-shirt for the first time?

Have fun! Don’t take everything too seriously because there will be some obstacles and headaches but they can all be overcome. Have some flexibility to compromise but also be willing to push the limits. You will learn the most from going through the process firsthand.

Great advice Blake.

Don’t miss Friday’s post when we’ll hear more from Blake. Subscribe to our RSS feed now to get it pumped straight to your News Reader.

Are you interested in guest posting on Pop Culture Tees? Get all the details about it right here.