The Thousands

Webster’s dictionary defines ‘conflict of interest’ as “a conflict between the private interests and the official responsibilities of a person in a position of trust”. I’m not sure about using all of the words of a phrase in its own definition, but that’s the Webster people for you. Anyways, as your person of trust in this instance I must declare that this article is about a store to which I have contributed a design.

This doesn’t stop the store from being awesome, though. Red Tomato Design’s tee shirt store is the store in question, and their range of screen printed shirts are here just as summer is at its back-sweating hottest. The online shop is a project by Adelaide designer Tom Pascale, who recently entered the screen-printing world, making a big splash with his I Have a Theme exhibition at Magazine Gallery.

There’s already an impressive range of shirts on the site by local and national artists, and a new batch of designs will arrive every couple of months hence. Making up these tees really is a labour of love (much back-sweat involved), and the care and attention that Tom concentrates into each one is obvious (may contain traces of back-sweat). Added to this is the fact that they’re all limited run designs, so you can walk around feeling as unique as the other twelve people wearing your shirt. Oh yeah, and Tom’s been a friend of mine for about 15 years. So there’s another conflict of interest for you. This article is a mess.