Kickass places for Custom Designed Gear
Everyone loves creative gear right? Well, what about stuff that not everyone has? Even better. Below are a few places that offer some really creative and kickass shwag. These are great people, doing great work and selling it to you and me. Need a shirt? Got it. Need an iPhone case? Got that too. Now go buy some gear! I’m sure there are other great places for
UGMONK
As the market continues to become saturated with overly complex, cluttered designs, Ugmonk’s mission is to provide high-quality products with simple, fresh graphics.
About the Designer
Jeff Sheldon makes his home in Downingtown, PA with his wife and no pets. He graduated with a B.S. in graphic design in 2008 and has a passion for all things design. When he’s not designing, Jeff enjoys snowboarding, soccer, biking, photography, and sleeping.
Inksie
Inksie is a brand, online community, and shop based on well-designed products and the culture that embodies them. The hub of our organization consists of new designers and veterans alike, excited to create, distribute, and vote on works of art around the world.
IdeaCafe
In this age of digital communication, smart phones, and touch computing, there is still a yearning for the simple. Despite the blood curdling pace at which technology inexorably advances, many people prefer to capture ideas and thoughts on an age old device — paper.
The purpose of this site is to provide a friendly, easy to use experience for finding and purchasing high quality notebooks, notepads, sketchbooks, and whatever othercreativity-inspiring products strike our fancy. We aim to enable creative people to find all the resources they need to work on their projects, capture their thoughts, and wireframe their lives in a format that fits them.
Veer
At Veer, you’ll enjoy an uncomplicated shopping experience that lets you stay focused on what’s really important: your creative work. You’ll also find things to do, accessories for creatives at home and on the go, plus endless opportunities to save.
House Industries
Known throughout the world as a prolific type foundry, House Industries has made a considerable impact on the world of design. House Industries fonts scream from billboards, wish happy whatever from tens of thousands of greeting cards, serve as the basis for consumer product logos and add elements of style to a wide range of mainstream media. In their illustrious career, House artists have mastered a large cross-section of design disciplines. Their typography deftly melds cultural, musical and graphic elements. From early forays into distressed digital alphabets to sophisticated type and lettering systems, House Industries’ work transcends graphic conventions and reaches out to a broad audience. What ultimately shines in the House Industries oeuvre is what always conquers mediocrity: a genuine love for their subject matter. Be it hot rods, classically relevant lettering or Swiss Modernism, House continues to provide typographic optimism in this age of the lowest aesthetic common denominator.
Poolga
Poolga is about art and design on hand-held devices and discovering talented illustrators and designers. We think that the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad are great devices for carrying around, displaying and sharing art. We mostly focus on illustration, graphic design and typography.
Johnny Cupcakes
Customers like and appreciate the story and work ethic behind my brand. I started this as a joke from the trunk of my beat up ‘89 Toyota Camry. A college drop out with a drug and alcohol-free lifestyle, I never wasted my time going out and partying but instead focused only on brainstorming and sketching up my wacky ideas. I turned down investors and took countless risks like keeping my shirts out of chain stores.
Other Places
What did we miss? There are thousands of unique places to buy some good gear. Give us your input in the comments!
Chad Engle is currently slaying pixels @BoomtownROI. He abides in coastal Charleston, SC and enjoys living on an island. You should follow, harass or chat to him on twitter @chadengle and @fuelcreativity .
Grab the Feed
I am nowhere near the level of these guys (yet) but I just opened up my shop. Right now I am stocked with a pack of six 1-inch buttons that are awesome. And I just placed my order for t-shirts that will be ready for sale in a couple weeks. But I have big plans for the future to keep making stuff that rocks.
That’s awesome Kyle! All the best on your path to greatness!
Thanks Chad. I’ve been really inspired by people like Jeff Sheldon (aka Ugmonk) and Johnny Cupcakes who have this “go get em” attitude about putting themselves out there and being themselves. I see a lot of mass manufactured crap around me and I hope to bring some true original hand-made designs to the table.
Chad: thanks for the inclusion here. I don’t feel like Idea Cafe can compete with the likes of Johnny Cupcakes!
Nice round-up Chad, the first missing site that springs to mind is the intellectual t-shirts from the affair (http://www.the-affair.com/). To quote a bit of their about us section:
“Driven to action by the glut of bland streetwear, we are the result of a healthy love of reading mixed with a genetic loathing of dumb hiphop references.”
@Kyle I look forward to seeing some more of your work.
Thanks for the feature Chad! Honored to be included with these other awesome brands.
This is a really strong list for sure. Similar to Kyle, I opened a shop in March and we are growing one shirt at a time. http://www.typoapparel.com
Thanks for another great post, Chad!
Those are some bad-ass iPhone cases. Sure beats the plan black one I have ! hah
Great article, I’m always on the look out for something new and unique. I don’t like to follow the high street trends or keep up to date with the latest fashion, I just see things I like and wear that because of the design. One of my favourite shops is addict.co.uk, they’re urban with a selection of limited edition artist t-shirts. They also sell designer toys and books which are a real treat.
I think ugmonk has long been a store I would love to buy their great threads from!
I hate normal high street clothing at the moment, it is extremely monochrome and doesn’t seem to have anything fun or unique about the design. Or cost a BOMB!
These guys have got my attention. I am desperate to find some well designed tshirts and this is where I’m going to get them from. I love the Ugmonk number 7 one.
Do these come in all sizes? where do you guys get your inspiration from to design the tshirts.
Thanks
Very inspiring brands, Idea Cafe looks very interesting – you still can’t beat the humble Moleskine though!
This is a seriously awesome post! Thank you. I love custom design.
Great post thx a lot. To the additions of others I’ll like to add http://www.lastexittonowhere.com