I received this t-shirt from Cotu Designs about a week or so ago. It’s not a bad shirt. The blank is a heavy cotton Gildan tee. The print is a little thicker than I like but there is not much you can do about that when you want to print light colors on a dark t-shirt, especially if you want those colors to pop. And yes, they do pop. The artwork is well done and print itself is flawless. Altogether it is a very good quality t-shirt.

I wasn’t sure about the subject matter so I googled it and there are various meanings associated with it. Some are quite vulgar and others are just curious. There is no real description on the t-shirt page in the Cotu Designs store except for the following words:

Chug chug chug chug chug chugchugchugchug!

Combine that with the inclusion of two bottles in the design and I think it’s reasonable to think that in this case “Take it to the face” means “drink!”. Also, I’m not sure how many people would try to sell t-shirts about … never mind. Just Google it if you are curious.

As usual, when I get a t-shirt to review I like to talk about the website. I think this website needs a lot of work and I think a lot of things should be changed if Cotu Designs want to succeed as an online store.

First though, I’ll talk about what I like. It’s not a lot but I like the header and the footer area. They are clean and almost uniform and the light blue complements the dark colors of the site. While the logo is not to my taste, I think it is professional looking.

The biggest problem I have with this website though is the mockups. I wouldn’t buy anything from this site simply because I haven’t seen any real t-shirts. And that can be OK but even the mockups used are really poor quality.  There is no evidence that Cotu Designs actually have a t-shirt. I have evidence sitting on my desk but a casual visitor has none. Or if there is evidence it’s not easy enough to find. Maybe they only print designs if they sell so they have to rely on mockups until they do.

They have printed at least one t-shirt though because I have it. They could have taken a photo of it before they sent it out and then there would be at least one genuine product picture.

The designs in the store are not works of art. They are quite simple. I don’t mean that as a criticism though as I like simple shirts. I don’t get some the references either but I guess people who are into those video games/memes might be interested in wearing them. They just don’t seem to be particularly clever or original though.

The internet is saturated with t-shirt stores and I see stores open and close all the time. Cotu Designs launched this year (2012) but if they don’t step up their game I have a feeling they won’t be around by the end of the year. Producing a good quality t-shirt won’t matter if people don’t buy it.

Link: Cotu Designs