I stumbled into many interesting shops while cruising the downtown shopping district of Kumamoto. From designer clothes stores to hip-hop boutiques, there was a store for every style I could think of. The clothing shop that caught most of my attention was a t-shirt store named graniph.

graniph logo, graniph.com

I was walking by the stores, looking at each’s display section when I almost had a freak-out moment, I did actually. In front of the store, graniph, was a shirt that caught my undivided attention. It was a simple red tee with the word “Helvetica” typed out in Helvetica font. I’d seen this shirt before…but where?

“HELVETICA”

I recall a photo of the Japanese rock band Art-School from a year-or-two back. I distictly remember the band’s lead singer, Riki Kinoshita (木下理樹) wearing a shirt that “Helvetica” written across it. His was long-sleeve but it’s pretty much the same.

After officially deciding to get the simple and cool “Hevletica” shirt, I browsed around the graniph shore looking for a second shirt to purchase in order to get a ‘discount’ for buying two tees. This process probably took over 1-hour in a store that probably wasn’t much bigger than 3 or 4 of my dorm rooms in size. There were hundreds of artistically designed t-shirts! I was impressed that Teruyo hung in there for so long and the lone sales girl was able to answer my endless barrage of questions.

THE GRANIPH STORY

Nature (ネイチャー), graniph.com

graniph is a great store and company. Headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo, there are stores throughout Japan. The girl working at the Kumamoto store even mentioned that the company has plans to open a store in Australia soon. The shirts that they sell are the work of designers and graphic artists from all over the world. It’s sort of a designer collective of stunning t-shirts.

From simple textual statements to complex designs, graniph’s products are internationally diverse. German, English, French, and Spanish make up the majority of the languages that grace the textual tees. As for the graphical work, feautured t-shirt designs are often very organic. Simply put, blank t-shirts are graniph’s canvas.

graniph doesn’t just stop at beautifully designed t-shirts. They have many varieties of hoodies, jackets, caps, beanies, bags, and even kids’ clothes. Moreover, they even sell pants, gloves, scarfs/mufflers, candles, and lighters; all of which sport eye-catching artistic designs.

SIZE DOESN’T MATTER

Another cool thing about graniph is the sizing and gender classification of their tees. Regular-cut shirts are not gender-specific. Instead, every shirt is measured according to men’s sizes but they’re all unisex. You don’t have to worry if “this is a women’s shirt”, if you’re a man and visa versa. The only barrier comes from your own intuition on whether the design or color looks too “girly” or “manly”. It’s great!

Spagetti Monster, graniph.com

THE GRANIPH CONTEST

As soon as I returned to the States I remembered to check out graniph’s official website. On their site is an advertisement/announcement for a t-shirt design contest: the graniph design award.1. This contest runs from February 1st until March 31st, 2007. Contest rules and provisions are in 11 major languages so graniph is seeking designs from artists anywhere, literally. You can read the rules for yourself here, but for starters, the Gold Prize Winner is awarded 1,000,000 yen (approx. $9,000 US) and the commericialization of your design. With rewards being that generous, I’m willing to give it a shot.

Included in this article are the images of some of my favorite shirt designs. But I recommend dropping into graniph’s online store and having a look around for yourself. The site is very frequently updated with new designs so if you like what you see but nothing particularly interests you (or you don’t currently have enough money), check back often.

Vist graniph’s official site