How'd You Pick These T-Shirt Categories?

I recently learned a new word: Polymath. I found it while looking for words to describe a person with a ton of different interests. Although I wouldn't call myself one, I can relate to having interests all over the place.

In fact at last check I have the following list: snowboarding, skateboarding, designing t-shirts, designing computer chips, starting companies and web sites, mentoring kids, writing short stories (some published) and I've written a novel while driving across America. I write songs and play the guitar and keyboard. I follow and make fun of most burgeoning internet trends (but still participate). I run a small outdoor drive-in and have recently revised an interest in astronomy with a sweet new telescope.

I am also currently between work assignments, making me one of America's army of unemployed. With all the activities listed above I still fill the day with work and employ two people part-time.

With all this going on around me, when I have t-shirt ideas, I never know where they are gonna come from. I did my best to categorize them. Here's what I've got:

• Recessin' -- For all the ideas that hit me while I'm bemused by this current economy.

• Clothe The Nerds -- I design computer chips, graphics and web sites. I'm a nerd from way-back.

• Modern Life -- This is a spot for all the new topics facing human beings and is a bit of a catch-all category for my random thoughts and for topics local to me in Massachusetts.

• NetShirting -- All things fun or funny about the internet.

• Anti-Social Networking -- I like to poke fun at social networking. It's almost too easy.

• Citizens of the Word -- For my inner literary side (and grammatical tyrant).
  

Most of all, though, I like people and to make my friends and family laugh. Hopefully some of my shirts will make you happy too. Order one today!

-polymatt (not really)

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New T-Shirt Designs!

Imagine the Bastard Nerd Son of Johnny Cash and Acid Burn. Introducing the first of our new Hex Palette Series T-Shirts, The #000000 Collection. These comfy cotton garments not only say that you are one stylish kid, they also remind the world how well you know your hex palette. Check them out today in the Clothe The Nerds category of OncePressed.com.

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Once Pressed. Forever Worn.

Do you have a special notebook? If it's the kind I'm thinking of, it's probably pretty beat-up. Maybe it's by your bed to record your dreams? Maybe you even email yourself ideas? For me it's a moleskine, my phone or the reliably low-tech post-it. I need these things because my brain never stops.

Ideas happen at random. You may overhear a phrase, roll it over in your head and have an idea that you find just too clever to let go. With some confidence that what you have to say is worth expressing, you write it down. (Let the other subway riders wonder.)

Over the years a recurring T-Shirt Idea List kept showing up in my notebooks. OncePressed is the culmination of that list and the ideas are still coming. I hope you enjoy them and one finds its way into your dresser drawer, not in a notebook, but in cotton.

Once Pressed, Forever Worn.

Thanks for stopping by.

-matt

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My Printfection API T-Shirt Store Generator Code

The t-shirt store portion of oncepressed.com is running in my custom PHP. That PHP is calling the Printfection API to build the entire store. I'd call the code about 50% solid at the time of this writing.

Over the past few months I have been testing this code on oncepressed.com and will some day make it available to the public, depending on interest. It is essentially a way to run existing Printfection templates from your own domain. It is similar, although much less feature-full, to an existing product called myPFstore made by an Australian developer who got so involved in Printfection customization that they ended up hiring him.



Some highlights of the store-generator are:

* All pages and breadcrumbing are handled in one file: section.php which, for the purpose of visual clarity, includes a few files with self-explanatory names like header.php, menu.php, footer.php and functions.php.

* Every page, even index.php calls section.php since even the top level of your store has a section ID.

index.php ends up looking like this:

<?php
$section_id = "254933";
include 'section.php';
?>


The advantage of this is approach is that you only have to maintain one main body page for the whole site.

Other niceties of this burgeoning platform:

1) I have maintained the standard Printfection DOM, so any template CSS should still apply nicely.
2) I have referenced every field possible in your Printfection settings, so that you can still change most of your site without touching PHP. You can definitely add products and sections without worry. You can also change things like Store Title and Description and have your site automatically updated.
3) When you are ready to touch PHP, I have extended the template approach adding new variables to the header.php file like $header_code (for an advanced header or sale section) , $footer_code (I use this for a "popular designs" section) and $title_appender which can add a string to all titles to help your AdWords landings.
4) Other fields in header.php (because I was surprisingly unable to grab these through the API) are $meta_keywords and $meta_description. If anyone knows how to pull these through the API, I'd love to hear how.
5) I even fixed a Printfection bug in my code and the section marker tick graphic will stay, marking a major section you've entered, no matter how deep you descend into it.

The only time a user's browser will actually see the printfection.com URL is when they go to place an order, which I've done as a browser pop-out to let the user know this change is happening. But this is not as jarring as you may guess since you can have the exact same template in both places, I have even failed to notice the transition myself. You can see this in action on my site by choosing a shirt type: http://www.oncepressed.com/section.php?sectionid=282113 (Hell, while you're there why not buy one.)

To do:
1) Image and content caching per the API conditions.
2) Handle the shopping cart portion of the purchase as well.
3) Extra link handling (like the link to this Blog)
4) Being able to list popular designs by number to create the "popular designs" section
5) More things I haven't thought of yet, I'm sure.

My general impressions of the API are good. Documentation is excellent, although, examples are few. What was written is excellent and was put together by the previously-mentioned Australian gentleman named Gavin. I started right where his examples leave off. It seems the few adopters of the API who have used it have had the idea of extending the functionality of the store and to make new products, I just wanted to put it under my own roof.

Stay tuned to track my progress and feel free to post any questions. I'm holding on to my code for now, though, as I haven't decided just how I'll distribute it.

thanks,

-matt

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