Tag Archives: stl style

A brief history of IheartPGH the t-shirt, the blog & the PGH t-shirt show

Thursday, April 23 is the 5th annual PGHTee, a celebration of Pittsburgh t-shirts. This event suits me to a T, well to a T-shirt.  Bad t-shirt puns aside, this blog is the direct result of a t-shirt.  Before I give you the not so brief history of why I love Pittsburgh t-shirts as much as I love Pittsburgh, here are the details on the Pittsburgh Tee Show:

PGHTee 2015 – A Celebration of Pittsburgh T-Shirts

An event showcasing the best t-shirts of the 'burgh

An event showcasing the best t-shirts of the ‘burgh

The PghTee is a T-shirt show and sale. This is one of the many events for Pittsburgh Craft Beer Week, so yes there will be beer.

  • Date: Thursday, April 23, 2015
  • Time: 6pm-9pm
  • Location: Commonwealth Press Warehouse, 2315 Wharton St., Pittsburgh, PA 15203
  • RSVP: Facebook Event Page
  • Cost: Free, unless you want to buy t-shirts, and you will want to buy a t-shirt.

In addition to displays some of the finest t-shirt vendors in town will be selling their wares…

Which came first the T-shirt of the Blog?

A brief history of IheartPGH the t-shirt, the blog & the PGH t-shirt show

The universe keeps bringing me back to Pittsburgh t-shirts.  Here is a brief history of how t-shirts are responsible for the creation of this blog and how the PGHTee t-shirt show came to be (which all goes back to a comment from a reader of this blog).

One of the first IheartPGH t-shirt

One of the first IheartPGH t-shirts

Back in 2003, in the days before blogs were even a thing, I was bored on a rainy Sunday afternoon and made a visit to the Andy Warhol museum.  Before I left the museum, I stopped in the basement to try screenprinting.  I left the museum, drove to the art supply store and decided I would teach myself to screen print.  The first t-shirt I printed was the “I heart PGH” t-shirt. I printed t-shirts in the basement of my mom’s house. I would make my sisters hold the screens while I printed  the shirts.  They still refer to the basement as my sweatshop. I am pretty sure the t-shirt in the photo is one of the first that I ever printed, I can tell because it was printed on a Hanes under-shirt that was most likely purchased at Gabes.

I went on to start a little t-shirt company and found a Duquesne student to build my first website. And in true Pittsburgh fashion, last year I worked on a big project and that same Duquesne student is now a big developer at a big Pittsburgh business.

My little business grew and I got a few orders and I needed a partner to print some shirts (my sweatshop crew couldn’t keep up with the demand).  One day I was leaving the Avalon Exchange, back when it was located in Oakland in the space that is now occupied by NoWait.  I picked up a flier for a screenprinting place located on the South Side.  Keep in mind, this was back in the day before Twitter, before Facebook, we are talking back in the era of Friendster and MySpace.  And people, certainly not me, did not use the internet to reach out to connect to strangers.  I emailed the screenprinter and we met for a cup of coffee. I am pretty sure we met at one of the Beehive coffee shops, this was back when there was a Beehive location in Oakland (which is now the noodle shop/T-mobile). That is how I met Dan Rugh, back when he was running his screen-printing shop was in the basement of his house. Today, Commonwealth Press has a storefront on Carson Street, a warehouse/production facility on Wharton Street, a t-shirt truck and employees at least a dozen people who are passionate about printing stuff.

Hand printed t-shirt from Bill Peduto's 2005 campaign for mayor

Hand printed t-shirt from Bill Peduto’s 2005 campaign for mayor

In 2004, I quit my job and went to work on the Kerry/Edwards campaign.  After that I worked on was Bill Peduto’s first campaign for mayor of Pittsburgh.  The campaign didn’t have any money, so we made campaign t-shirts by collecting old t-shirts, and then we headed over to AIR on the open studio nights. AIR is short for Aritst Image Resources, a non-profit organization located on the North Side that basically exists to help people print things.  I wish I had known about AIR when I was first learning to screen print.  We turned the old t-shirts inside out and printed the Peduto logos, designed by local artists, on the inside-out-t-shirts.  While working on this campaign, I met Dave Mansueto, who was just getting into podcasting and would spend hours trying to explain RSS feeds to me.  I knew how to build an HTML website and at the time, I was convinced that is all I would ever need to know.

In the fall of 2005, I was unemployed and using my big old desktop computer to build some websits. This blog started as a kind of a joke between Natalia Rudiak.  Natalia was another person who I had met while working on the first Peduto campaign.  We would talk about what politicians were saying about why young people wanted to move to Pittsburgh and how they were often wrong.  So in response, I built a website. I decided to give WordPress a try, seemed like a faster way to build a website than HTML, and IheartPGH was born.  A huge THANK YOU to Dave Mansueto for patiently schooling me on the virtues of the RSS feed.  If you are interested in podcasting, Dave is the person to talk to and you should check out his app, bossjock studio @bossjockapp , which is one of the best apps for recording a podcast from an iphone/ipad.

Never in a million years did I think that blogging would become my job. But thanks to one of our readers who left a comment on the blog, I learned that the t-shirt company Spreadshirt was hiring a blogger.  I applied and my official title was Wizard of Web 2.0.

In 2008, Spreadshirt launched a marketing effort to elevate the t-shirt by naming the first day of summer International T-shirt Day.  You can see the sad little blog post I wrote about this first t-shirt day on the Spreadshirt blog here.  July 2008 was a big milestone for this little blog. Thanks to the Pittsburgh t-shirt we were featured on the front page of the New York Times magazine section, along with our St. Louis t-shirt loving friends, STL Style. The article was about t-shirts and rust belt cities. (Should you ever find yourself in St. Louis and feeling a bit homesick for Pittsburgh, head straight to STL Style on Cherokee street and mention IheartPGH to Jeff and Randy Vines.  While they love St. Louis, I can assure you that they are solid Pittsburgh fans and will welcome you with open arms.)

IheartPGH in the New York Times

IheartPGH in the New York Times

This Year's T-Shirt
Image by mrdestructicity via Flickr

A few years later, I had been laid off from Spreadshirt. It should come as no surprise that when you have to have a round of layoffs the the first people to go are the bloggers or the people who had the word wizard in their job title, so I was doubly doomed. In what was probably yet another round of underemployment for me, I happened to be scheming, I mean meeting, with Dan Rugh and a host of other local bloggers who love Pittsburgh and t-shirts.  We decided that Pittsburgh needed a t-shirt day event too. Thus the Pittsburgh T-Shirt show was born (you can see a list of some of the vendors from the first PGHTee event here. Thanks to the first Pittsburgh t-shirt show, we met even more Pittsburgh t-shirt lovers like Dave White aka @MrDestructicity who was running his own t-shirt project wearing and documenting all of the t-shirts that he owns.

Thanks to the crafty thinking of Dan Rugh, the Pittsburgh T-shirt show is in its 5th year and now one of the many great events for Pittsburgh Craft Beer Week.

As I write this blog post, I am kind of amazed that I reached out to Dan in the first place. I was incredibly shy and I wouldn’t go anywhere by myself. I am thankful that Dan continues to be a sounding board and cheerleader for my ideas. Today, thanks to Andy Warhol, some t-shirts, a blog, I will pretty much go anywhere and talk with anyone.

I hope to see you tomorrow (or today, depending on when you are reading this) at the 5th Annual Pittsburgh T-shirt show. I will gladly be toasting the t-shirt, especially the Pittsburgh t-shirt.

Register for the 4th Annual GLUE Conference!

First things first, we are not talking about rubber cement or Elmer’s glue – GLUE is about cities, neighborhoods and people. If you are a new reader or new to GLUE ..

GLUE is short for the Great Lakes Urban Exchange.  GLUE is an organization that was founded by a Pittsburgh native and a Detroit native to bring greater awareness to and to share ideas among 16 cities in the Great Lakes watershed areas.

I have had the opportunity to spend time with both of the founders of GLUE and in many ways GLUE is like IheartPGH for a larger geographical area.  But GLUE has done more than just blogging photos.  GLUE has built a community of people who are passionate about their cities across 16 cities.  I attended the 2nd GLUE conference in Milwaukee (the write up of my visit to Milwaukee is here) and I wasn’t sure what to expect.  I left Milwaukee full of ideas, stories and with new friends who are as excited about and advocating for their cities as we are about Pittsburgh.  One of the best things we can do is share stories and learn from other cities successes and occasional failures.

On Saturday, my journey from the Pacific to PGH included a stop in St. Louis.  I had the good fortune to stop by and check out the STL Style House.  STL Style is a pro-St. Louis t-shirt and gift shop run by Jeff and Randy Vines.  They are the St. Louis equivalent of IheartPGH and then some.  Jeff and Randy were out at Lou Fest when I stopped by the shop, but we learned all about their successful Save The Saucer campaign where the rallied other residents to save a local landmark.

2011 = GLUE + PGH

GLUE comes to you!  No planes, trains or hotel rooms needed. September 15-17, 2011 Pittsburgh will host the 4th Annual GLUE conference.  The theme for this years conference is Green-Lighting Neighborhoods.

They have put together an amazing 48 hours of presentations, work shops and tours of Pittsburgh places.

Conference Details

GLUE’s 4th Annual Conference: Green-Lighting Neighborhoods
Thursday September 15 – Saturday September 17 (Click here for complete conference agenda)

  • Thursday – Tour of Pittsburgh, Keynote Addresses, Dinner and Reception
  • Friday – Workshops and Site Visits
  • Saturday – Workshops and Site Visits

Locations – The Kinglsey Center and other locations around Pittsburgh

Registrations and Conference Fees

Online Registration is here.

The costs to attend the conference is $100, a discounted rate of $60 is available for students, non-profits, low-income individuals.

The registration fee includes sessions, site visits, and some meals.

A note about the conference fee – I know that $100 and $60 is a lot to ask.  One of the most valuable parts of my experience in Milwaukee was talking with other people over meals and on the tours.  I know the organizers have worked very hard to make sure to provide that same scenario for Pittsburgh. Your registration fee includes meals and transportation and I strongly believe that is a valuable part of the experience.

If you would like to attend but cannot afford the conference fee – please email iheartpgh-at-gmail.com – IheartPGH wants to make sure that those who want to attend, can do so and we will try to work something out.

Is GLUE for You – Who should attend the 2011 GLUE conference?

The conference is open to anyone who wants to attend.  You do not have to be a blogger or community development professional.  Attendees come from all difference backgrounds.

Are you interested in any of the following…

  • meeting other people who are working to reviatlize their neighborhoods and cities
  • sharing stories and ideas for better communities
  • learning about best practices across the GLUE cities
  • learning more about how community development works
  • green development
  • transportation – transit, bike lanes, parking issues
  • meeting other people who <3 their city and neighborhoods
  • learning about Larimar
  • learning about development in East Liberty
  • blogging
  • meeting young leaders from Pittsburgh and other cities
  • running for office

Then the GLUE conference is for you!

Get stuck on GLUE

There are lots of ways you can get involved with GLUE – as part of the conference and beyond.

For the conference: Register to attend the conference here, Spread the word (Facebook Event for the conference is here) or Sponsor the conference.

Beyond the conference: follow GLUE on Twitter and Facebook.

Conference Poster

Links Worth a Look – July 19th

Here are some links/articles/blog posts that are worth a look:

Follow IheartPGH on Twitter – we share more links there almost daily!

pghT – Pittsburgh Celebrates International T-shirt Day – Mon. June 21

The Heart of PA T-shirts from IheartPGH.Spread...
Image by IheartPGH via Flickr

It started with a tweet – for the past few years – Spreadshirt.com has declared June 21st International T-shirt Day.  We posted a tweet yesterday suggesting a PGH t-shirt day celebration.  A few tweets later – we had an event.  Just finished a quick PGH t-shirt day get together with some of our PGH t-shirt friends from Commonwealth Press and Only in Pittsburgh.  Here is what we have got cooking – a t-shirt day celebration and later this summer a t-shirt show of Pittsburgh t-shirts.

There is just something about the t-shirt and the PGH t-shirts.  Before IheartPGH was a blog it was a t-shirt – the first t-shirt we ever screen printed was an IheartPGH shirt – years later it inspired this blog and many a t-shirt activity.  We met Commonwealth Press from a flyer about t-shirt prinitng – our little PGH shirt helped us to become friends with the t-shirt guys in St. Louis – STL Style (Hi Jeff and Randy!) and IheartPGH and STL Syle’s shirts even made it to the New York Times. We are really excited about these PGH t-shirt events – looking forward to seeing all of the great PGH t-shirts.

Here are the details for the PGH T-shirt Day on Monday – stay tuned for more info about all things PGH t-shirt.

This Year's T-Shirt
Image by mrdestructicity via Flickr

PGH celebrates International T-shirt Day
Monday, June 21, 2010
3-5pm Screen Printing Demos at Commonwealth Press – 1931 E. Carson St., Pittsburgh, PA 15203
5-8pm Happy Hour – wear your favorite PGH t-shirt @ OTB Cafe – 2518 Carson St., Pittsburgh, PA 15203

Facebook Event – http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=106329516082857

Twitter Hash Tag – #pghT

Want to help organize t-shirt day – email us iheartpgh@gmail.com

What is your favorite PGH t-shirt – please share links and phoots below.