Hey, hello, hi and Happy Monday to all T-shirt lovers out there! As you'd probably know by now, we at Springleap love classic design and we're pretty damn t-shirt crazy. So, in the interests of historical review, and to provide inspiration to the needy, we're going to take an occasional walk down Memory Lane and dredge up some of the greatest T shirt designs of all time. If we can find out who created the design, we'll get that info too. If we can't, and maybe you know, could let us know? It's a deal.

Cool, let's kick this baby into gear. To start off this series, let's take a look at some of the most outstanding rock 'n roll tees of all time.

First up: the almighty Rolling Stones 'Hot Licks'. Designed by John Pasche in 1970 and used on the 'Sticky Fingers' album, it's arguably the most well-recognised rock 'n roll design of all time. It's loud, it's cheeky and it's still one of the iconic tees ever!

Next up: a dyed-in-the-blood classic that features the artwork from Joy Division's 'Unknown Pleasures' album.

This icon of cool features the design created by the legendary Peter Saville and inspired by the successive pulses of Pulsar CP 1919,  the first pulsar ever discovered. Designed in 1979, it's still going strong today - this is a tee that hipsters and rockers still covet, 33 years later!

Rounding off today's trip back through time, no post about classic rock 'n roll tees would be complete without a mention of the famous Guns 'n Roses 'Appetite For Destruction' tee.

It's a take on a gothic cross which combined a religious theme with that ever-popular visual theme - skulls - to create an instant classic. The cross and skull design was devised by Axl Rose as a tattoo featuring the 5 members of the band, drawn by artist Bill White Jr, and re-drawn by Andy Engell to create the end result we see here.

So - those are just three of the many classic tees we'll be featuring here on The Leap in our Greatest T-Shirts Of All Time series. We know there are many, many more - care to suggest your favourite all-time classic? Let us know! Send a mail to travis(at)springleap.com!

There are changes afoot at The Leap – big changes that will affect you if you’re a designer or illustrator who enters our contests. Good changes! But what are they?

For a start, our Open Theme contests are on hold until further notice, as we shift our focus to giving you, our community of designers and design lovers, the choice of branded contests that feature greater cash prizes and better competition!

We're currently looking for sponsors who will enable us to bring back our Open Theme contests soon – so if you know someone who might be interested, drop us a line at contact[at]springleap[dot]com. With these changes, expect some exciting news soon on the Branded Contest front - we can't let the cat out the bag just yet, but there are some great contests in the pipeline! 

In other news, we at The Leap are about to change from our present model of printing large volumes of tees in one go, to PRINT ON DEMAND! This means that our customers will now always be able to get the design they want in the size they want!
 

GET READY TO BUY OUR TEES AT ALL-TIME EPIC PRICES! 

To clear out our shelves of all those great designs we’ve printed in the past, we’re going to be selling all of our sweet t-shirts soon at ridiculous reduced prices, a.k.a WE’RE GOING TO HAVE A MASSIVE CLEARANCE SALE! It’s the biggest sale we've ever had - you won't want to miss out on the deals that are coming! 

DEAL 1 - R79 for a T-shirt!  (offer only valid for 48 hours with correct coupon code) 

DEAL 2 - R60 for a T-shirt! (offer valid Aug 1 - 5 with correct coupon code) 

DEAL 3 - R100 for 2 T-shirts! (offer valid Aug 6 - 8 with correct coupon code) 

DEAL 4 - R45 for a T-shirt! (offer valid 'til midnight 10 August GMT+2) 

Hello designers, design lovers and lovers of all things beautiful, and here is the news.

With a whizz, a bang and flashing as it goes, the future has finally arrived, folks! Put down the lightsaber, hit the pause button on that Blade Runner Redux and stop dreaming about Second Life becoming a real contender to replace Real Life® - the future's so bright, you're gonna need shades! 

What in the name of blazing RGB is this all about? Nothing short of the inevitable result of the march of LED technology, that's what! Those bright little lights have been making their way into our homes, cars and appliances for a long time, but at last the gap has been leapt and thanks to the creativity of people like David Forbes, the Video Coat has arrived! 

Now take a moment to think about this idea folks - video fabric. Taking the technology of LEDs, making them flexible, integrating them into fabric and applying the necessary soft- and hardware wizardry to make it possible to play an image on fabric. The result? Video clothing!

As you can see by the video, things are still in their prototype stage, but rest assured - if the technological shennanigans going on each year at Burning Man (and related events such as AfrikaBurn) such as tactile plasma coats are anything to go by, the race is on to make clothing become the next medium for communicating moving images. Where will it take us? Who knows, but it's certainly gonna be bright and colourful!   

p.s: if you thought that was cool take a look at this fibre optic fabric! 

p.p.s: Update! It seems this idea is taking flight across the world - check out this programmable T-shirt! 

BOOM! The five big circles are hanging from Tower Bridge, there are apparently thousands of tourists wandering the streets of London with their wheelie suitcases because they can't figure out how to use the Tube and the price of hotel rooms has rocketed by 63% on average...and beer is at an all-time premium. Yep, it's the Olympics, alright!

In the spirit of Olympian history - and for the full lowdown, go here - we're doing a bit of a review of the Olympic designs of the past century. Each and every Olympics - and we're talking both Winter and Summer games here - gets a fresh design identity, from a field of designers. Sometimes the results are awe-inspiring. Sometimes...well, let's just say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, shall we? 

OK, first up we go way back all the way to Paris Olympiad, in 1924. As you can see, the design sense is classic, and draws on the idea of the Games being an ancient pursuit: 

Next up, we have the legendary Mexico '68 design, created by US designer, Lance Wyman. This is arguably the most-admired Olympic design of all time (at least, by many graphic designers and design lovers) and has ever since enjoyed sporadic revisits in the form of retro lines of athletic apparel by Adidas. You can't really argue with the clean, eyecatching design, which makes great use of a simple colour palette and paralell lines:

Following on from this iconic design, the next couple of designs would almost seem to follow in the same vein, taking a tip from the clean, minimalist style of Wyman's 68. In defence of Montreal and Moscow's logos, you have to agree that they're accomplished designs in their own right: 

Next up we shoot forward in time to have a review of figure-based logos, which have both supporters and critics. Some absolutely love these for their movement and bright colours, while others tend to think that their design style is quite specifically dated to the 1990's and 2000's:  

Say what you will about these figure-based logos, but it's important to dig a litle deeper before slating them and relgating them to the scrapheap of history. Each has a background rationale which informs the basis of the design, and some of them are quite interesting, like the Vancouver 2010 design, which draws on native North American tribal iconography. Equally, the Beijing 2008 design displays a strong reference to Chinese historical art: 

Though critics of the Sydney 2000 logo are quick to point out that the winning design makes no reference to Australia. Lastly, we have this year's London 2012 logo, a design which has earned more than its fair share of slings and arrows from many quarters. Say what you like about the design, and the mascots, but the fact is that THE OLYMPICS ARE UPON US and, as with every Games's designs, it will now be added to the long list of designs that have graced the Olympics since their modern reincarnation has gripped the world every four years. 

Happy Monday to you, Springleap lover, wherever on Planet Earth you are! This is a big week for every nation on this spinning blue ball in space - it's the week in which every country scratches its head and wonders 'Are our guys up to the task? Have they trained enough? Will they bring home the medal bacon?' With only 4 days to go till the big opening ceremony, spirits are high and the host city London is buzzing! The Olympic Flame has made its way across the world, and the final preparations are underway for 16 days of record-breaking achievements and fierce competition! 

In the spirit of the Olympics, here at the The Leap we're bringing you some Olympic-themed suggestions on where to find the best design and illustration tutorials. Among these are some that are worthy of gold medallist designers, and others that are more aimed at intermediary and up-and-coming competitors. But whichever you choose to check out, remember - just as in the Olympics, practice makes perfect! 

First up: Chris Spooner's fantastic tutorial bank over on his Spoon Graphics blog, which features 50 Illustrator tutorials every designer should see. Among them are some of the best introductions to basic vector drawing, through to advanced tricks of the trade. Love your vectors? Wanna make them world-class? Click on over to Spoon Graphics and vectorise your work into next week!

Next up: the awesome Vector Tuts, where pro's and amateurs get great tips on polishing their work. Among the tutorial available is this Olympic-themed gem: how to create a running track in vector, in mere minutes!  There are other sporting-themed tutorials, such as how to create a medal, or a trophy, but the real prizes on Vector Tuts are the Critiques, where a designer submits their work and offers it up for critique. These awesome sessions are open to anyone, you just have to sign up, so take a look! 

We couldn't sign off on our blogpost for today without bringing you a video tutorial, and what better way to kick off than in Olympic style, with a step-by-step guide on how to create the Olympic rings? Clickety clack, don't hold back!