In 1997 Chop Shop Store was just an idea. A fun diversion from our real jobs at our design studio The Chopping Block. In 2004 we officially launched our first website for the shop, but it was really in 2008 when we released the design weRobot that things took off and this side project became more of a focus for me.
The design featured 51 celebrity robot silhouettes and went viral thanks to websites like Boing Boing, Gizmodo, and many more. Some even “gamed” out the design at sites like yesbutnobutyes which was something you normally couldn’t do with a t-shirt. This lead us to design several more of these collection tees over the next few years including aliens, vehicles, monsters, rock stars and more (see full list below).
We are now excited to announce our first mini campaign with Kickstarter and we are doing it with our first new iconic design in over six years: Starship Armada. A giant collection of ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN celebrated fictional starships.
The armada begins with the smaller crafts running along the front bottom (ie: X-Wing, Tardis, Colonial Viper, etc) and concludes along to the top front with the larger colony ships and battle cruisers (ie: Enterprise, Valley Forge, Borg, etc).
But that is not all! On the back the armada takes a turn with mid-sized starships graduating to the larger as they get more distant with that’s no moon set in the distance. Now nerds… please don’t get crazy on us. This is not totally accurate in terms of increasing size. The interlocking design would never allow for that level of accuracy.
Yes. Yes it will. We will begin production on the shirts as soon as we cross the line. Even if that is Dec 14, we can still bang it out in time.
Print is Epson digital on archival Red River Polar White. Size options are 12″x18″ and 16″x20″. Your final trim size will appear with a white border on a larger print sheet (13×19″ and 17×22″) that will fit comfortably in a frame with a matte or can easily be trimmed down to size.
Here are some detailed images from the poster. Keep in mind that the poster is 6-color and is numbered for the key. The tee is two-color and has no key.
As mentioned above, we have other SciFi themed tees and are still producing many of these designs 10+ years later. The alien tee (top left) and the robot tee (bottom right) are included in our $76 reward level (Three Icons of Sci-Fi T-Shirts) but we may open up another reward level to include the vehicles (top right) and weapons (bottom left) in our stretch goals below.
Want your icons to last longer than a t-shirt? We also have print versions for all of our SciFi themed tees — even for some not shown here (see our full list of pop-icon designs below). Starting with 64 Celebrity Aliens (top left), 55 Celebrity Vehicles (top right), 72 Fictional Weapons (bottom left), and the weRobot 10th Anniversary print which also includes a numbered key. You can get any of these designs with our $36 reward (Choose Your Own SciFi Print) or as a trio with the Armada, Robots and Aliens with our $76 and $100 reward levels.
Why not take it to the next level and join our Space-T of the Month Club? Join through this campaign and every month we will announce a new design and we will ship it to you (or your recipient) as soon as it arrives in our studio. Plan expires on a 6-month term or until you get 6 tees. This represents a savings of 25% off versus the retail value! Normally the theme in our club is based on science factual and not SciFi, but you never know. Past designs have featured the Mars Curiosity Rover, Sputnik, the Drake Equation for SETI Institute, Eagle Has Landed (for Apollo’s 50th) and many others.
GOAL MET AT 3K: WEGO (56 CELEBRITY VEHICLES TEE)
WeGo will now be available for the multi-tee reward levels. Link here: weGo
3.6K: WELOADED (79 FICTIONAL WEAPONS)
Similarly, we do have a fair amount of this design in stock, but adding it to a reward would likely wipe out the supply. If we go over $3,600 we will order more copies made and add another reward level. Link: weLoaded
There is very little risk on this project. We have printed hundreds of t-shirt designs in our history and have great relationships with our producers. The posters are made in-house. Even if the machine breaks, we would purchase a new one.