We’ve just uploaded some fruity new t-shirt colours for you..

All of our Spring designs in spangly new colourways.

Some blue, some red and even a bit of purple for the gents,
also a red, a blue and a delicious banana yellow for the ladies.

No fruit hats though sorry…

So feel free to tweet this, re-blog it, tell your friends, tell your brother’s mate’s cousin’s
buddy who collects 80’s bmx’s preferably.

It’s a 1985 Skyway Street Beat in the Green/Purple/White colourway
(as modelled below by the lovely Lydia).

An awesome bike, as ridden by Scottie Freeman and the late
great Neil Ruffell back in the mid 80’s. Original Dia-Compe brakes,
Skyway EZ bars, on Skyway Tuff 11 mags etc..

Looks like it was made yesterday. All built from original 80’s parts.

Now, I know this ain’t the Free-Ads, but If you want it, make me an
offer in the comment section below and I’ll get back to you.

You could be ‘cherry-pickin’ in no time.

R.I.P Neil Ruffell

We thought it would be cool if we in the Creative Department talked a little about the design of the
new catalogue (it should be on your doorstep anyday now).

It was a tough one, our first full catalogue without David’s input. But hopefully you won’t see any
difference in terms of the quality of writing, or see a sudden decline in our design sensibilities..!

It’s all about Cardigan’s twin town of Trevelin – a small town in the foothills of the Andes in
Patagonia and the Welsh colonies that settled there in the 1800s.

Last November four people from howies went out to Patagonia to follow in the footsteps of those settlers and find out more about Trevelin, while a group of us stayed here in Wales and learned more about our home town, Cardigan. From those stories we’ve made both a regular-sized catalogue and a larger newsprint version.

Nick Hand got back on board helping design this one with us aswell. He missed the last two Sweden Super Nice catalogues, as he was out on his Slowcoast bike ride. Was good to have his experienced mind and calming influence back in the building.

So, probably the first thing you’ll notice the regular-sized Twin Towns catalogue is that we’ve changed paper stock. We’ve gone from using an uncoated paper to a mix of both coated and gloss instead. We did this so that the colours would pop and you could see more detail in our products.

It really does make this one feel a bit special… more like a book. We love the look and feel of uncoated paper, but even with retouching we still found the flatshots did lose quite a bit of colour and detail. So it made sense to change.

The next thing you’ll notice is that great gatefold cover. It kicks the catalogue off with a nice soulful photo of Jack skating. The inside cover has a sweet panoramic shot of the Preseli mountains, then straight into the story.

You may also notice that we’ve switched typefaces, discarding trusty old Helvetica Neue in favour of Sentinel for the headlines – a hefty slab serif from font designers Hoefler & Frere-Jones. And for body copy we used Akkurat, which is easy on the eye and not too much of a giant leap from Helvetica… baby steps.

And finally, we introduced a new triangular colour key for our different trouser fits. This matches up with what our product design team have done on the waistbands of the products themselves, so now you can tell your loose from your regular a bit quicker.

Well like i said, a copy of the full catalogue or a copy of the newsprint version should be with you anyday now, hope you like it. Let us know what you think.

See you in court Spike

Got my seat booked.

Haven’t been this excited since Police Academy 4 ‘Citizens On Patrol’ came out.

Good old Mr Bowlegs the illustrator is down at our Carnaby Street shop
right now installing a new window display. It’s going to be a good ‘un.
(He’ll be doing the Bristol shop window tomorrow by the way).

I’ll give you a clue… it’s monster-related. But that’s it for now.

I’ll blog his progress throughout the day. Stay tuned to see the final piece.

Jack, Anna, James and Lydia are back from the photoshoot in Patagonia.

(they’ve been shooting the spring 2010 catalogue).

They brought back a hard drive with over 20,000 photos on it…

And some sachets of sugar. Uh thanks?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Alas, it’s goodbye to little Claire Margetts today.

She is leaving us to go off and help out on a polar expedition.

Claire has had a busy year arranging the Do Lectures and stuff.

But no matter how much pressure was on, that smile never faded.

And anyone who went to Do this year will tell you what a top girl she is.
(She’s a mean race car driver too apparently).

We wish her well. She will be missed.

Wrap up warm dear.

It must be French Sailor Outfit Friday.

More ‘dress-a-likey’ tribes here:
http://www.exactitudes.com

I went to Westdale Press yesterday to sign off our catalogue.

Looks super nice…

Should be on your doormat early November.

And so boo-hoo I’m even going to say goodbye to my old BMX.

It’s a 1985 Skyway Street Beat in the Green/Purple/White

colourway (as modelled below by the lovely Lydia).

An awesome bike, as ridden by Scottie Freeman and the late

great Neil Ruffell back in the mid 80’s. Original Dia-Compe breaks,

Skyway EZ bars etc.. Looks like it was made yesterday.

Now, I know this ain’t the Free-Ads, but If you want it, make me an
offer in the comment section below and I’ll get back to you.

You could be ‘cherry-pickin’ in no time.

R.I.P Neil Ruffell

We have the ‘award-winning’ Toby here doing work experience for a few weeks.

He just won a shiny pencil from the D&AD Student Awards. 

Bit of a clever clogs then eh.
Coming in here with your smart ideas, showing off, making me look bad.

Yeah, I’ve got some ‘work’ for him to ‘experience’ don’t worry…
Stuff like pencil sharpening, folder arranging, a bit of dusting perhaps.

You know, real work.

Knock before entering…
 
 

skateboarding on the weekend. Well, quite a major tumble actually.

He’s broken his ankle. Oof.

He’s having surgery tomorrow, plates and pins and all that kind of thing.

Get well soon lad.

We used this super nice Falu Rödfärg paint to bring a flavour of Sweden to 
Bristol and London. But you’ll have to go down and take a look if you want 
to see what we did… I’m saying nothing.

Beautiful paint, great story. I really want to paint my shed with it now.

Have a look in our Autumn catalogue to read the full ‘Paint It Green’ story 
by Jon Matthews or click here to read it online.

Then perhaps click here if your shed needs a lick.

Geoff McFetridge is over from L.A. to speak at the Do Lectures and do
a few drawing workshops. He stayed at our house the other night.

At one point he got his laptop out and starts working on the end credits
for Where The Wild Things Are on our kitchen table. I was geeking out.

Click here to read a bit more on Spike Jonze’s blog about Geoff’s work on the movie . 

Paul and me are taking him surfing on the weekend . Praying for waves.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Some new school

Click here to view the embedded video.

and some plain amazing (with extra drums)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This week’s T-shirt of the Week is ‘Super Nice’. Designed by Chester Bigglesworth, to mark the release of our Sweden Super Nice autumn catalogue.

The words come from the three Swedes who showed us around their wonderful country: Peter, Fredrik, and Sebastian. It was a phrase they used a lot. Instead of something being really good, it was “super nice”.

Kind of rolls off the tongue doesn’t it.
(Chester’s percentage of the proceeds will go to the Do Lectures fund).

Available in Pine for men and Purple for women 
 

10 things I can’t do without at the moment:

1. Bike rides with friends.

2. Bike rides on my own.

3. ‘Wolves’ by Phosphorescent. Can’t get to sleep without it.

4. Charlie Brooker, in The Guardian, on Twitter, on YHBW and Screenwipe. Grumpier than me.

5. Fig rolls, bananas and peanut butter. Biking fuel.

6. My guitar (my housemates might object).

7. Weekends.

8. Warm, light evenings and cold beer in the beer garden.

9. Bon Iver – still an everyday play after all this time.

10. Crailtap.com – the skateboarding equivalent of Perez. 

10 things I can do without at the moment:

1. The terrible road surfaces around here. I long to ride smooth tarmac.

2. Motorists who don’t know how to drive around cyclists.

3. The illness I can feel coming on.

4. The stack of laundry I can’t be bothered to do.

5. Fear that the Green Man Festival will sell out before I get tickets.

6. Constant rain.

7. Computers.

8. Cold beer in the beer garden.

9. Car trouble.

10. Did I mention the constant rain?

So hot in the printshed today.

And I mean HOT… like, Alabama hot.

Sticky, sweaty and a bit yuk.

Thank God for Calippo’s.

Spray vertically into the air and it makes instant cooling rain.

The line between genius and dumb is a thin one, I tell you.

Look at how much we are suffering.

Jon’s got the worst hay fever in the history of hay fever.
I’ve got a full on man-cold.

Not one fully functioning nostril between us.

Awesome.

Nick called in on us in Tenby last night, on his ‘Slowcoast’ cycle tour 
of Britain’s coastline. He did The Gower to Tenby yesterday – roughly 
80 miles (give or take a few wrong turns).

So we fuelled him up on pasta ready for another day in the saddle.

Tenby to St Davids today. Then St Davids to Cardigan the next.

The bike weighs a tonne. And he’s like a rolling Dixons:
Stills cameras, video camera, laptop, satnav, 2 phones, iPod,
sound recorder, anda bunch of chargers for all that stuff of course.

Beware of highwaymen Nicholas.

slowcoast.co.uk

‘Tea and Cakes and Pictures’ is on from 11am – 6pm on Saturday at 52A Bickerton Rd N19
(nearest tube stations are Tufnell Park or Archway). Finishes on Sunday 6pm.

There will be prints, cards and things for sale, plus free tea and cakes.

http://fionawoodcock.com

http://therowanartsproject.com.contentcurator.net/?location_id=196

The new Kev Grey website went up over the weekend
(he is the scouse king of pen and ink).

New artworks, new blog and a new shop where you can buy 
screen prints, t-shirts and copies of his book.

He’s just done a little project for us that looks amazing. Plus 
he will be having an exhibition in our shops this September.

Super-talented dude.

www.kevgrey.com

Today’s teepay.com staff pick is Entertainment For Cheaper by Laurie King

This is what she has to say about it:

“We’re are all having to make cut backs. Looking after a dog is
an expensive lifestyle choice. Why not spend an afternoon making a shiny new balloon dog, ideal
for fun and select walking destinations.”

Available in white. Click here for men’s or here for women’s

Hurry up and get one, before it POPS!

Just bought the best custard slice ever from the Fedwen Bakery in Cardigan. 
It’s perfectly proportioned.  Not too much of this, not too little of that.

Bakers of the world take note.
 

designed by Chester Bigglesworth.

As humans, we tend to like ‘safe’.

We prefer the old familiar, the reassuring day to day and the ordinary. 

We are creatures of routine and habit. Boring even.

So every now and then it’s good to break that cycle.

Go do something new, something crazy and different.



You know, take a step outside the comfort zone.

Available on Heather for men and Peppermint for women.

This week’s t-shirt of the week is ‘Racer’.

Racing from lamp post to lamp post on any old tredder in your work clothes has to be one of the greatest expressions of our sometimes repressed competitive nature.

The on-the-way-to-work breathless sprint and the on-the-way-home-from-work grand prix that take place worldwide daily are our god given right.

Long may our poorly performed imitations of our favourite cycling heroes sprinting finesse continue.

Riders ready, pedals ready. Go, go, go.

Available on peppermint for women and heather for men.

Click here to buy.

This week’s t-shirt of the week is ‘Less’. Designed by Mark Pavey.

These are tough times for sure. 

Time to get economical.

Buy less stuff.

Be cautious and buy carefully.

Repair things, don’t just replace them.

And savings are good.

Embrace ‘LESS’.

(That said, maybe you shouldn’t buy this t-shirt then).

available on White for men and Heather for women.

and do click here to see more of Mark’s work

We are about to launch our new ‘Tea and Wisdom’ newsletter.

It’ll be going out every two weeks, featuring all the latest goings on at
Cardigan Bay’s 2nd biggest clothing company.

It will include news from our Carnaby Street and Bristol shops, latest
product stuff, the best of our brainfood blogs, plus a bunch of other
interesting stuff we’ve seen or done.

The first issue will be emailed out this Friday, so if you want it to land
in your inbox head over to our website and sign up.

http://www.howies.co.uk/newsletter-signup.php

Easy as that.
 

Designed by Stephen Nelson from the Tea Appreciation Society.



Tea boy and all-round clever chap Shane House from the Tea Appreciation Society will be giving a talk about the joys of a good brew at our Bristol store on the evening of Thursday 30th April.

So, being fans ourselves, we decided to do this ‘Tea-shirt’ to coincide with the event and to celebrate the world’s finest beverage. Shayne has also been kind enough to donate his fee for the design to this years Do Lecture fund.

Available on Fern for men and Heather for women… How do you take yours?

This week’s t-shirt of the week is ‘I Love Tea’. Designed by the Tea Appreciation Society.

Tea boy and all-round clever chap Shane House from the Tea Appreciation Society will be giving a talk about the joys of a good brew at our Bristol store on the evening of Thursday 30th April.

So, being fans ourselves, we decided to do this ‘Tea-shirt’ to coincide with the event and to celebrate the world’s finest beverage. Shayne has also been kind enough to donate his fee for the design to this years Do Lecture fund. 

Available on Fern for men and Heather for women. Now, how do you take yours?

The TT bike is finally finished.

I took it for a wee spin on the weekend.
The wee spin turned into a bit of a cheek-wrecking trek though.

Must buy some padded pants.

(apologies if that title wrote a cheque that the story didn’t cash).

This is Baby Jesus.

Our Tenby cat.

Today, for the sake of all the female cats in our neighbourhood (and the newel post on our stairs) 
he is having his little catnuts removed. Ouch.

Not sure why I’m telling you all. I just feel a slight sense of loss. Probably not as much as he is
right now, but I want to share it nevertheless, in the hope that it helps dispel my anxiety.   

Chin up little fella. I’ll get you some tuna on the way home.

click here to buy