OUSFG Tshirt Design

This page has been set up to summarise the thoughts & ideas collected during a discussion meeting about the history of OUSFG and a new OUSFGT Shirt design. This page is not intended for actual discussion, per se (we think OUSFG Chat may be best suited for that), but if you do have an idea, do jot it down in the relevant place.

The main idea is to have a set of icons as visual representations of popular (past & present) memes within OUSFG.

One popular idea was to produce a T-Shirt of the cover of a book of short stories that OUSFG might write, and have some author quotes regarding their visits as readings of this hypothetical book. The cover of What You Make It, by OUSFG favourite Michael Marshall Smith would serve this purpose well; it has a set of distinctive icons representing each short story within. We thought it would be a nifty idea to list the titles of these memetic stories on the back of the T-shirt. Perhaps if we made it out to be a collection by various authors, we could place an active member's name next to each title. Not sure whether this would affect sales in any way.

If the general consensus is that this isn't a very good idea, could it be sidelined to a different page rather than be overwritten? For example, WYMI Tshirt Design. I put effort into that! and I don't think it's half bad.

For those who haven't seen the cover of What You Make It : http://www.ousfg.net/~mms/wymi.png

Possible substitutions :

• "Michael Marshall Smith" replaced by OUSFG
• "What You Make It" replaced by "A Fistful Of Memes". Or "What You Meme It", which doesn't actually make sense.
• Yup. Groovy. MMS would appreciate the pun... --TL
• "A Book of Short Stories" replaced by "A Fistful of Weirdness".
• "Astonishingly Distinctive Short Stories - Independent" replaced by "Literature At Its Best - Times Literary Supplement"
• At least I think it was the TLS that claimed that science fiction wasn't literature. Is this correct?

Perhaps more blurb from past authors on the back.

Suggestions For Memes & Icons

• A Giant Egg (as laid by Brian Aldiss, from which Science Fiction Bums might hatch).
• Exploding Ducks
• Flying Monkey
• Penguin
• Bernard The Cryo Bunny
• Sky Hook
• Teabags/teacup/teapot (the latter two may be easier to come by)
• Sugar Cubes
• A Frozen Head (thanks to Max More)
• An eye in a pyramid (Illuminati symbol, also on dollar bills)
• Could we use, with Tim's permission, the 'Oracle' icon from <http://www-pnp.physics.ox.ac.uk/SF/cool.html>?) --TL
• Euurgh! ORACLE? was a failure, not a meme! And that particular icon represents Death By Writers Circle?, rather than Discordianism
• All right, keep your hair on, I just thought the visual was rather good. We could always pretend Illuminati connections...
• A Yin/Yang
• OUSFG, spelt in the international phonetic alphabet (see the OUSFG page)
• A Double Helix (representing Special Projects
• A Straw Stack (see Do You Have Any Straw?)
• A pitchfork to represent HELLSOC
• How about: -

(sic) in a kind of techy font such as is used for the 'ousfg.net' logo on the Ousfg Dot Net homepage, to represent our temporary assimilation of the Zero Wing meme in '01? :)

• Combine the above with stroh for an All Your Stroh icon (cheating, because it was never actually a meme; a false memery, if you will) - AM False memery? Now there's a good memetic story title :) --TL
• A lemon (to represent the Lemon Curry recipe of the Constitution) with a drop of lemon juice hanging off the edge perhaps... --TL
• Can we get in some ingenious visual snipe at the proctors for trying to turn us into SFG? --TL
• Sounds good. How about a sun followed by a horseshoe followed by SFG, and then, beneath, Ontologically Unbelievable Speculative Fiction Group? -- WJR

Some of the more basic stuff to represent what we actually do...

• Spaceship
• Crossed sword & wand
• A sword crossed over a ray gun? (over, not with...)
• An open book, or a pile of books
• A television
• A videotape, a DVD or a film reel (or all three)
• Something to represent authors
• Big arms? (China Mieville)
• Cigarette stubb (butt?) (Michael Marshall Smith, which we thought was a great idea, given that a) he'll receive a T-shirt if it's based on one of his book covers and b) he remembers the scuffle for his discarded cigarette butt.

Links to submitted Icons etc.

• Blank White Card : http://www.ousfg.net/tshirt/blankWhiteCard.png
• The egg : http://www.ousfg.net/tshirt/egg.png
• Skyhook : http://www.ousfg.net/tshirt/skyhooktsquare.png - this may also be double as the makings of a single T-shirt design.
• Sugarcube
• http://www.ousfg.net/tshirt/cubewire.png
• http://www.ousfg.net/tshirt/cubefilled.png
• Winged Monkey : http://www.ousfg.net/tshirt/monkeyface.png
• MMS' cigarette butt : http://www.ousfg.net/tshirt/cigbutt.png
• Perhaps some filler for the filter, and maybe a little shorter to highlight its stubb-like nature?
• Yeah.. Being an anti-smoking person, I really wouldn't want to wear a tshirt with something that looked like a pro-smoking message. Perhaps it could be combined (crossed?) with a double-helix-style motif, since it's a cloning thing? --LP Yup, sounds good --TL
• CD : http://www.ousfg.net/tshirt/cd.png
• It's good, but I'm unsure about what meme this represents... OUSFG's slightly techie slant? To me, a CD means music. -- AM
• It's not necessarily a CD, it could be a DVD... I just named it CD -- LD
• Penguin : http://www.ousfg.net/tshirt/penguin.png
• Teabag : http://www.ousfg.net/tshirt/teabag.png
• Ongoing design concept : http://www.ousfg.net/tshirt/tshirtdes.png

Blurb On The Back (Past Authors, etc.)

• OUSFG URL : http://www.ousfg.net
• "'OUSFG'... I love the way you keep saying that, like it's some sort of word. -- China Mieville.
• "Well Tanaqui can shut the fuck up." -- Michael Marshall Smith
• "Hmmm... 'speculative' suggests something out of the Financial Times" -- Brian Aldiss
• "It cured me of my gregarious nature." -- Brian Aldiss
• "I made this." - Brian Aldiss (& 1013 Productions)
• "I laid this." - Brian Aldiss (if we're to believe his giant egg claim)
• "Urrg. Arrg." - Cthulhu (and Mutant Enemy Productions)
• Pseudo-quote from Dawkins, inventor of the word 'meme' (if anyone has read 'The Selfish Gene')