Citee Map Shirt

Citee has been producing technical T-shirts featuring maps of various cities around the world, including London, for the last year. They are currently crowdfunding for a new black version of the T-shirts, with the map detail overlaid in greys and whites. Citee were kind enough to send a sample of their existing London design, which is a white technical T-shirt with minor roads, railways and housing in light grey, and major roads, rivers and lakes in dark grey. Alex Szabo-Haslam of Citee designs the T-shirts in Sheffield. The map design appears on the front of the shirt, spreading to the edges of both sleeves, and, for London, covers an area stretching from Tooting Common in the south to Archway in the north, and from Brent Cross in the west to Walthamstow in the east. The Thames makes for a striking wavy black line in the middle of the shirt.

The map detail, based on a custom OpenStreetMap render, is printed directly onto the 100% polyester technical fabric. The transfer quality is excellent, considering the material it is printed on, with individual detail clear and generally sharp. The combination of the street topography and the noticeable vertical grain of the material is rather pleasing (see my Victoria Park closeup below), and, by restricting the design to white, greys and black, it creates a design that is quite sophisticated and not too in-your-face.

The T-shirts themselves are made by American Apparel in the USA, and come in sizes XS-XL (note that US sizes are a little bigger than UK sizes – my XS sample would fit an S and possibly an M here). You can get a London (or other city) technical T directly from Citee or join the Kickstarter to get your design in the new, darker base-colour when it is manufactured and released.

Thanks to Alex Szabo-Haslam for sending a review copy of a London technical T and letting me know of the forthcoming dark release.