Take a minute and look through your dresser and closet and dig up all the band t-shirts you bought at various music festivals and concerts you’ve been to recently and in year’s past. For the nostalgic in the audience, pull out your favorite records from the milk crate. You probably spend upwards of $30 a shirt, especially if it was during a tour, but you were happy to do so, right? Why? You love the band and you liked the design. Now, can you tell me the name of the artist?

Even when designers “make it” and start doing work for the big names – Jay-Z, Metallica, Levi’s, Elvis Costello, etc, they are heavily regulated under contracts. What this means is even if their designs are sold on thousand’s of shirts, they may end up just making a few hundred dollars. A new Kickstarter campaign hopes to change that. Thread Council is bringing a line of shirts created by designers and cutting out the middle-man. The shirts are printed right here in America (San Francisco), and feature a 1-year warranty against fraying or defects.

The plan is for an initial offering of 18 designs, with more artists added if they exceed their goal of $50k. Check out the project and help artists earn a living wage.

Designer Josh Brill is at it again, this time adding to his lovely collection of animals with a few Hummingbirds, a Belted Kingfisher and a Toco Toucan (redesigned). So cute.

Stop Making Sense t-shirt by Undercover.

Steven Harrington’s original You & I sculpture is back, now in a brand-new, shiny black color way. Fun.

Harrington’s first three-dimensional exploration represents the epitome of his work’s goal—to create a dialogue between artist and viewer.

We first covered Steve Harrington back in 2005 and it’s been grew to watch him grow and evolve as an artist.

I love this. This clever, battery-powered robot tuner can tune all six strings in just seconds, and delivers over 75 tunings per charge. To do so, it tunes your physical strings — as opposed to digitally, which can result in degraded tone — and gives you access to 12 common alternative tunings, including six that you can program yourself. Via Uncrate

Awesome. Yago Partal shot pictures of animals dressed up.

Check them out and try not to smile. Starting at $6.00 a print.

Via Kottke.org

Loving the look of the Landmarks & Lions cases for iPhone, iPad, etc.

Each calf skin leather piece is hand cut and sewn together with contrast stitching and individually hand painted. The iPad cases are made-to-order and are individually handmade.

The 10-Year Hoodie is a Premium Sweatshirt Designed for a Lifetime, Guaranteed for a Decade and Backed with FREE Mending. Congrats Jake, nice work ($371,000 and counting)!

Wow. Awesome. Go see this in NYC.

Plant-in City is a collaboration between architects, designers, and technologists who are building new ways of interacting with nature. Our 21st century sculptural terrariums combine modular architecture, basic laws of physics, embedded technologies, and mobile computing to construct a “Plant City” where the aesthetic meets the pragmatic.

A yearly activity I love to do to wrap up one year and head into the next.

London, England*
Geneva, Switzerland
Davos, Switzerland
New York, NY*
Long Beach, CA
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
Los Angeles, CA*
Myokonos, Greece
Dubai, UAE*
Mudsandam Peninsula, Oman
Doha, Qatar
Seattle, WA
Paris, France
Denver, CO
San Francisco, CA*
Palo Alto, CA
Beijing, China
Tianjin, China
Matsumoto, Japan
Sapporo, Japan
Tokyo, Japan*
Nova Scotia, Canada
Portland, Maine
Boston, MA
Toronto, Canada
New Haven, CT
Turks and Caicos Islands
Palm Springs, CA
San Diego, CA

Related: 2011 Year in Cities and 2009 Year in Cities. Still can’t figure out what happened to 2010.