San Francisco

Binary Winter

Whether you're a cool kid or a dork, everyone wonders how the other half lives, right? No, that's just for dorks, dork. But your chest can now, with Binary Winter.

BW's a local screenprinting outfit made up of an illustrator/writer duo that hand-makes its tees (plus one hoodie) to order, emblazoning them with renderings of random stuff they like to nerd out to, but executed so sweetly that even O'Doyle would think it rules. Some of the sweetest designs're of animals, like "Mathematics of the Octopi" (an octopus with a crown of Pi symbols manipulating a bunch of numbers with its tentacles), "Battery Doves" (two elegant, battery-powered doves in flight), and a black/white raven perched ominously above a chamber door in "Nevermore" -- uh oh, someone's about to get Edgar Allen Pwned! Non-beast action ranges from cheeky "Wise Robots" (three droids who can "input no evil, process no evil, output no evil"), to "Logic Trap" (a man hanging from an intricate set of cogs n' gears), to a bar code sprouting leaves in "Code Green", because "technology and sustainability aren't mutually exclusive!", and also, it's like a bar code with leaves on it.

One of the collection's true gems is a black hoodie that rocks the aforementioned Nevermore design on the back, while another paint-splattered raven flies on its hood -- not that you even know what poem that was from, because you were too busy getting lai-- (sigh). Nevermind.

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