signal
we watch what the internet is laughing at this week.
// the story
>_ make tech less boring
we are two engineers who got tired of dressing like a conference booth.
tech hands you a lot of clothes. the free hoodie from a hackathon, the logo polo from onboarding, the tote from a vendor you never called back. you did not choose any of it.
so we started making the shirts we actually wanted to wear to work.
>_ why this exists
the problem
the standard tech wardrobe is somebody else's marketing. it is free, it is grey, and every piece of it carries a logo you do not work for.
swag is not a wardrobe. it is leftover inventory with your industry's name on it.
the idea
clothes for people who read stack traces for a living. the reference should land for the person sitting next to you, not for a mood board.
if it needs explaining, it is not funny enough to wear.
the standard
one joke, one print, no clutter. we would rather ship four shirts we would wear than forty we would not.
we wear every design before it goes up. that is most of the qa process.
the name
4o4 is the error you get when the thing you were looking for is not there. that is roughly how it felt shopping for decent tech apparel.
it is spelled with an o. the zero was taken.
>_ how a drop happens
design
concepts, copy and artwork, then screened for taste and IP.
approve
nothing gets listed until we would both wear it.
ship
printed to order and sent direct. no warehouse, no leftovers.
>_ make tech less boring is not a statement about technology. it is about what you put on before standup.
two engineers, a print file, and a very low tolerance for boring clothes.