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We love a good coffee t-shirt, but they’re not all created equal. Some branded coffee t-shirts make you want to get your picture taken! Some are better purposed for laundry day, or take-out night.

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Falling firmly into the former category are these new shirts from Wrecking Ball Coffee Roasters, designed by Chicago artist Hillary Miles and available in a fun cavalcade of colors. We love cartoons, and this one has a coffee table guinea pig, a snail schlepping a coffee roaster (buttressed by a bunny!), and a blissed-out cartoon puppy. What’s not to like?

These shirts feature two design placements — the ladies-cut design up top, and a unisex style seen here below modeled by Wrecking Ball roaster Kyonghee Shin.

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For more, we spoke to Wrecking Ball co-owner (and Serious Eats contributor) Nicholas Cho about the inspiration behind the design.
Generally speaking, Wrecking Ballโ€™s design aesthetic tilts unapologetically feminine. Partly because so much in coffee tilts so masculine, but mostly because itโ€™s what makes us collectively happy.

The concept was fantastic creatures, on an imaginary journey, but carrying coffee gear. We drew inspiration from Hillaryโ€™s prior work (like โ€œFar Awayโ€), as well as from โ€œWhere The Wild Things Areโ€ and fantasy books (like Lord of the Rings).

As we developed the concept, Trish had the idea of having Kyonghee Shin, who roasts alongside Trish and whoโ€™s been beyond precious to us, lead the parade of characters. Kyonghee (@beanwife) adores Golden Retrievers (and hopes to adopt one soon), always wears an apron when doing coffee work, and usually has about an inch of heel on her shoes.ย So weโ€™re calling this design, โ€œ@Beanwife Dream.”

We hope work-a-day roasters will note that the flame is pure blue!

Weโ€™re screen-printing these two different ways, across the chest for unisex cut styles and around the middle for our ladies-cut shirts, to provide an alternative to the โ€œstare at my t-shirt means stare at my boobsโ€ thing, which was the consensus within our female-dominated staff.

These shirts will be available via the Wrecking Ball Coffee webshop in May. Here’s an early sketch of the design to tide you over, courtesy of Wrecking Ball.

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